The start of the year is a great time to think about where you want to take your business in the coming months and what you want to achieve.
It’s wise to follow a few simple steps to prepare for the year ahead so you’re more productive, effective, and successful, regardless of what industry you’re in or what your organization sells.
Evaluate the Previous Year to See What Worked
Your first step should be examining 2022 to see how things went for your business and what you can learn. Evaluate what went well and what went wrong throughout the year so you know what to focus more energy on this coming year and what to do less of or stop altogether. You might even spot gaps in knowledge or skill where you or your team need to do some more learning.
Also, examine the processes you have in place and think about how well they’re suiting you and if they need updating. To have a more effective year, you need excellent, streamlined procedures that staff members can follow. In addition, your reflection time should include some discussions of why issues might have arisen previously and how you might best mitigate the risk of them occurring in the future.
Revise Your Business Plan
Now is also a great time to revise your business plan or put one in place if you don’t already have this document set up. Reading over your plan or developing one will help you remember why you created your venture or bought it in the first place and what you’ve been trying to achieve. It’s easy to forget these things in the busyness of business life and to get off track.
Looking at your plans, though, can help steer you back in the right direction or help you see that you had the wrong idea in the first place and need to change tack and update your business plan accordingly. Many industries and markets change over time, too, so you may need to make alterations due to things outside your control.
While getting your plan right can be time-consuming, it’s a great document to complete and update, not just for you but also for your entire team to read and to have on hand if you need to apply for a business loan or seek out investors.
Keep a Watch on Cash Flow and Other Financials
If you have been so busy in the past year trying to keep your head above water, you’ve perhaps been continually putting out “fires” rather than paying attention to all the things you needed to. For many people, getting distracted from the financial aspects of running a business is easy. However, the start of the year is a great time to closely examine your company’s cash flow over the past year and other financial details.
Examine the data to get a good understanding of any improvements seen and areas of concern. Did you get back to pre-pandemic sales figures or actually have a stellar year, better than you realized? Has growth stalled, or are sales the same but profits have been eaten into it? You need to know the overall financial position of your firm so you know what issues might be worsening and if you need to take radical action now to cut costs or find ways to bring more money in.
To know your cash flow so you don’t end up in a position where you can’t pay wages, suppliers, and other bills, calculate a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet. Apart from alerting you to places where you might be spending too much, this investigation can help you spot areas of unexpected and growing revenue sources that you might be able to exploit in 2023 or to spot other trends or opportunities to pay more attention to.
Looking at the books can also help you see if you need to apply for a small business loan before you urgently need additional funds. It’s always best to get organized for this process and start researching lenders well before it’s crunch time and you need extra money. You don’t want the stress of trying to get a loan on a deadline or of having to accept a less-than-ideal offer because you were in a hurry for funds.
Take the time at the start of the year, too, to get caught up on accounting and tax-related tasks, and payroll and other HR-related ones. If you want to switch over to use more time-saving software programs to help streamline these tasks, now is also a wise time to get yourself and your staff members trained in using handy tech tools.
Other tips for preparing your venture for 2023 include setting goals for the coming year, creating a schedule to help you stay on track, conducting performance reviews of your employees, and hiring any new staff members you need to bring on board. You might also chat with suppliers and other companies about their terms, and find yourself a mentor.
Being proactive now like this will help the year ahead run more smoothly so you can end 2023 with a great sense of achievement.