Can you believe half the year is gone already? I’m still wondering what happened to spring! It’s felt like summer here in middle Tennessee for the last two months.
This is a perfect time to do a mid-year review and take stock of where your business is and what you still want to accomplish this year. You’ve got six months of actual revenue, statistics, and other measurements, and another six months to tweak or revise to make sure you hit your 2019 goals.
The first step is to take an overall view of what you’ve accomplished over the last six months – big projects and milestones as well as the little things (upgrade to an espresso machine or in my case a second monitor). I’m also so grateful for the people I’ve met and customers who have become friends. Celebrate your achievements!
The next step is to pull out your original 2019 Goals and/ or Budget. If you had monthly goals, how close did you come to making them? In what areas did you do really well? Are there ways to make those areas even better? Spend some time on these areas – if the great results happened based on strategies you worked to develop and implement, congratulate yourself! You put a lot of work into them and it paid off. If the great results happened without a lot of extra effort on your part, can you pinpoint and expand on those strengths? Take advantage of your natural abilities and use them as much as possible in your business.
In what areas did you fall short of the original goals? Can you determine why you didn’t meet those goals? Are there changes you can implement or different strategies you can use to get closer to those goals? What other factors contributed to the performance and can you adjust them going forward?
If there are some areas you just don’t like or don’t want to spend the time learning or improving, consider outsourcing those areas. You’ll reap far more than just the time savings – the effects on your mindset, energy, and sense of freedom for not doing a particular task will have an exponential increase on your business results. You’re way more focused and energized when you’re doing what you love to do, not what you “have” to do.
The ultimate question of course is, how do you feel about your business? Are you where you wanted to be and are you happy with where you are?
Next, realistically assess your full-year goals against these questions. If you slayed your first six months, go ahead and adjust your annual goal. You’ve got plenty of momentum and time to reach even higher goals. If the first six months weren’t as great as you expected, and you got a good idea why based on the first exercise, can you still meet the original goal? Is it possible to implement some changes that will help turn it around? Is your business cyclical and you expect it to pick up in the last half of the year? If there’s a goal that’s not relevant anymore, stop spending time on it and remove it from the list so it doesn’t drain your energy.
Finally, take some time to dream big. You probably had some stretch goals at the beginning of the year, and this review will show you how you’re tracking to those goals. Is that big dream goal within reach? Have you gotten further than you thought you would at the beginning of the year? Are there new goals to add to the year’s list? You still have six months!
If you didn’t set goals at the beginning of the year or want to expand your review, here are some specific areas for assessment:
- Revenue (products/ packages)
- What are your high-volume, high-profit items/ packages?
- Is it worth keeping an item or service that’s not performing well? Can it be tweaked to produce more income?
- What is your favorite income-producing task? (do more of this if you can!)
- What is your least favorite income-producing task and can it be outsourced?
- What new revenue-producing ideas can you develop in the next few months?
- Are there any customers who still owe you?
- Expenses
- Are there any places to cut? (do you still use all those subscriptions?)
- Can you buy in bulk or negotiate with vendors?
- Have you set aside enough for taxes?
- Systems/ Productivity
- Accounting/ bookkeeping
- Customer/ project management
- eMail automation
- Virtual assistant
- Website
- Sales funnel/ marketing
- Inventory
- Where can you implement systems to be more efficient?
- Number of customers
- Number of subscribers/ followers
- Other metrics unique to your business
Happy Planning! And of course, I’m here if you want to bounce any ideas/ plans/ thoughts around!
June Calendar
June 17 – 2nd quarter estimated taxes due
June 17 – Form 1040 filing deadline for overseas US citizens and resident aliens
June 20 – most state sales taxes due
July Calendar
July 22 – most state sales taxes due. But check with your state, since the 20th is a Saturday.