Canadian Small Business Women

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Your 2018 Year-End Review Guide

As 2018 draws to a close, now is the time to review and reflect on the past year. A year-end review is vital to ensuring your success in 2019. Why? One of the fundamental steps in building a strong brand and business is to collect data on how each of your business goals and objectives are performing.

December, being the last month of the year, is an ideal time to review what worked, what didn’t work, and how you can improve in the coming year.

Last Year’s Highs and Lows

Identify the high points and the low points of the year. Consider your costs, the time expense involved and whether the final outcome was worth it. You may find that there are high points that were too costly for your business in the long run, or you may discover low points that could have been successful with slight adjustments.

Review these periods carefully to gain a full understanding of how your customer or client-base responds to different marketing strategies. Were you able to achieve your objectives? Were there added benefits or problems that you did not foresee in the planning stages but are obvious now with some time to reflect on them?

Resolutions and Next Year’s Goals

Using the insights you have gained from reflecting on the successes and failures of this year, create new strategies for 2019. What you learned in 2018 will help you determine your business objectives for next year. You may decide to work on achieving goals that were not met in the past year, or you may instead choose to draw up entirely new milestones you would like to reach that are more reflective of your current situation.

Even if you decide to scale back certain parts of your business and reallocate your energy into other parts of your business, do not think of this as a failure. In fact, it is just smart business. As the world changes around you, make adaptation one of your top priorities.

New Year, New Strategies

The holiday season gives you a little bit of time to stop and catch your breath. Over the year you have probably come across new tools and strategies that you suspect may help improve your business. Take this time to explore new software, the latest developments in your industry, and fresh ways to connect with your target audience and grow customer loyalty.

 

Marly Broudie is the Founder of SocialEyes Communications – a digital marketing and business development firm based in Toronto, Ontario.

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The year in review…

sandra

Several years ago I started the New Year’s Eve ritual of celebrating my accomplishments. I find it’s a great way to end the year off on a positive note and carry over that positivity into the New Year. Last year, in addition to celebrating my accomplishments and setting my intentions for the upcoming year, I also took stock of the habits that contributed to my success, and those that kept me from making the year an even more productive and successful one.

We’ve all heard it said that the definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. It was with this in mind that I started to take a look at the habits that served me and those that didn’t. It was especially important for me to review these things at the end of last year, since the second half of the year was the start of my journey as a full-time entrepreneur.

Along with reviewing our habits, the end of the year is also a great time to consider what worked and what didn’t, both personally and in your business. We want to continue to do the things that worked, yet we shouldn’t hesitate to question whether or not we could do those things even better, more effectively. We also need to review the things that didn’t work and figure out why. Not to beat ourselves up about our failures, but to learn from them, and figure out what we need to do next time so that we don’t end up with the same results.

Obviously we don’t have to wait until the end of the year to do these things, but the New Year is a great time for new beginnings. For many of us it’s also the start of a new fiscal year, so making changes and improvements in January will allow you to measure your growth year over year as you continue to build and grow your business.

Whether 2014 was an awesome year or just so-so, there is always room for improvement. Taking stock of the current year provides you with the opportunity to celebrate the progress you’ve made and tweak the plan to make the upcoming year an even better one. It’s about a constant evolution. If you had a great year, the next one can be even better. If you didn’t achieve as much as you wanted to do this year, know that there’s always room for improvement, it’s just a matter of retooling the strategy and your mental game.

Make a commitment to learn a new skill, release the habits (and anything else) that doesn’t serve you and develop the habits that are helping you get closer to your goals! If we want to achieve the best we can in our respective businesses, we have to be at our best. Take the time to evaluate the game plan and make the changes necessary to knock it out the park in the New Year!

May the New year be one of great health, peace and abundance!

Sandra Dawes is a certified life coach specializing in helping women who feel unfulfilled with their 9-5 follow their dreams and pursue their passions. She holds an Honours BA, an MBA as well as a certificate in Dispute Resolution.She has completed her first book,Embrace Your Destiny: 12 Steps to Living the Life You Deserve!
Connect:
www.embraceyourdestiny.ca
www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestiny
www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestinythebook
www.twitter.com/sandradawes

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