The time you invest in evaluating your business and planning will pay off with greater efficiency and success in the year ahead.
Successful sales partners take this time of year to reflect on performance over the past 12 months and make plans for the next 12. This year-end checklist will help you ensure you cover all the bases to position your company for success in the year ahead.
Financial review.
Financial viability must be the top priority. Review your financial statements and determine whether or not your business is making money. Depending on how accurate your record keeping is, this may be a more difficult task than it sounds. Each account should be profitable. Ensure you know the time and resources involved in account maintenance and that you cover costs and make margin.
Your year-end checklist should also include reviewing the key performance indicators (KPIs) you track. Make sure you have the data you need on demand throughout the year to keep your business on track. If you determine that you have blind spots that could create risks, find ways to collect and analyze the data you need to keep a closer watch on revenues, profitability, employee performance, and more.
Finally, organize your tax documents so you can make deadlines and provide your accounting team with everything they need to work efficiently.
Review business processes.
Even an efficient, productive business can find room to improve daily processes. Think through which tasks are the most time-consuming, and evaluate them to see if they include manual work or redundancies. Also, consider whether automation can help your business operate more effectively. For example, it may be time to take a new approach to invoicing your customers. Electronic invoicing saves time, eliminates postage and paper, and helps you collect payment faster.
Another element of your business to evaluate is how your customers interact with your business. A customer portal could provide easier access to information for your clients and streamline communications, saving time for your team.
Plan strategy for next year.
Uncertainty during this decade has made planning more difficult. Rising inflation may be impacting some of your clients who are seeing a decrease in sales or struggling to control expenses. You need to decide how you will respond. You can help your clients hold the line — or you can encourage them to look at current challenges as an opportunity. Implementing technology that enables them to work more efficiently and cost-effectively can give them a competitive edge in their markets.
You also need to determine how you’ll pursue new business. It’s tempting to go straight to price cutting to try to capture new business. However, it’s rarely the best strategy. More than half (61%) of respondents in a recent Google survey stated they were willing to pay a higher price for higher-quality products. Additionally, 71% also said they were willing to continue to do business with a company that raised its prices if they felt valued as a customer.
Focus on providing the best solutions and customer experiences, a strategy that will be more successful than cutting prices and minimizing profitability.
Show appreciation.
Your year-end checklist should include a way to express your thanks to your employees for a job well done all year. Traditional ways of saying thanks, including bonuses or gifts, are effective. However, you may take a more non-traditional approach, such as treating your staff to a night out or donating to a local charity on their behalf. In addition to improving employee satisfaction, your business could profit from a 10% increase in productivity.
Also, remember to thank key customers and suppliers, and stress that you look forward to continuing the business relationship.
Sharpen the saw.
Author Stephen Covey referred to the value of “sharpening the saw.” It was his way of describing how taking time away from day-to-day tasks, like sawing a tree, in order to sharpen the tools that make it easier to do those tasks.
Addressing the points in this year-end checklist is a good way to step back and ensure your saw is sharp and ready for successful work in 2024.
