The end of the year is a good time to regroup, refocus, and realign with your vision of how you want your business to be.  But, how do you start planning?

Look at these four questions.

What has worked?

What's worked well?  Think about sales, marketing, systems, processes; what has generated the most results or made the most difference.  These are likely to be your priorities going forward.

What didn't work?

Learn from hindsight and mistakes.  What marketing strategies flopped?  Why?  What products aren't selling, and do you know why?  What have you learned from the challenges over the last year?

What could be done better?

It is important to know why something doesn't work; the product may be good but the sales process may be crap.  Are there opportunities to be had if done better?  Look for ways to improve, say, a sales script so it emphasises the customer benefits of use, not its features.

What does the market tell you?

Which products are popular, who is buying from you, why do they buy from you and not someone else, why do they need your products, what feedback do you get?  Do you know the number of customers (even in a week), do they come back regularly, has the value of the average transaction increased?

Having some clarity on these lets you know where you need to focus your efforts, how to be strategic and targeted with your marketing, and how you can measure success.

More on the 'how to' soon.