If you want to be the best you can be and build the best business you can, then the “review” is an essential part of your development process.
As a SME Business Owner, reviewing your own performance, reviewing how your business is doing overall, as well as in the different functions, and reviewing your teams’ performance (overall and as individuals) are all vital to success.
Often the review part of the process is missed because a lot of the time Business Owners are rushing to the next thing, or if they are reviewing, it’s not been done robustly enough to get the benefit from it.
It’s likely that this vital step is missed or done badly because it is undervalued. Maybe it’s seen as a waste of time when there is so much going on. “Why bother?” is often the thought (if it’s thought about at all), especially when that time has gone now, it’s the past and it can’t be changed!
There are many reasons why this is one of the most powerful steps in our coaching process with our one to one clients. We start every session with a review whether that be:
- At the beginning of the first ever session with them where we review their progress and challenges with the business so far and their current scenario
- At the beginning of every session thereafter to review their progress in between sessions and check on their implementation of actions agreed and homework set
- At the end of the agreed coaching programme to see what they have achieved as a result of it and feed into their future plans
Why should you review?
If you don’t have a coach to help you to review then we suggest you make a commitment to review for yourself. But why? Reviewing enables you to:
- Learn from your past failures and analyse issues so that you can avoid making the same mistakes again
- Unearth solutions that you can utilise going forward
- Celebrate your successes and build confidence through the sense of achievement gained – often people feel like they haven’t achieved much until they look back at how far they have come
- Gain insight into your own way of doing things; what works, what isn’t serving you well, how to improve your own performance to get better results
- Predict future progression (unless change is planned)
- Gain the insight needed for effective and focused planning such as identifying what resources are needed to take things to another level
What might you review?
There are many things you might review and it’s for you to decide which are appropriate and will add value, though you may not know until you’ve tried it:
- A marketing campaign or strategy
- A specific project
- How you have worked with your key clients
- Your business plan (Your business plan shouldn’t be in the bottom draw never to be seen again but a living document you review and tweak regularly)
- Individual team members performance against set targets
- Your finances; how you are managing them, your current position and your finances against your future plans
And so on……
When to review?
As the review is often forgotten it is important that it becomes a part of your routine. Success in business is a lot about your rhythm and the routine you get into. It takes effort and commitment to habitually factor a review in at the important times.
It could be that you set a rhythm of a yearly review, then a quarterly review, then monthly reviews so that you are always gaining the learning needed for continuous improvement.
It could be that you have a standard process of reviewing every project or campaign.
It could be that you have agreed reviews with your clients, which in fact can often lead to more business!
It’s for you to identify what you need to be reviewing and then deciding how often and when those reviews should take place.
How to review?
If you don’t have a coach to help you review then it’s important that you set the time aside to think about how this can work for you.
Some people are very self disciplined and can do this themselves after a bit of planning for it. Whereas others may need some support. If that’s you, you could think about who you know that you can talk openly about your business and ask them if you can go through it with them. Maybe you could give them an idea of some of the questions you want them to ask you and request that they simply ask them and probe further without giving too much input as it’s about you exploring it and not them trying to tell you what they think you should do!
Finally you could sign up for our FREE BUSINESS REVIEW GUIDE here which will help you get going with a review on your last year.
