As we enter the new financial year now is the time to set up your business for success!
You may be coming off a year that you would rather forget, maybe there were some failures that you are kicking yourself about or you formed some bad habits that you need to conquer.
So, here are our top five tips on how to leave those bad habits and failures behind and make this year one to celebrate.
1. First up, it’s time to reflect on the financial year that was, what worked well and what didn’t? Now don’t kick yourself over the failures, let’s utilise them as learning opportunities. Finding two to three of the biggest failures or bad habits that you have formed is a great starting point. Once you have recognised the failure or bad habit, take some time to delving into the five W’s: What, Why, Who, Where and When. This helps to get to the core of the failure or bad habit so you can learn from it.
2. Just like your profit and loss statement resets on 1 July so should your business. Celebrate the wins (because you deserve a pat on the back) and release the failures and bad habits. Take the learnings from the wins and failures and move forward.
3. With a clean slate you can start to get creative and set some SMART goals around how to turn those two to three failures or bad habits around. Each goals needs to be:
- Specific – Let’s get granular, what exactly are you trying to achieve?
- Measurable – you need to track your progress so how will you measure it? For instance, if it’s increasing profitability by 10% this might be reviewing your profit and loss statement regularly to track profitability.
- Attainable – make sure the goal is achievable, no pipe dreams here otherwise it can be demotivating.
- Relevant – does this goal align to your ‘Why’?
- Time bound – set a target date for completion, ie, one month, one year, etc.
Having a mix of quick-win goals, ie, the low-lying fruit that is easy to achieve and big-bang goals is preferable. The big bang goals are those that take more resources, cash, and time. Make sure also to visualise it and write it down.
4. Now is the time for ACTION! What do you need to make these SMART goals come to life? This could be manpower, resources, equipment, cash. Whatever it is you need to be able to achieve the goals.
If you are low on manpower you need to think smart. Can you utilise the support networks around you, such as industry associations, network connections, or the community? Getting help from your accountant and advisor to achieve these actions can also be helpful. Consider them the ghostwriter to your financial story. You tell them what you want your next chapter to be, and they will help write it coupled with actions that you can take to get there.
You could also look to implement technology and automations to find efficiencies and cost savings. Review what manual repetitive tasks you are doing to see if they can be automated with technology such as moving to cloud technologies like Xero and Hubdoc to automate some of your bookkeeping or integrating your software, so you aren’t rekeying the same information into different software products.
Be consistent with the actions towards your goals, it’s the silent superhero, don’t be turned by the bright shiny lights.
5. Last but not least, remember to celebrate your successes. Plan your reward ahead of time. Setting achievement markers to celebrate also helps to get you to the bigger goals.
Now go forth and turn those failures into your greatest success stories. Good luck!
