As the year comes to a close, it’s always a great time to think about the things you have accomplished. More importantly, you need to compile a new set of challenging but realistic goals for the coming year. This thought occurred to me recently as I was reviewing sales numbers for my own luxury travel company and thinking back to where I was this same time last year.

Heading into 2014, I had set a specific sales goal for my company knowing it might be ambitious for our first full year as a standalone Virtuoso member agency. But I stayed focused throughout the year with the intent of attracting a new crop of talented independent contractors. With their help — coupled with growing sales from my carefully culled high-end clientele — we exceeded our sales target with six weeks left to spare in 2014.

While I was quite excited about this, the first thing I thought about was how much higher I should set the sales goal for next year. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received as a business owner was to not rest on our laurels. I also know it’s much wiser to quietly grow the business rather than boast to suppliers how big or successful we have become.

This keeps my professionalism at a level that I have worked hard to achieve. I also find it’s also better to be the company everyone is starting to talk about rather than talking about ourselves at every given chance. With that in mind, I’ve added a 25 percent growth goal to our overall sales target for next year.

As my luxury travel company has grown from about five to 25 people in just over a year, it is not always easy to maintain the perfect balance of effective, inspiring management and actual sales. Continuing to work on this balance is yet another goal, because I truly enjoy the frontline sales component of my role as founder, president and top sales producer for Elite Travel International. That said, I also recognize the importance of strengthening and growing my support team so I have the ability to travel worldwide to attend meetings, visit suppliers and be the overall face of the company on a global basis.

Adding an additional member to my support team who is ultra-enthusiastic, hard working and passionate is another important goal that I have implemented for the coming year. It’s always part of my collective goal portfolio to empower and mentor those on my team who are stepping up their efforts, not just in the sales arena, but also showing a commitment to the brand and company I have been working very hard to build.

One of my 2014 goals was to launch our company blog, which we rolled out in August at ETIStyle.com. Next year’s goal includes greatly increasing the number of weekly posts and truly making the blog a collective company effort and a go-to luxury travel news read for industry insiders.

My associates also have been challenged to come up with simple processes, guidelines and systems that will help us all operate more efficiently. Spreading this goal across my support team has resulted in our discovery of new ways to better manage our never-ending “to do” lists and it remains a very important goal to keep on the permanent rotation.

Mastering the art of delegation was also an important goal for 2014 and it continues to be so for 2015. My ability to pull back from areas of the business best handled by others is a skill I can continue to improve upon, so I keep a very close eye on which members of my team are best suited for overseeing various areas of the business.

A big goal for 2015 is to eliminate clutter from my email as well. We recently set up a Dropbox account for the company where nearly every document and information resource is stored for easy access by all independent contractors. We are already seeing how much easier it is for everyone to have access to everything they might need in one place online.

I also continue to look for productivity tools such as Dropbox, Pipedrive, Square and SignNow. Each of the above-mentioned tools has an easy-to-use app that my independent contractors and I can access and use on our phones, iPads or computers.

Anyone running a luxury-focused business or selling luxury travel from home should not downplay the importance of setting goals. There’s no rule that says this has to be done in January, but I find it to be as good a time as any to review where we are now, where we are heading and how we plan to get there.