There are more than 50 productive business days left to make things happen and hit those 2018 goals. You need to assess what could have done differently and how things for the next year can improve. In order to have a stellar fourth quarter, it’s essential to line yourself up for success. Consider these strategies to ensure that you’re finishing the year off right on a high note.
Re-evaluate your business goals
You should set SMARTER goals. SMARTER stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timeliness, Evaluation, and Reevaluation. A goal is useless without evaluation, then reevaluation.
Re-evaluate your goals for you to identify where you are making progress to respond to new opportunities and trends, and where you are lagging behind to allow resources to be redistributed. You need to compare your sales with the results from the previous quarters to see if you are making positive progress, and the amounts of your business expenses to make sure that your costs are not trending upward without economical basis. Remember that as your goals change, so will your ideas of success. Do your homework. No one else will.
Take advantage of the inflow of work
When business is good, your business should create and execute growth plans. Extreme growth is a good problem to have, so long as you’re prepared for it. As the saying goes, “when it rains, it pours.”
So carefully consider how each situation would impact your business in terms of employees, resources, and so on. Don’t sacrifice the high-quality service or products that brought you success in the first place.
If you suddenly get thousands of orders, are you prepared? Perhaps now is also a good time for software improvements or replace the aging computer system. Prepare for success before it happens.
Start planning for next year
Careful planning is important to sustained business success. It defines winning for the next 12 months. A good plan requires information regarding your sales, costs, and other financial figures.
Check your income and expenses for this year, use a variance analysis to review your budget. If your numbers differed from your forecasts, find out why. Evaluate your sales reports by more than just gross volumes and revenues. Identify which products or services did best, which locations generated the most sales and what marketing efforts generated the most return.
Once you’ve examined your progress and identified the key growth areas that you want to target, it’s time to revisit your business plan and make it a roadmap for your business next year.
Check in with your accountant
In a real estate company, the assets would be the net worth of the real estate, the liabilities would be the amount owed on the properties; net assets would be properties owned outright and the company’s liquid cash in the bank. Revenues would be the money received in rents, while expenses would be the upkeep and maintenance of the real estate, property taxes and other expenses such as electric utilities, sewer, and water services. Finally, gains and losses would be the end result of all the rents received versus all of the money spent on expenses, taxes and property upkeep, as well as the salaries.
You should really get familiar with the general accounts of your business, these consist of assets, liabilities, net assets, revenues, expenses and gains, and losses. You can check in with your accountant to discuss and understand this.
What are your plans this quarter? How are you preparing? Share in the comments below!
