The realities of business operations are beginning to set in a few weeks from the festivities. There is so much to do in so little time. If you haven’t, you need to pause, take a deep breath and reflect on the previous year. Else you’re bound to make the same mistakes of the previous year.
In this article, we will consider 3 effective ways to begin the year. This may serve as a checklist for any entrepreneur in whatever sphere.
*Evaluate
*Confront your weak points.
*Understand industry trends
These three points combined will place your business in the front-line of success.
Evaluate
Before you set new goals for your business, reflect on the old ones you set the previous year. This idea is performance evaluation. You already know how important it is to keep track of your key performance indicators (KPIs). Microsoft Excel, like many other
Wave is a great financial tool that will be of help. It has a robust free package for small businesses. Don’t send your financial statements off to your bookkeeper to process and send off to the IRS. Or run them within your business accounting software as you usually would do. Take some time out to understand the message and learning from them.
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Ask yourself some thoughtful questions:
Did you hire or fire the right hands?
How well did you manage your cash flow?
Will you need replacement of equipment or get new hands?
Will your income take care of your expenses?
Don’t do business-as-usual this year rather, know where you’ve been, where you are — and where you want to be.
Improve your weak points
It’s also very important to consider what you have not been doing well at all. You won’t grow by repeating the same things you did well the previous year over and over. Neither will you grow if you continue staying bad at the things you are struggling with.
As the year begins, check why you didn’t succeed in certain aspects of your business in the previous year.
Did you invest and impact on your workers or you overuse them?
How poor were your financial decisions?
Did you ignore changing market conditions?
Did you apply realistic price models?
Once you find obvious knowledge gaps, invest in a masterclass. Learn online with coursera and udemy.
Better still, find a mentor who can help you get over the hurdle and improve. It’s important to learn to review the old strategies before jumping into new strategies.
Understand industry trends
Like it or not, every now and then, your industry changes. Everything has always changed and will always change. You must learn to move with the trend or be far behind. It is very important to know how to notice and react to changes in your industry or sector as a business owner.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to read reports or solution guides. These reports are not oracles or fortune tellers. But you can use the information you gather for simple things like;
*Building keynote speeches
*Making meaningful discussions
*Making sure you’re placing your company in the right direction.
Don’t begin the year without getting a real rhythm on what’s going on not in your industry as well as in every industry that impacts your business.
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You can follow key industry leaders and influencers of your industry on social media. You could also make it a habit of reading top blogs and publications in your industry every day.
Also you could use Google Trends and Google AdWords, or use tools that work for you. Other simple ways to understand industry trends are:
*Surround yourself with smart people of like minds
*Seek mentorship from industry leaders
*Ask the right questions
*Listen to customers and be open to suggestions and criticisms.
Ready to jump start the year or have you started already? Of course, there are a million and one new ideas you want to put in place. If you hold your breath and improve on a few critical points, the others will come along almost fine. You don’t have to be like everyone else, find what works for you best and do it with all you’ve got!
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