As we approach the end of 2021, it is time to critically analyze how the year unfolded. As a small or new business, you may think that this is something you can skip, but you CAN'T! End-of-year assessments are critical for all businesses. Today, I am going to share with you why that is and what you should consider during your evaluation.
Why End of Year Assessments are Critical
You made it through the year (or at least part of it if you are a brand new business), which seriously deserves a round of applause! *Cue clapping!*
Now that you have patted yourself on the back, it's time to do an assessment. You may be dragging your feet, but it is a vital component of your business that you can't sweep under the rug. Why, you ask?
End-of-year business assessments are your guide to highlighting what went right and what didn’t the past year. It can be easy to overlook inconsistencies, failures, and various other negatives that happened. It can also be easy to overvalue what went right or how we felt about something, even when the statistical value doesn’t correlate.
Essentially, an end-of-year assessment is a black and white breakdown of your successes and failures, which you can then use to improve and create an even better business.
What to Analyze in an End-of-Year Assessment
Approaching an end-of-year assessment can be daunting; I get it. It is a whole year's worth of data to sort through and analyze. The best way to do this is to section it off month by month. This dramatically helps narrow the data pool down into bite size pieces.
2021 Revenue
Now that we have it separated out, I challenge you to answer two questions:
1. Which month did you have the highest revenue?
a. What did you promote, and what was your largest referral source?
2. Which month had the lowest revenue?
a. What did you promote, and what was your focus of that month?
By determining the highs and lows of the year, as well the circumstances that surround them, you get a solid overarching idea of what worked and what didn’t.
2021 Offers
Next, I want you to analyze your offers this past year by answering the following:
1. What offers did you utilize?
2. What was the price of each offer?
3. What were the sales of each offer?
a. What worked to close those sales?
4. What was the total net revenue of each offer?
Your offers are your bread and butter, so it is critical to determine how they actually worked out, not just your feelings on them. The proof is in the numbers. As Tim Ferris, author of the 4-Hour Work Week, states, “Don’t follow a model that doesn’t work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.”
2021 Clients
Finally, it's time to take a deep look at your clients. If you consistently work with clients (especially as a service provider), your top 10 clients usually are the ones who provide 90% of your revenue.
I highly recommend taking those top 10 clients and writing out:
1. What service did they acquire?
2. How much revenue was collected?
3. What was their referral source?
Now that you have a deeper understanding of how to best address your end-of-year assessment, you can take action to plan and improve the upcoming year. Do you need help transforming this data into a concrete business plan? I highly recommend joining my next CEO Retreat, where we will not only dive into your end of year assessment, but also the next three phases of a successful business year: business development, business operations, and business growth.
Not sold on it? I totally understand that it’s a significant investment. I would be happy to chat with you about this package, so please book a free 15-minute discovery call with me.