The start of any new quarter often brings a wave of activity for businesses. It’s the perfect time to hit the refresh button and spring clean your processes, just like you might do at home. But this spring cleaning goes beyond decluttering your desk. It’s about evaluating and reflecting on the previous quarter to set yourself up for success in the coming months.
Reflecting on the last quarter…
Taking the time to reflect before moving on to the next quarter is one of those tasks that feels important but not always urgent, which is why lots of people skip this step. But reflecting on our learnings is so beneficial to your business as it gives us a point to develop our businesses from and gives us all the information we need to make effective plans to inform our new plan and move forwards.
Whether you do this alone or with your team, it can sometimes be difficult to know where to start. So, here are a couple of questions to get the conversation or thought process going…
- How has the last quarter been for you? Analyse your business performance across different areas like marketing, sales, and finances. Did you onboard any new customers? Did your marketing generate leads? Did you meet your sales targets? Look at the data and identify your wins as well as areas needing improvement.
- Did you achieve your goals? Focus on the positives here. What milestones did you hit, and how did they impact your business? Celebrate your wins and understand how they contributed to your overall growth.
- What challenges did you face? No business runs perfectly all the time. Identify the hurdles you encountered last quarter. Did you experience unexpected delays on a project? Did you feel you were run off your feet or were you able to manage your work-life balance? These challenges can be essential for adding contingency plans when things aren’t going right, or identifying the most effective way of using your budget to bring in the help that’s going to have the biggest impact on your business.
- Were there goals that you didn’t meet? It is okay not to meet goals, but it is important to reflect on why so we don’t repeat it in the next quarter. Did you overestimate your capacity and set unrealistic goals? Did unforeseen circumstances derail your progress? Did you discover that a particular goal wasn’t as important as you initially thought? Analyse the reasons behind missed targets and adjust your plan accordingly.
Decluttering your processes
Now that we’ve spent time reflecting on the last quarter, it’s important to approach every new quarter as a fresh start. Just like a cluttered workspace affects your productivity, inefficient processes and systems are going to hinder your growth so now is the time to get rid of anything that’s not moving your business forwards.
Here’s our process for decluttering and making a plan for each new quarter:
Step 1: Focus on your priorities. Now is the time to identify your top 3-4 priorities for over the next quarter.
Step 2: Break down big goals into smaller, achievable milestones. Setting small, attainable goals throughout the quarter keeps you motivated and on track. It also allows you to course-correct if needed without derailing your entire strategy.
Step 3: Identify tasks that can be delegated to team members with the appropriate skillset, or consider outsourcing areas of your business to someone like a VA to free up your team’s time.
Step 4: Write your plan down!
Step 5: For recurring tasks, develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure consistency and efficiency. This reduces training time for new team members and minimises errors.
Step 6: Embrace continuous improvement: Don’t let “good enough” be the enemy of great. Encourage a culture of continuous improvement by soliciting feedback from your team on existing processes and exploring opportunities for optimisation.
Spring cleaning your business processes isn’t just about organisation, it’s about setting yourself up for a thriving quarter. By taking the time to reflect, learn, and adapt, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals!
But doing this alone and finding the time to prioritise your planning can sometimes be tricky. If you’d like any help from one of our virtual assistants to help free up your time and go through this process with you, get in touch with us today.