Pause, reflect, plan and take your business to the next level: with these 10 steps
When you begin a business, you start with a vision and a mission, you create goals and set objectives and deadlines. Then you get to work and action everything. But what’s equally important as ‘doing’ is pausing to reflect and plan. When you take the time to stop and review the last few months, you’ll be able to see where you need to focus your time, energy and money.
Why is reflection important in a business?
Business owners often get so caught up working in their business in the first 3-5 years that they often forget to pause and take stock. This time of reflection, review and refocus can be a game-changer and will give you the opportunity to work on your business. Working on your business and driving it forward is the best part of owning your business; no one wants to get bogged down with admin tasks!
And if you own a small to medium-sized company or have an older business, then it’s crucial to communicate clearly with your team and colleagues. Leadership is all about making corporate goals matter to everybody; and sharing performance, growth, opportunities and future objectives. Whether it’s in a town hall meeting, video, blog, newsletter, FAQ document or via the intranet, just start sharing and keep the message alive and flowing throughout the year.
What is business reflection?
As a busy business owner, it’s a chance to review your whole business, not just your business plan. You should also review your marketing efforts, digital comms insights and data, customer or client feedback, sales, outgoings, team, goals, website, offering and, of course, your accomplishments.
For small to medium businesses, you should include key people during your period of business reflection so you can get their feedback, input and insights.
When and why should you review your business plan?
Usually, a summer break or approaching year-end and New Year kick starts this natural reflection process. So having an intentional reflection break will be a very productive use of your time – a cliche, but it’s true – you have to slow down to speed up.
Ideally, you should review your business plan at least once a year, but we encourage business owners to review their’s mid-year and year-end, and possibly more, especially for companies in the first five years. Reviewing your business plan and other aspects of your business is essential and useful to make sure they’re aligned to your personal life and commitments, team, mission, values and most importantly, your clients and customers. If you’re used to reviewing your businesses regularly, you’ll be one step ahead and ready to take action – that leads to growth.
The only certain thing in life is uncertainty, and we know, all too well, that things can happen in a matter of weeks or overnight, that can flip everything on its head. It’s not just the algorithm, vanity metrics and trends that you need to worry about, it’s any environmental, political or economical changes on top of that, because they can have a huge effect on businesses.
Take your business to the next level using these 10 steps
Now is a perfect time to check-in and take a look at how you’re achieving your 2022 goals. But before going into the steps, make sure you are in the right frame of mind. Regardless of how you feel about your achievements, be objective and positive – think about successes and learning.
Step 1: Honestly and objectively write where you are on your annual goals.
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Are you smashing it?
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Are you on track?
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Are you slightly off?
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Is there a big gap?
Step 2: Regardless of how you’re doing – write down why you are where you are?
Step 3: What can you learn, and how can you make improvements over the next six months? You can use our helpful business balance wheel to identify all the key aspects of your business.
Step 4: Do you need to adapt your 2022 goals?
Step 5: Write down your H2 goals and how are you going to get there. Are you going to do more or less of certain tasks, start new ones or even stop ones that are not getting you to where you want to go?
Step 6: Now let’s look objectively, and do a test if someone else were to read them. Are these clear? Is your messaging clear?
Step 7: Are you fully connected with your customers? Does your H2 plan reflect this?
Step 8: Do your team/colleagues know your H2 targets, plan and their role? Maybe think about a H2 town hall meeting if you haven’t already – give them time to talk through everything and explore them themselves.
Step 9: Is there a role for your communities?
Step 10: Does your business culture support your goals? Are any fixes needed to make sure it can support them as well?
Reflect and review your business and your plan… asap!
If your schedule is making it difficult to create some time to pause, don’t forget to ask for help.
Outside support can really help boost your mindset and creative thinking so you can supercharge the whole reflection and review process. Support can be in the form of a mastermind or membership group, working with a recommended coach or one of our wildly talented consultants.
Let us know if you have any comments, questions or would love a helping hand!
