How is your business doing halfway through the year? A midyear review is an opportunity to reflect on the last six months and plan for what's ahead. It's a time to formally evaluate performance, adjust business goals, reallocate resources, and provide clear leadership for your team. An effective review will bring new energy to your business and set you up for a strong second half of the year.
These are some steps to take as part of your midyear review:
Step 1: Conduct a comprehensive accounting review. Even if you monitor weekly or monthly accounting statements, setting aside time for a formal accounting review can help you and your team stay on track with yearly sales goals. Review your six-month profit and loss report and balance sheet. Take a closer look at your bottom performing accounts. Are there opportunities to increase profitability, such as upselling to these clients? Or, should your team shift its focus to maximize other revenue streams?
Step 2: Identify operational savings. As part of your accounting review, consider opportunities to eliminate unnecessary or wasteful business expenditures. For example, are there software or cloud-based programs that your team rarely uses? These programs ' subscription or license fees may seem like a small monthly cost, but costs can add up over the year. Shifting to bulk purchasing for office supplies could be another opportunity for operational savings.
Step 3: Conduct a midyear employee performance review. You may already hold regular one-on-one meetings with your team to track task completion and discuss weekly or monthly priorities. A formal performance review, however, is an opportunity to review your employee's KPIs and provide constructive feedback. Rather than simply assessing if your employee has or hasn't met a sales goal, focus the conversation on discovering how you can eliminate roadblocks to success. For example, maybe your employee would benefit from additional training or mentorship. These needs can be discussed, and an action plan created during the midyear review, helping employees stay on track for a successful year.
Step 4: Review your sales and marketing pipeline. Six months ago, you set clear goals for your business. How close are you to achieving these goals? In addition to looking at finances, your sales and marketing pipeline can provide valuable insight into what's working for your business. Is your marketing generating the desired number of qualified leads? Are you hitting goals for lead conversion, or are there places where leads are getting "stuck" in your sales funnel? Which marketing campaigns have been the strongest performers? You may also wish to consider customer turnover: How successful have you been retaining customers or growing them into larger accounts?
Step 5: Inspire the team for what's next. There's always room for improvement. Even if your team is hitting its sales targets, a midyear review can inspire excellence and uncover new opportunities for success. Be transparent about where the company stands and invite employees to offer ideas. Perhaps there's a tool a competitor uses that your sales team would find helpful. Maybe the marketing department wants to test out a new messaging strategy for reaching your target audience. A company-wide brainstorming session invites everyone to participate and feel a sense of ownership in the company's direction – inspiring employees to strive for greater excellence.
