Published: April 26th, 2019; By: Nick & Judi Hughes
Along with April Showers and spring flowers; April also marks the beginning of the second quarter of the year.
As we close off the month, you should have your first quarter financial results done, making this a really good time to reflect on your year-to-date results.
It’s time to assess your progress and determine changes needed going forward. It’s a good time to take stock and take corrective action in order to meet your plans.
Doing a Quarterly Review and managing changes now, ensures you have time to correct your course and set yourself up for success later in 2019.
Are you on track to achieve your 2019 Goals?
Here’s how you will know for sure if you are on track to achieve your 2019 goals.
Break each of your 2019 goals into quarterly chunks – what do you need to achieve in Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4 in order to achieve the goal?
Then work through these questions:
- If you are on track to meet your 2019 goals, is there anything coming up that might change this? For example, are you going to lose a large client, how will you replace that revenue?
- If you are not on track what needs to change in order to catch-up?
- Are your goals still valid? Are they still realistic? Has anything happened that requires making changes to your goals?
If the goals you set are not working or are consistently causing you frustration in your efforts to achieve them, it’s probably time to re-assess.
Are you achieving your numbers?
Revenue, profit, number of clients; number of new clients, number of leads all are important. Do you know if you are achieving your numbers?
- If you are congratulations. Take this time to consider anything on the horizon that will negatively impact your future numbers. Do you need to act now?
- If you are not on track with your numbers what can you do to correct the situation in the next quarter? What will the overall impact be if this doesn’t change? What do you need to change?
- Based on the results of the first quarter are the 2019 numbers still valid? Are they still attainable? Will you surpass the projected numbers? What is the impact if you do not meet the numbers?
What is working?
List everything that is working. Write them all out. For each answer these questions:
- Why is it working?
- Will it continue to work in the next quarter?
- Can I improve it?
- Is it sustainable?
- Might this change in the future?
What is not working.
Again, list them and then for each ask these questions.
- Why is it not working?
- Will it continue to be a problem if we don’t fix it? Good question! If it is not going to create a problem, maybe you can ignore it!
- Is it going to prevent you from achieving your 2019 Goals? If it is what can you do to fix it? And, by when?
How do you feel about the business?
Even if everything is on track you may have a sense of unease. Don’t discount your hunches or feelings. They too provide insight into what you might need to address moving forward.
If you “feel” a strategy isn’t working and bringing results then it is time to delve deeper to see if your hunch is correct. And perhaps make changes.
Why bother, we’re only 4 months into the year? We’ve got lots of time.
You know more now than you did four months ago. You have 8 months to implement changes to ensure you meet your 2019 goals.
Reassessing your plan now does not mean changing your entire strategy. It means having a greater understanding of where you are so you can prioritize your focus for the rest of the year.
Through this Quarterly Review process, you are able to clearly identify what’s working, where you need to do some catching up, shifts you need to make and what you can drop.
Before you know it, summer will be upon us. A time when it’s tempting to take it easy and put things off until September. By then, you will be more than half-way through the year, and it will be even more difficult to catch up.
Take time now to monitor and manage your plans, you can benefit from the results of immediately implementing necessary changes and you will still have time to enjoy your summer.
