As a business owner, I know how precious time is, and how it’s a challenge to find even a few spare minutes a week to carry out non-customer related tasks. There’s already website upkeep, social media management, email marketing – the list goes on, and that’s on top of proving a quality service to your customers and supporting them. For many business owners, the thought of finding a few spare hours, or a whole day, once a quarter is a big ask, but it’s a fundamental necessity for the sustainability and success of your business – a quarterly business review.
Now's a good time to take a step back and review ...
Just because everything seems to be ticking along nicely now, it doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels. Are you performing as successfully or efficiently as you could be? You won’t know unless you take the time to step back from your business and objectively review the last few months.
What’s your income been like? Has it been steady or variable, and is this consistent with previous periods? What are your business expenses like? Is there anything you are paying for – i.e., software – that you aren’t using anymore? What about customers? How many do you have and how many of those are new customers vs long term customers? Are they satisfied with your products/services, and have they provided any constructive feedback that you could action?
Set yourself some goals
It’s not just about reviewing the past few months; it’s about setting goals for the next few. Would you like to increase your revenue? How could you do that? Would you like to add new products/services? What would you need to do to achieve this?
Goals can be a valuable tool to maintain motivation, but only if they are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. Think “I’d like to add two new customers for Product/Service A over the next 60 days” rather than “I want to turnover a billion in the next 6 months and become a global celebrity” …
Block out time to analyse and plan...
A business review gives you the opportunity to think about the next steps in your business, so why not block out some time in your diary over the next month for a detailed and objective analysis of where you are now in your business, and where you want to be in early 2022? Good luck!