Ah, the end of the financial year. Another page has turned and our accountant is bunkered down for the end of year financials that are now due.
You can also look at the end of the financial year as a new start for your business. Sure, we take a break at the end of the calendar year and start afresh in January, but July can also mean new beginnings and is a great opportunity to evaluate the last six months and make informed decisions for the future.
Customer relationships
Talk to your customers and find out how you’re performing. Not just with the specific service or product that you deliver, but the consultation or ordering process, management of the order, your overall performance and even down to the invoicing. Be sure to table the results so they are measurable and you can analyse the results and compare results down the track.
Sales Targets
Take a look at your sales figures for the past six months: did they meet or exceed your expectations? Look at the reasons why they did or didn’t. Ensure that you include questions about why clients did not purchase a particular product service from your customer research. Remember that your best chance of future sales is from your current clients, so it is a worthwhile exercise.
Get organised
Sort out your filing and making sure that your documentation is in order to help set yourself up for success. Being organised with everything, from your client ordering system down to the filing process, is as important as one another. If you, like me, despise this sort of thing, make your filing system simple and use stationery that makes you feel good. I have matching folders and labels – I know, it sounds like no big deal, but I can honestly say that it helps to clear the clutter and make everything visually more appealing. Another aspect of this is just having an office space that you enjoy being in. Being organised doesn’t have to be boring; it can be interesting, fun and gorgeous!
Blogs
Review the blogs you produced for the past six months and look at the success levels of each. Look at social media, your newsletter and your website – was the blog well received? Which ones fared best and why do you think that was the case? Did it perform well on social media? When you determine what works, create blog topics around the ideas that worked. In other words, do more of what your customers and potential customers love!
Take time out
Book time in with a business coach, even for a few hours to evaluate where your business is going and what you want to achieve in the next six months, 12 months and five years. Getting someone else on board to help determine your goals means that the goals are realistic and tangible. Once you have these goals set, include how you will measure these goals. For example you could consider the interaction performance on your social media pages, your website hits, your orders of a particular product or calls to your office.
Employee Review
Organise times to give your employees a performance review, to see how they are performing and to allow them to communicate any issues that they may have. Ensure you ask them not just how they’re going, but how they find the processes that they use and whether they could see room for improvement. Your employees are your best resource and it’s important to work at your relationship with them.
Social media
Look at your social media pages with fresh eyes – as a potential customer would:
- How do you see your brand and business? Is it how you would want others to?
- Do you see a sales page?
- Do you see a page that makes me want to engage this services?
- What tone does your social media page project? Professional? Bland? On brand?
- Is your content interesting?
- What are people engaging with? Funny posts or your business posts?
By reviewing your pages, you can put together a social media plan that focuses on what works, rather than adhoc posting. Think about what you could add to your program and perhaps have a marketing consultation to help you to determine what you want to convey, and work back from there to develop a posting schedule that works.
The end of the financial year can mean closing the door on a period or an exciting time to research, review and create a new path for your business. Which one will you choose?
