Is it me or is this year zooming by?!
I’ve been having a lot of conversations with business owners the past couple of weeks and when I ask “how is your year going?” the response I am getting “I think it’s going okay”
If you haven’t already, now is a great time for you to review your annual goals and see how you are doing. Don’t wait until the end of the year to realize you are far from where you wanted to be.
Take some time and evaluate your business. Measure your progress, identify the gaps, and make adjustments as necessary to stay on purpose and on plan for the remainder of 2014.
Here is my simple 5 step Business Check-in process:
1. What were your Critical Musts (or goals) for 2014? (if you didn’t set Critical Musts for the year, refer to my CRITICAL MUSTS EXERCISE to create them for the remainder of 2014). If you haven’t set concrete critical musts for the year, take a few minutes to do that.
2. What is the progress you’ve made? This is where we need to look at the numbers. Depending on your specific goals they could be revenue, sales conversions, number of leads, your list size. Where you planning on adding new team members – how has that gone? Create a new product. Two things here, one – take time to celebrate all you have accomplished to this point. Even if you haven’t hit everything, every small step you make is getting you closer to your goal. Secondly, if you’re not on target, don’t beat yourself up. Just take some time to re-evaluate and get back on track.
3. What have been your learning’s that you can incorporate or leverage the remainder of the year? What gets in your way of achieving certain goals? Are there any themes? Maybe you noticed that when you speak at events you generate more interest in services, or that you really don’t like delivering teleclasses. Whatever they are, this is important to note so you can stop doing what isn’t working and start or continue other strategies that will help you achieve your goals.
4. Review your plan. Taking into account your accomplishments to date and learnings, is it still relevant? What needs to added, changed or removed? Here’s the thing- when we are behind, we tend to load up our plans for the remainder of the year thinking that during the summer break or 4th quarter we can catch up. What typically happens is we don’t catch up and then we end up with a bigger list of things that didn’t get done. So make the plan for the rest of the year realistic and focused on those critical musts and commit to it.
Now is also a good time to also evaluate your skills and resources. Your resources could be financial, your time or your team.
- What do I already have to complete my goal?
- What do I still need to complete my goal?
- How will I get what I need to complete my goal?
5. Modify and recommit to your plan. Come out of this process with a revised plan that will help you reach your goals and commit to resourcing and taking action against it. What I have found helpful is to focus on one thing first. Since money is typically at the top of everyone list: what is the one strategy that will increase your sales/revenue between now and the end of the year? I know there might be ten ideas, but identify 1 strategy and 3-5 action steps you can take over the next couple of months to make it happen.
If you don’t feel you have the time or inclination to do this now, bookmark this page and come back to it in a couple of weeks. At the risk of sounding like the stern human resources director, this really is a “must do” before the year ends. The earlier you do it, the greater your chances of achieving or exceeding your goals. Plus you’ll avoid the 4th quarter panic that plagues many business owners.
I’ve quoted it before and I’ll quote it again: “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight” (Jim Rohn). But this only works if you know what direction needs changing.
Let me know how your business check-in is going.
If you’d like some support, you can sign up for one of my complimentary Business Breakthrough Audits where we will identify what’s working well, what’s not and what 3 actions you can take immediately to increase your profits.
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Great post! I really enjoy these five steps. I like the concept of not waiting for the new year to reassess your business performance and your overall strategy. I’d say that bringing in a professional to train your employees (or train yourself!) to streamline and strengthen your processes. Thanks for sharing!