2019 has just begun, and many of you made New Year’s resolutions to grow your business, get that promotion, get fit, eat healthy, travel more and so on. I bet you did that last year too. And the year before that.
How did it work out for you? Did you find yourself losing interest as other things vied for your time, attention and money?
Are you ready to give yourself a well-deserved pay raise? Or, if you were evaluating anyone beside yourself would you say it’s time to fire that person?
One of the steps I take each January is to look back at the prior year and conduct an in-depth SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym often used in large companies, but it is equally valuable no matter what size of a business you have.
It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. You can use this analysis to look closely at what happened inside and outside of your business.
For instance, one of your personal strengths might be that you are a highly-paid speaker and have more opportunities than you can possibly entertain.
A weakness might be that you haven’t kept up with technology and don’t know how to get yourself noticed by the clients you want to attract, so your business is getting stale and revenue is going down.
During your self-assessment you may look at opportunities and know that there is a book (or two) in you that you should write this year that would help your clients, or you might be ready to add a new service that customers have been asking you for.
Once you complete it, decide if you would give yourself a well-deserved raise – or if you should fire yourself!
4 Ways to do a SWOT Analysis Right
Have you ever sat down with your employees and talked with them about their work performance? That is something that most business owners do (or should do) and the review takes into consideration everything that has transpired over the past year.
When you are sitting next to them with the performance evaluation document in your hand, you don’t just look at how busy they were or how hard they tried or how nice they are; you look at the real results of what they’ve accomplished. Because at the end of the day results are what you are paying for.
You should be just as tough when looking at what you’ve delivered to the business. Even though you own your business, you are also an employee of the business.
One thing I like to do each year is lock myself away in my office, look at the plans I made at the beginning of the year and rate myself a 5 if I knocked it out of the park and a 1 if I didn’t even get much of a start on that specific goal.
You can’t get better if you don’t run your business like a business and set the same expectations for yourself that you would for any other employee you were paying to do the job.
Self-assessments are beneficial in several ways. They provide insight into what you’ve accomplished over the year, how you’ve contributed to your business and what’s working versus what’s not.
- Be honest. You have nothing to gain by lying to yourself or sugar-coating bad results. Be positive and critical where needed.
- Look for ways to improve and educate yourself. Turn every negative experience into a learning experience and make failures goals to accomplish in 2019.
- Use examples and data to back up your evaluation. Did your website traffic or sales increase? How many clients did you gain or lose? How many new followers did you get on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn?
- Review your goals and results often. Don’t wait till January to look back on everything or make changes. By staying on top of how you’re performing, you’ll be able to correct your course quickly if things start getting off track.
Now that you’ve completed your self-assessment, you can set realistic goals for 2019. For instance, if you want to triple your annual revenue, write down what you will be able to accomplish professionally and personally when you have three times as much revenue.
Set goals that are meaningful to you – now is not the time to do the “right thing” that everyone tells you that you should do, or to follow what others are doing in your industry.
FOCUS – SET YOUR INTENTION – AND TAKE ACTION!
Is it time for a performance assessment? Whether it’s personal or for your employees, I can help you increase accountability, provide objective tools, improve success rates and more. Let’s chat today!
Business Leadership, Business Management