As another year is soon to end, it is a good time to look back and reflect on the future direction to take. Just as I repeatedly advise my clients and audiences to look forward, identify the changes to come and to adapt timely, it is a useful exercise that I carry out for my own business as well on a continuous basis. For the Food Futurist, 2013 has been a great year. The amount of business has grown strongly and the work of the past years is fully delivering its fruits. Venturing in a new area and starting from scratch has been quite the thrill, especially considering how much time it takes to get visibility, recognition and a solid reputation when the business is about mostly about what is in the owner’s brain and how that brain functions. My literature and the positive word of mouth have helped growing the business without me bothering organizations with cold calls or mailings. My clients have found me or heard about me in one way or another; and one thing leading to another, they decided to hire me for their projects and events. All assignments have run successfully with satisfied customers, all being very reputable and professional organizations.

I am quite optimistic about the further growth of The Food Futurist. The motivation now for me is to keep the strong momentum going and to grow further. As this business is growing, I am getting more “hungry”, too. I love what I do, maybe even more so than anything else I have done before; and the more business comes my way, the more fun I have and share with others. In my work, I always insist on the power of helping others succeed. Therefore, it is going my turn to ask a little bit of help from my friends to reach my goals. If my work can add value to you or to organizations or events that you know, please do not hesitate to contact me or have them do the same. I am always open to new ideas, I am quite approachable and I always reply to serious requests.

So what do I want to achieve in the next year?

• An average of 1 to 2 speaking engagements and/or seminars a month
• Between 3 and 5 small projects (max. 100 hours each)
• Getting 1 or 2 large projects (around 500 hours each) in the areas of strategic foresight and strategic business development are well-manageable numbers for a whole year
• Getting 2 or 3 positions of advisor on boards of organizations with focus on strategic foresight activities

So, all it would take is probably less than two dozen new interested contacts. Considering the number of events and projects of all sorts out there, that should be achievable.

Next to the usual topics of innovation, sustainability, leadership and market orientation, I would like to do more seminars on niche marketing, effective reconnecting of producers and consumers and, last but not least, reach the youth to get them interested in food and agriculture. In terms of sectors of activities, I would love to be more involved with animal protein producers, retailers and food service operators than I am today as, for different reasons, future changes are going particularly important for these them.

So far, my client base is in North America and Europe. I want to grow further in these two regions, but I would like to gradually expand it in other regions as well. I would like clients from other countries to be more familiar with my work and my vision of the future of food and farming. The list of the regions that I have in mind is rather long. Actually, it covers the whole world. Because of their current and future strategic importance, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, the Black Sea region, India, China and Arab countries are high on my wish list. But I would like to get a chance to also present how the math works with market orientation and waste reduction, and how it opens the door to huge business opportunities for Africa, India, Southeast Asia and South America in particular.

Ideally, the number of assignments outside of North America/EU that I would like per region is as follows:

• India: at least 1
• Russia/Ukraine/Kazakhstan: at least 1
• Latin America: at least 1
• South East Asia: at least 1
• China: at least 1
• Australia/New Zealand/Pacific: at least 1
• Sub-Saharan Africa: at least 1
• North Africa/Middle East: at least 1

If you are interested or if you know an organization that would be interested, please do not hesitate to contact me. To reward those who will bring me leads to assignments, I am willing to pay you a finder’s fee.

Looking forward to hearing from you or from the contacts you will send to me.