It’s at this time of year where a 2016 review is required.
A chance to look back and reflect on everything that’s happened in the last year so that we can go forward into 2017 with a clear plan on how we’re going to improve our businesses and in which direction to take them in too.
Here’s a few things to think about within your 2016 review (take 30 mins to an hour to sit down and really think about it):
Positives
Write down all the things that have worked really well for you this year. What have you achieved… what’s been your most popular product/service and why? What positive feedback have you received? What’s been the highlights of your year? What major wins have you had in your business?
Negatives
Is there anything bad that happened that could have been avoided? What steps or processes can you put into place to minimise the chances of this happening again?
Did you miss out on any opportunities in terms of business sales and business growth? If so, what were they and is there a reason why you missed out?
Improvements
Now let’s look at what improvements can be made ready for entering 2017 with a clear plan! Don’t worry, you don’t need to implement everything before January 1st! This is to help you become really clear on what you’d like to achieve and set a plan in motion to help you achieve your 2017 goals!
So what areas of your business lacked a bit of your attention this year and could be improved upon? Was it communication, customer service, processing orders, hitting deadlines? And why?
Goals
Whatever you would like to achieve in your business for 2017 write down ALL your goals and business vision based on the above!
Now lets set some clearly defined goals based on everything you’ve just written down. Remember, let’s not look too far ahead. I would recommend setting goals for the next 3 months. Looking any further forward would be difficult to do and you don’t know where you’re going to be in 4 or 6 months time with your business anyway.
Looking at everything that’s come up in your 2016 review so far, as well as ALL the goals you’ve just written down… choose maybe 2-3 really important goals that you’d like to concentrate on fully for the next 3 months.
It could be you want to increase your turnover by 5%… or you want to up the number of orders you get in a month by 5-10%. Or it could be you’d like to see more engagement on your Facebook page. Whatever your three top goals are, write them down.
Now you have your 2-3 goals, for each goal, jot down what you think you need to do in order to achieve that goal. What steps or tasks do you need to fulfil in order to make it happen?
Can you plan these into your diary or set aside some business development time each week to work on stepping closer to achieving your goals?
I’ve created a special 2016 review workbook, which you can download and use specifically for this reflection and goal setting exercise. You can download it here…