Are you on track in your execution plan to achieve your annual goals? If not, you still have 6 months, don’t throw in the towel!
Mid-point in the year is a perfect time to pause and get off-site with your Business Coach and check in on how you are performing against your annual plan. In my coaching practice, I have seen a pattern. About the midpoint of the year, execution begins to break down. Now is the time to assess how you are doing and make changes to get back on track. There is still plenty of time in the year to course correct and finish strong.
Here are 4 areas we focus on with clients in our June (mid-year) planning sessions. If you review these areas and make course corrections as needed, you will execute well, finish the year strong and be more profitable.
1 – Financial goals
Check your actual numbers compared to your goals in the following key areas:
Revenue – Are new clients coming in as planned? Is your pricing holding in the market? Have you lost clients that you didn’t expect? Is the sales team hitting their individual sales goals?
Margin – Is your margin higher or lower than plan? It is important to understand why in either case. If lower, are your costs coming in as expected? Are you falling under price pressure due to competition? If the margin is higher, identify what is happening in the market and exploit that advantage.
Cash Flow – Are you generating the level of cash flow you planned? If not dig into your balance sheet and find out what is happening. Likely suspects are lack of profitability, customers paying slow, vendors with unreasonably short terms and are you harvesting too much profit?
2 – Take inventory of your team
Using the Talent Assesment tool, identify how many A, B, C players you have. Do you have any C players that need to be freed up to pursue positions that are better for them? Do you have any A players that are current flight risks? Are you sure? What additional human resources do you need to finish the year successfully?
3 – Review the “Weaknesses”
Assess your top 5 weaknesses that were identified in your annual SWOT assessment. Are the weaknesses still weaknesses? Are there any new ones? Determine which is the riskiest weakness on the list and focus on minimizing that in the next quarter.
4 – Review your Annual Initiatives
Give your team a grade of Red, Yellow or Green on your Annual Initiatives (Priorities) at the halfway point. Green you are on track, yellow slightly off track but in good shape, Red – seriously behind and needs attention. Any that are Red, stop and course correct.
If you are behind any of your financial goals, dig into the numbers to find out why. If you are behind on any initiatives, what resources (Time, People, Tools, etc…) do you need to invest to get on track. When you are done be sure to document your to-do’s using the WWW execution tool. Invest the time and follow the above 4 steps and finish the year successfully. You still have plenty of time!