The end of the year is a natural time for leaders— especially small-business owners—to start looking at the big picture: determining how their companies fared over the past twelve months and planning for the ones ahead.

While there are many strategies for doing so, you can use this comprehensive guide as a foundation for grading your success and establishing challenging goals for 2025.

Run an end-of-year financial report

Nothing provides a better picture of your organization’s health than fiscal data. To begin your review, print accounting reports that quantify core figures, including income sheets and balance and cash-flow statements. Be sure to employ a tool like QuickBooks or FreshBooks to help you analyze income, profit, expense, and sales volume trends throughout the year, or request these insights from any outsourced accounting services you utilize. Naturally, such info will largely determine how successful your company was in 2024.

Now it’s time to qualify the data by identifying and understanding the factors that led to your overall revenue this year. Check consumer reviews across multiple platforms or conduct customer surveys, either of which will reveal public perception of your business. Highlight areas that may need improvement, such as your delivery times or customer service. Additionally, compare your and your competitors’ pricing to gauge how appealing and lucrative your strategies have been. Assessing these areas can help you not only understand how successful you were this year but also plan for improvements that will make your organization more competitive. 

Probe your costs

Review your principal expenses, starting with sourcing and utilities. Determine what portion of your assets is attributed to these costs and how you can be thriftier with them. For example, you could negotiate lower delivery prices from a wholesaler, referencing your consistent loyalty. Such efforts to slash burdensome expenses can ensure that you maximize profits in the coming year.

Afterward, assess your personnel, who collectively represent another tremendous expense. Evaluate your staff to decide which members, particularly commissionbased employees, are the greatest assets to your organization and which may be less productive. Don’t be rash with cutting these individuals—with a little time investment or instruction, you could guide low performers toward increased profitability. However, you can also develop a game plan for recruiting new talent who will move the needle forward. Just as important, determine how you might reward high performers to boost retention. When you conduct reviews of your staff, you can determine how well these investments are paying off.

Examine marketing KPIs

Marketing is among the most necessary categories on your expense report, so dedicate a review session to determining exactly how successful your efforts have been. Calculate your overall ROI by deducting your total marketing expenses from your net income. Then review key performance indicators that quantify consumer interaction with your marketing, such as your website page views, social media engagement, and campaign impressions. You can find this data in your marketing software; Google and individual social media platforms also offer analytics tools that can help you compile crucial data points.

Once you examine these figures in detail, consider routes to boost your ROI, such as running omnichannel campaigns or posting more compelling social media content. If necessary, seek assistance from an ad agency or marketing expert to augment your strategies and boost engagement.

Acknowledge your accomplishments

While it’s essential to cast a critical eye toward the prior quantitative data, you should also give yourself some well-deserved credit for your accomplishments from 2024. Perhaps you expanded your service areas, shattered your revenue goals, or onboarded some impressive new talent. Even risks that didn’t pay off offer dividends in lessons learned. So before you look ahead, take time to reflect on every major development of the year, both positive and negative.

Brainstorm for 2025

Now that you’ve compiled fundamental data about your business and noted your accomplishments, it’s time for the final, arguably most exciting step: planning for the new year. Start by writing a dream sheet, on which you’ll record your top motivating factors, goals for your organization, and new horizons you want to explore. Could you leverage new technology to boost productivity.

TAKE ACTION:
Dedicate time to grading your business in all the preceding areas, then brainstorm compelling goals for the new year to make greater progress