We’ve said it before and we will say it again, owning a business is like having a child. You get to be there right from the conception to the execution. Each day, your child learns to develop different skills. Similarly, with each passing day, your business grows and gains more recognition, gains more customers and expands through the market. We celebrate our child’s birthday to celebrate the small achievements and its growth which happens throughout the year. Similarly, your business milestones are the stepping stones towards the growth of your business so why not celebrate them too?

Consider this article as a suggestion sheet of the milestones or achievements of your business that you should celebrate to encourage yourself to do better over time, or to encourage your team to do better over time. Because, we all love to be appreciated, don’t we?

1. Developing An Effective And Efficient Business Model

Right from the start, all the small, effective steps that you take while planning and designing a business model come together to form what your business is going to be: Its foreseeable future and its motives and purpose. Coming up with a concept is not all that comes with starting your own business. You’ve to set a budget, cost structure of your products and services, come up with methods to make a profit, figure out different marketing strategies and then the execution of all of these.

To do this, you need to pay attention to your target audience, their values and needs and finally their budget. You can not expect your target audience to be teenagers or college students and sell your products with a high price tag, you’ll need to consider the financial abilities of your target demographic as well. Always remember, providing good quality products with an affordable cost, is the key to make your customers stick around.

All of this sounds tiring, doesn’t it? But when you finally do it, there’s nothing else that makes you feel better than this. So why not celebrate this small step towards a huge cause?

2. Gaining Customers That Stick Around

Gaining your first repeat customer is a big deal. Give yourself some credit! You managed to leave a mark on someone and convince them to revisit you. If this isn’t a cause to celebrate, what is?

Earning the loyalty of a customer is the best feeling any entrepreneur may feel. It further proves that your business is making some kind of change and making someone happy. It doesn’t matter if they’re a friend, an acquaintance or your business was recommended to them by someone. The fact that they decided to come back shows that you’re doing something right.

Earning your future repeat clients will need a better understanding of where your target demographic spends their time, what are their interests and what they value both on social media and in their personal lives.

3. Creating A Compelling, Achievable And Scalable Marketing Strategy

Creating a new brand comes with the responsibility to create an effective and efficient market strategy for your business. For a detailed article related to this, you can read our article Biggest Learnings and Marketing Tips For a Baking Business.

To create a marketing strategy that will surely get you to your target demographic, you should make your company’s purpose and the kind of food and services that you provide clear to your customers right away. Your website should be visitor friendly and represent the core theme of your bakery brand.

Your marketing strategy should be inclusive of all the big and the small services that you provide. To do so, you could create a marketing campaign for your newly-launched products, a new flavor of food that you will be introducing to your customers, or a new service that you will be starting. For example, catering for parties and events.

Over the time you’ll need to do your research and measure your campaign progress over the time.

4. Hiring Your First Employee And Expanding Your Staff

Hiring your first employee for your new venture is very exciting and an experience filled with emotions. You might just feel like a grown up finally! On a more serious note, it’s a process and you shouldn’t rush through it. Your employees are the face of your business and they should always be respectful and trustworthy to the customers. But only because you have to be patient throughout this process doesn’t mean that it’s not something you should celebrate! So breathe out, lean back and take a moment to celebrate your first hire or the expansion of your current staff!

To do this, you first need to make a job requirement ad that perfectly describes the position, objectives, job description and your professional requirements to the prospective employees. Make sure that your ad perfectly describes your company values and purpose.

Once you’re ready to make the hire, make sure that you follow all the legal formalities and follow the employer laws according to your state and arrange a training programme for the newly hired.

As time goes and your staff expands, you can also use a good HR software to help you manage your staff progress and their payrolls.

5. Adding A New Flavor Or A Food Item To Your Menu

Whether you’ve already launched new flavors of a beverage or cookies to your menu, creating something new and different is always a reason to celebrate! So whenever you create an item that is uniquely available at your stores, you’ve to celebrate its arrival. We guarantee you, your customers will get excited about your new products only when you are excited about selling them!

6. Making It A Whole Year!

First birthdays are always special and memorable to the parents! So celebrate the day your business completes a whole year because you know you deserve to! Most businesses don’t even make it four months while you found a way to make it work this long! So complete your year with a celebration. Treat your employees and customers with special offers and treat yourself with a handful of those tasty, yummy, freshly-baked cookies.

We hope you loved reading this article and we’re happy to be a part of your celebrations. So aim to celebrate these milestones each day that you are doing business. Because, every day matters.

Also Read: An Easy Guide To Branding Your Food Business| Administrative Tasks Checklist: Bakery Business Edition| Top 10 Websites To Get A Logo Done For Your Food Business