Does my business need a year-end review? I’m going to make this easy – the answer is YES. Especially this year, I’ve heard a LOT of pushback from business owners about not feeling a need to make this a priority – and the reasons usually fall into 1 of 3 camps:
“I’m only looking forward – there’s no reason to look back because we can’t change anything.”
“This year was a dumpster fire. I just need to pretend it never happened.” or…
“It’s just TOO BIG. There’s too much. I don’t know where to start. Does my business need a year-end review?“
I get it. This has been a year for the record books – and not always in a good way! But reviewing your business – even when the business world is amiss – can give you great insight into how to be bigger, better, and faster going forward. Don’t believe me? Check out these 5 BIG reasons you need to review your business at the end of a year like 2020:
- It will improve your learning curve. Looking back on good – and especially not so good – choices you made can make you more apt to learn what works and what doesn’t for you and your business. You’ll be able to react quicker, with more confidence, and with better results by analyzing your wins and losses.
- It will help you avoid making the same mistakes again. Think about when you were first learning to ride a bike. Or, really, your first time doing ANYTHING. The slip-ups, the bad leans, trying to move too fast – they all taught you how to actually complete the task appropriately. When push comes to shove, the mistakes show you something to learn. EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES in their business. EVERYONE. They’re necessary but you don’t want to repeat those mistakes.
- You can better anticipate the future. We hear this all the time: History often repeats itself. While there’s no such thing as a business crystal ball (wouldn’t that have been helpful?), looking for the signs of repeating patterns can give you a jump-start on what external and internal factors could affect your business. Those may be frequent buying cycles for your customers (like holidays), surging trends in your competition, and even your own burnout cycle that may impact how efficiently your business runs. By analyzing and understanding your own trends and patterns, you can be more prepared to keep moving in the direction of your goals when those trends start showing up again.
- You can acknowledge and build on your successes. This one is especially for those of you in the “dumpster fire” group. It’s easy to look at a year of change and say “I didn’t do anything right.” Identifying what you did well – whether it was a full product launch, or even one small item from each project – will give you the confidence you need to keep growing and allow you to capitalize on that success and keep the momentum going from one part of your business to the next.
- Finally, You can learn from others’ experiences. Learning from other entrepreneurs’ successes and pitfalls can give you insight and inspiration for new options with your own business – just like your experience can help others learn. Rising tides raise all ships, right? Networking and having a safe space to share your experience and learn from others is KEY. Whether you’re learning from their experience, their actions, or even their mindset when they made the decisions they made can help you move forward with your own business.
That’s it! 5 HUGE reasons to review your business! Do we have you convinced now? Sign up for a chat with us if you’re afraid to get started and we’ll show you just how easy it can be!
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