This is my musings of the past year. Can’t believe it is already end of 2009. I actually am glad as it has been helluva year, business-wise. I am so looking forward to 2010. I told myself if I can ride out 2009, with business intact, I think I can tackle the upcoming years. It has been a roller-coaster with days of uncertainty for a small potato business woman like me. Nevertheless I think perseverance, patience, and continue to do what I do best has allowed me to survive one of the worst economy hit to my business. I do feel bless as I still do have people who want to use my service and people who do believe in what I do.

The success I achieve this year is not dictated by dollar amount, instead it is how I manage to stay in business by thinking outside the box, be flexible, and move with the flailing economy by diversifying my business to meet clients’ smaller budgets. Most important of all sticking to what I know best, cooking good food, and maintaining good customer service with personal touches will always be my trademark.

Marketing my service has always been a challenge–people either know about me or they don’t. I have done all forms of marketing–media, radio, networking, etc. Referrals, word of mouth, and my website are my best marketing tool. The rest have not brought much success. Again this clues me in that it is always the personal touch, the one-on-one contact that people crave for. They need to know me, who I am and what I can do for them either by meeting me personally or have a friend or family vouch my service. So my goal in 2010 is to get out there even more until people are sick of seeing and hearing from me. Any of you out there who have upcoming conferences, exhibition, needing guest speakers, etc., call me!

2010 is also going to be the year where I do more research and educating myself about the food industry. I am constantly doing this; however, I need to start getting back to my roots, the core basics and complicated cooking techniques. Watching the movie Julie and Julia reminded me so much of myself when I first started out and how much I have forgotten to apply the basics. I have been toying with taking further professional courses with the CIA this year but finances will not allow me to. Nevertheless there are other ways for me to gain knowledge and I am going to pursue them.

So to all of you out there, if this small potato Asian business woman can do it, you can also. Dream it and make it happen. Mistakes are good. It helps us learn and improve. Find solutions to problems. Don’t give up easily. Remember your cup is always half full and not half empty. There’s always rough patches in life. Stay the course and you will come out stronger if not better in whatever you pursue. Most important of all–believe in yourself when no one else believes in you. You are the maker of your destiny.With all that is happening around us, no one can change the situation other than ourselves. We must help ourselves in order to help others. We dictate the journey we set our lives on. We can change the path of our destinies.

Happy New Year!