If your business fiscal year follows the calendar year, then today is your last day of Q1, which means it’s time for you to assess your Q1 results.
Now, for those of you who are in the initial phases of starting your business, you may be saying to yourself, “Katrina, I don’t have a business so I don’t have a fiscal year.” Oh, yes you do! You may not be generating revenue yet, but you have a fiscal year, you have financials you need to review, you have other KPIs you need to review.
Step 1: if you haven’t scheduled this time on your calendar, block off time on your calendar next week to review your Q1 results. You probably already have time to review March, but give yourself some extra time to review both the month of March and Q1. I would recommend at least an hour.
Step 2: have your data ready. Whether you are generating revenue or not, you have KPIs. For those of you who are in the early planning stages of your business, your KPIs are timelines and deadlines on things like building relationships, finalizing your target audience, having critical conversations with loved ones, finalizing your niche, creating your legal entity, etc. All of these activities are KPIs in that they are measurable events that impact your business. The key metric you do have from a financial perspective is expenses. You will spend money before you make it. Are you staying within budget?
If you are running your startup or growing your company, your KPIs are a combination of personal and company deadlines. Rework this marketing package, or hire this new team member, etc. for example while you also have key business metrics like sales, profit, taxes, cash flow, customer feedback, etc.
Everyone wants to look at financials as the most important commodity and in the business world, you are right. We live and die by the financial numbers. But in the overall life world, time is your most precious commodity. You need to measure how well you used your time, how well you delivered on your timelines, and how effective your time was spent so that you can adjust and course correct, just as you would if your financials were not hitting the mark.
Step 3: This is how you analyze your Q1, monthly, annually, etc. business results. You look at money AND time. You rate yourself honestly as to how you did in each area, and you put plans in place to keep getting better. And then you take action! Step 3 is taking action.
Drop me a note or let me know in the Facebook group how you delivered on your March and Q1 targets. I want to celebrate with you and help you move forward.
Be Legendary!