Create an impactful annual review for your business or creative work
Hard to believe, but tomorrow we’ll be halfway through the month of December already. The shorter days and longer nights in the northern hemisphere offer a time to reflect, assess, and most importantly, celebrate. (And even if you find yourself in the southern hemisphere where the days and nights are warming or the beach may be calling, the turning of the calendar into a new year invites this same reflection and celebration.)
Your business and your creative work deserve this time too.
The end of the calendar year is a wonderful time of the year to look at all that has happened with your work throughout the past year. To do that in a really special way, I invite you to create a year-in-review for your business. (If you’re more focused on your creative work, I’ve made a review process for that too. Find it at the end of this article.)
In the past, I talked about why this review process can sometimes be difficult for coaches, healers or other creatives, especially if their financials are not where they’d hoped they’d be. In that article, I offer a powerful process to shift your focus and gain fresh insight going into the new year.
And today, I offer a simple way to help you gain a holistic view of your business during the past year.
First, It’s Not Just About the NumberS
This process is about more than just gathering numbers and facts, although that’s part of it. Doing this thorough year-in-review offers you so much more.
First, it gives you the chance to see and look clearly at all that happened during the past year. With so much on your plate and with all that’s going on in the world today, it’s easy to forget all the love and care and tending you’ve given to your business or your creative work. Having the chance to see that all in one place is powerful.
In addition, this also gives you the chance to face the reality of where your work is. It lets you see it for what it is, unshrouded from the wishes of what you want it to be or think it should be. Accepting where your business and creative work are now helps you come into a healthier relationship with them, and facing where you’re at enables better decision making and opens the doorway for so much love.
Your Business Year-in-Review*
A year end business review can be in any format you’d like. And, if you'd like a place to gather and note your information, here’s a simple PDF worksheet that can help. (*See below if you want to focus more on your creative work vs. your business.)
Otherwise, you can simply find your favorite pen and a journal or open a blank document on your laptop - whatever feels most fun to you.
Gather and record the following:
Number of clients served (paid or unpaid or volunteer or family - they're all clients)
Source(s) of clients
Number of discovery/sales/introductory calls conducted
Total income and sources
Total expenses, along with noting any exceptions (such as a one-time or larger purchase like a new laptop or coaching, etc.)
Number of names on your email marketing list (# at the beginning of the year and end)
Networking events, conversations, collaborations started, continued or finished this year
Major projects you started this year to help your business
Examples of things to include here could be: getting coaching/support, re-doing a section of your website, creating a new offer, setting up an email marketing system, creating or revising your cancellation policy, etc.
Any special marketing campaigns or programs you ran
Any courses/books/learning you did for your business
Add in any graphs, stickers or just plain fun graphics
Miscellaneous fun facts about you, your business, your life in business this year
Wrap up with a summary statement from you about your business that includes any insights, feeling states, things of note you want to carry with you into the next year.
Once you've gathered all your numbers, record them. If you're not using the worksheet, or if you’re a little like me and think that design impacts the story, you can have fun formatting, decorating, branding or otherwise creating your presentation.
After all, it’s going in front of the CEO – you! <3
Take Note
Your mind may choose to be unhelpful during this exercise. For example, you might have the thought “Oh my goodness, I only had two payments in the entire month of September! Two!” Or “I didn’t have any new clients for three months!” Or “My email list didn’t grow at all!” All these types of thoughts - and many others - are normal and to be expected.
Remember that you don’t have to change anything about the way you’re feeling as you pull this together. There’s room for it all.
Moving Toward AcceptancE
One of the best things doing a year-in-review helps us with is strengthening a foundation of acceptance. So much of the culture (and marketing) tells you that you should be able to grow your business exponentially and almost overnight. This just isn’t the reality for most coaches, healers and creatives. If you can accept and love your business exactly - exactly - the way it is, right now, you’ll be in a much better position to make resourced decisions about what’s really needed next.
Celebrate
When you finish your review, celebrate!
Celebrate what you did, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Look at and appreciate all that happened in your business, big and tiny. And, invite in compassion for yourself and your business for the things that didn’t happen that you hoped would. And for the things that didn't happen the way you wished they would have.
It’s been a beautiful year – be sure to let your business know how much you appreciate it.
What did you discover doing your year in review? What will carry you forward? I’d love to hear what arose for you.
*Your Creative Year-in-Review
Maybe you’ve been equally or more focused on developing your creativity this past year than your business. If you’re interested in reflecting on what relationship with your creativity looked like this past year, click here for an inspirational checklist and worksheet to help you do just that.