The 2011 Annual Review

Does the term “annual review” make you a little uncomfortable? Often these canned assessments are completed on some kind of corporate form and warehoused in HR. Too often they are a big chore for the reviewer and unsatisfying to the reviewee. And what is the point after all? To document progress, or lack thereof? To justify raises or the path towards termination? Don’t we really just want to celebrate our successes and learn from our experiences, to find opportunities for improvement?

I have always loved those year-in-review things they do on the news programs, though. I find it a fascinating way to experience time – you know how some of those stories seem like they happened waaay more than a few months ago? I find that to be true as I look back on the year at Vmeals. So on this last business day of 2011, let’s take a moment to review.

Vmeals grew this year – not crazy Groupon-esque growth, but a solid, steady increase in business year over year. We continued to streamline our operation, increasing efficiency and customer satisfaction (according to our most recent survey, you think we’re doing a pretty good job), lowering expenses, keeping the company on solid financial ground.

We’ve added dozens of new restaurant and catering partners in cities all around the U.S. (I’m looking forward to opening our Bermuda market one day.) We’ve added thousands of new customers, new fans, friends and followers. We’ve facilitated hundreds of thousands of meals for meetings, trainings, sales presentations, office parties, and corporate events of all types.

Being in the business of serving business, our fortunes tend to rise and fall not only with the economic tide, but in predictable patterns. We are busiest on weekdays and quiet on weekends and holidays, but this year we did have one order on Christmas day. While everyone else was home with family, one of our customers used Vmeals to send a first-class feast to the Central Union Mission in Washington DC. We were delighted to be able to help make this happen – both for the customer who wanted to share his faith and good fortune, as well as for those who need to rely on the kindness of strangers this holiday season.

We gave away a lot of stuff this year. We offer lots of free lunches in conjunction with group presentations on the benefits of using Vmeals (just give us a shout if you’d like to know more about setting up a free, no-obligation lunch and learn), but we also gave away a lot of Keep Your New Year’s Resolution goodies. (Maybe we should check back and see how everyone did with those resolutions.) We gave one lucky person an iPad for St Paddy’s Day, we gave away Back to School Bucks, and celebrated the holidays with 12 Days of Giveaways.

Oh, and VCAP! I can’t even tell you how many Target gift cards, AMEX gift cards, and Vmeals credits we awarded to our loyal customers.

We traveled to Orlando, Cape Cod, Nashville, Hampton and points in between to support and sponsor the ALA, IAAP, SHRM and APC. (We gave away some swag everywhere we went as well.) We value the relationships we have developed with these professional organizations whose members  understand the value of efficiency, simplicity, and convenience.

We welcomed new CS reps, new babies and a new CEO, and we said good bye to some old friends. The circle of life, business-style.

So it’s been a pretty great year, but if we’re honest, it isn’t all cupcakes and rainbows. We had some disappointments along the way, some frustrations, some flubs, but that will have to be a post for another day. For now, just like you, we hope to learn, grow, get better and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Have you done your own annual review? What were your highlights of 2011? What lessons did you learn?