Why I learned to take stock from 2015?

 
During those strange (grey and wet in the UK) days between Christmas and New Year I decided to spend some time looking back at my business in 2015 and thinking about where I want my business to go in 2016.
 
Two Ideas
If you haven’t spent time thinking about your business in the past year I would highly recommend it as a great exercise. You will learn a lot looking back at 2015, because how do you know where you are going in 2016, if you don’t know where you have been or where you are now?
 
You need to build on the strengths you built up in 2015.
 
What you will learn from your past year is gold dust, for the growth of your business, but only if you take stock and really make the most of your hard won experience.
 
Recently I’ve come across two fabulous ladies who both happen to be Australian, whose ideas I tried out, to see if they would help with my business thinking.
 
Bragging!
Denise Duffield-Thomas aka ‘Luckybitch.com’ has the great idea of writing down a bragging list of accomplishments from 2015 (http://luckybitch.com/end-of-year-ritual/).
 
These can be business, personal, social, wealth or anything - just write them all down. Make a list and try and get 30, if you manage to get 50, then this is fab.
 
Even if you think you had a really bad year, you will be surprised at how many you can get.
 
As a British person I don’t think we are very good at bragging or shouting about our achievements and we should do more of it. Denise promised it would make me feel great, so I did the exercise and got a list of 60 brags without much effort.  And I felt GREAT!!!!!
 
Go on start your brag list, it doesn’t take long and you’ll be glad you did!!
 
Top tip - get someone to help you with your list  – to push you into finding those extra bragging points! Then you can help them with their bragging list. 
 
You’ll both have fun.
 
Looking backwards...
Towards the end of last year, Naomi from http://www.branchingoutonline.co.uk recommended Leonie Dawson’s ‘Shinning Year in Biz’ workbooks.
 
I looked up Leonie’s website (http://leoniedawson.com) and even though I liked the idea of the business goal setting workbooks I wasn’t too sure Leonie’s style was me.
 
Leonie is a hippy chick from down-under who likes oracle readings and chakra healing and the workbooks look very girly and fluffy – not normally my thing! But on Naomi’s glowing praise I bought the workbook, thinking why not give it a chance, it didn’t cost a lot of money and if it makes me organised to write down my business goals and more importantly review them, then what could I lose?
 
The 1st exercise in the workbook is a ‘closing ceremony’ for the year just gone. This is a great idea and it’s basically a business review, which you could do at any time of the year, as it gives you clarity of where your business is right now.
 
If you haven’t done a review of your business, sit down and do it now.
 
You’ll be glad you did!
 
Here are some of the things to think about for the closing ceremony:

• What are your biz accomplishments over the past year?
• What biz lessons did you learn in 2015?
• Do you know your gross profit, expenses and net profit for 2015?
• What where your 5 big selling products/services & how much money did they take?
• What was the worst thing about your biz in 2015 and what did you learn from this?
• What was the best thing about your biz in 2015 and what did you learn from this?
• What marketing worked and created wins for you in 2015?
• How big is your customer base and how much did it increase in 2015?

 
Looking forwards...
I learned a lot about my business by doing the closing ceremony, by learning what worked, what didn’t work and what I could have done better. It’s given me insights and ideas of what I need to do in 2016.
 
I’ve now started goal setting and planning for 2016. I’m sure you’ll hear more about this and Leonie in future blogs.
 
I also learned that Leonie’s workbook IS fluffy and girly and that maybe that’s OK, for somebody who’s normally the opposite of this in business.
 
Behind all the hippyness - hidden in the colourful pages is some good, sound business thinking - no wonder Leonie has 200k people filling in her workbooks!
 
Does writing goals and planning for the year ahead fill you with dread / boredom? If you need any help understanding where your business is today and/or planning for the future, then get in touch - I’d love to listen and help.
 
1st meeting is always FREE.
 
 
 

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