During our recent live call session from the 10X Business Owner’s Mastermind, we had the great opportunity to make it to the end of the month and the end of the quarter, which provided us with a great topic for business conversation.
What do we normally do at the end of each quarter of the year?
We usually review our quarterly summary at the end of each quarter. What we did is analyzed, and consequently, we correct and solve all the above, it is a quarterly commercial review. As you know, if you are not measuring something, you cannot change it. So, it’s all about metrics. It’s about KPIs.
So, this is something that needs to be done every quarter. We review our document, and it helps us set clear goals and parameters for the next quarter.
In this way, we can ensure that we are on track towards our goals and objectives for the year. Then, what I do with my clients is go over the key issues that we reviewed with the business plan update. All the business plans I make are a one-page plan object, vision, mission objectives, strategies, and action plans.
Likewise, we review the objectives. Where are we for the current year? Are we on track to reach the goal before the end of the year? Are we too late? In some cases, a couple of my clients right now are going to exceed this year’s targets in September, so your goals should change at that time.
So, as a tip, never change or modify the goal based on conditions, as last year was a great example. No one anticipated COVID when January rolled around when we were planning annual goals, but many companies had to change their goals for the year.
What is the strategy?
We review what worked, what did not work, and what needs to be modified. What are those goals? Then, we look at sales and marketing. What are we going to do during the next quarter? What happened? What were the main victories and defeats? And then, in the previous quarter, what were the notable items in the second quarter? And what is the third-quarter pipeline like?
Always ensure we have three to four main goals we focus on every quarter. So, what were the results of those goals? What are the goals of 3/3 quarts?
Then, we look at your leadership plan. How are you doing as a leader? How are you doing in your life plan? Is there any personal news, work-life balance, family news, or work-life balance? What are the trends and market conditions? What are the market conditions, opportunities, and challenges? Those are the components of a really good and solid quarterly strategic plan.
Business systems audit
There are things within your quarterly planning that, when you check at the end, you say you do not want to repeat in your business. So, when analyzing your audit, you should ask yourself: What business tasks do I perform and for which I am personally responsible? What am I doing? How much time per week? Am I still doing that task? Can I delegate in an automated or outsourced way?
If you enter the next quarter to make a strategic plan, I advise you to re-evaluate your entire business. But do this every quarter, and your business will get bigger and bigger every quarter.
I encourage you to look at your plan and goals regularly. So, it is just one of the best practices we should all do as entrepreneurs. It’s called a baseline strategy. And do you evaluate what you did in the previous quarter? In the area of family, spirituality, fun, finances, business, relationship with your spouse or partner, children, friends, or whatever you want to measure your health or fitness? What were the results? Do not lie to yourself. This is the biggest mistake people make: they lie to themselves. They want to manipulate the numbers. And the only thing that hurts you is that it doesn’t affect anyone else.
Last observation
Michael Jordan was the best basketball player of all time, in my opinion. One of his teaching methods was incremental growth. Every offseason, he would go back and watch hours and hours of movies. He made little notes of the little things he didn’t like about his game and where he liked to see improvement.
So, one year later, it was his left hand, and he realized that he was weak with his left hand. It’s like, man if he could improve my left-hand coordination, it would change everything in my game. So he hired a coach and a mentor, and all he did for the entire offseason was work on that left hand. The following year, it was a history training. He’s just been through the whole offseason; he’s worked to develop more strength and flexibility. And every offseason, that’s exactly what he did. Thus, he remained and became the best basketball player of all time.
You and I are going to enter a new neighborhood. Go back and see your game plan in each area of your life in the second quarter and tell me.
