Conducting a Year-End Business Review

With 2023 a mere four months away, many business owners are thinking about how they can set their company up for success. A year-end business review can help you understand the full scope of where you are now and how far you can go in the new year. 

If this is your first time conducting a business review, or you simply want to approach it with a fresh outlook, we have a few tips to help you get started. 

Review Your Goals From This Year

First, you need to see how much you grew in 2022. Some business owners fear this process when they’ve had a notably bad year, but it’s essential to set a starting point, even if it’s one you feel is unsatisfactory.

Keep context in mind as you work through this year’s growth; there are factors you can’t control. Hyper-focusing on external factors isn’t a valuable use of your time. It only acts to distract you from tackling the objectives you can handle.

List Out Grows and Glows

No matter how terrible of a year you may have had, there are always things to celebrate. Similarly, if you’ve had the most terrific year in the history of your business, there is room to continue your trajectory. 

Take the time to create a list of glows and grows, then include notes on the factors that affected those outcomes. 

For example, if your sales team grew by two members who have shown consistent progress in client relationships, acknowledge their work and talk about what they feel catalyzed that growth. As you hire in 2023, keep those things in mind and try replicating the results using what you’ve learned. 

Make a Note of Your Customer Pain Points 

The beginning of the year is the perfect time to roll out new customer acquisition and retention models, but you have to speak with your existing client base to identify and correct any pain points. 

You can use a formalized model, such as the Net Promoter Score, or just spend some time chatting with your customers about what they feel would make their experience with your business even better. Either way, the goal is to show the people who frequent your business that you care about what they want and are willing to do what it takes to give it to them. 

Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when conducting a year-end business review is to bite off more than you can chew. For most small business owners, it’s simply not possible to increase your marketing and hiring budgets simultaneously, so figuring out the most likely to improve your overall results is critical. 

Prioritizing your goals can help you create a plan that is both attainable and challenging enough that it motivates you to improve your business. 

Lay Out Your KPIs

Once you understand what you have already accomplished and what you would like to achieve, you can specify the KPIs (key performance indicators) that will guide your business in 2023. 

The specific set of KPIs you choose for your business will depend on your overall goals, your industry, and your customer base, but a few of the most common ones that work universally include:

• Revenue
• Client acquisition rate
• Customer acquisition cost
• Customer lifetime value
• Newsletter subscribers
• Cost per lead
• Gross and net profit margins
• Revenue growth

You’ll continue to track these throughout the new year, then compare them to the previous year. Remember to set milestones, celebrate when you hit them, and continually set the bar higher.

A Business Coach is One of the Most Powerful Tools in Conducting a Year-End Business Review

If this is your first time conducting a year-end business review, you might feel overwhelmed by the entire process. Fortunately, with a bit of help from Catalyst Group ECR, you don’t have to go it alone. Not only can we help you understand how your business performed this year, but we can also set you up for success as we head into 2023. 

Now is the perfect time to start!