Setting Strategic Objectives for the New Year
We talk about strategic objectives a lot (because they’re so important), and even a bit about how to refresh them quarterly. But the end of the year is a great opportunity for a big reset or refresh to get ready for the new year ahead—for you and for your clients as their consultant. So, let’s talk about setting strategic objectives for the new year!
Financial Stability
Financial stability means that your finances stand alone and your business activities are well-protected.
As a strategic consultant, this is a great opportunity to have a year-end financial review with each client. You want to go over things like contracts, insurance coverage, and any outstanding accounts receivable, as well as making sure everything is categorized appropriately. (We covered this in detail in this blog post.)
If I’m doing this financial review with my clients in December, I’ll pull a preliminary financial view from QuickBooks or my dashboard and review that with the client. That gives us pretty solid information through November, and sometimes a bit into December. We’ll do a deep dive to make sure nothing is surprising and that things are recorded in the right period. This goes back to tax strategy, as well, and maximizing deductions.
This kind of financial housekeeping puts our business house in order so that we can start to think about the future. We can start to think and dream about what we want to achieve in the new year, and start setting some goals within the rest of our strategic objectives.
Ready to move beyond traditional financial reports? Check out our Download n’ Done financial dashboard templates to get started with your own automated dashboard in minutes!
Product Innovation
Product Innovation goals revolve around making sure your core offers are clear and you’re innovating new solutions to serve your customers better. As you’re setting your good, better and best sales goals for the new year, think about who you could reach out to in order to help you reach them:
Are there any partnerships that you could lean on? Think about what specific past clients you could contact to say, “Hey, here’s what’s new with me…what’s new with you?”
What coffee chats could you have?
Is there someone in an adjacent industry you could connect with? With that person, you could tell them about what offers you have going on and find out what they’re offering so that possibly you could give each other referral business.
Let’s make a list of those people to reach out to and share support with in Q1, and some associated mini-goals (1 reach-out per week)
Visibility/Marketing
Visibility and marketing involve staying connected with your customers and providing them with real value. We can talk about strategies and tactics all day long, but what I really want to focus on in this new year are those opportunities to form personal relationships.
A lot of people are surprised to find that they’re more visible than they realized, because of the relationships they’ve formed. Think about all the places where you’re visible…Facebook groups, LinkedIn comments you’ve made, courses or programs you’ve taken, podcast interviews you might have done, or a host of other places. Brainstorm that for yourself.
Now that you’ve come up with that list, ask yourself if it’s consistent with your vision. If you’re trying to move to a product-based business but you’re on coffee chats without an objective, it’s not going to work.
Professional Growth
What have you learned and how have you grown as an agency owner this year? The end of the year is an ideal time for self-reflection. Natalie Gingrich of The Ops Authority has an excellent podcast where she talks about how to reflect on your accomplishments for the year. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend listening to it.
As a consultant, this is also a good way to reflect with your client on how much their business has grown over the year (and, incidentally, how much you’ve helped them realize that growth). It’s a non-bragadocious way to show your value, because it’s focused on their growth instead of being the “me” show.
Customer Experience
Good customer experiences revolve around making them feel that you’ve over-delivered on what you promised. Everyone’s different with how they prefer to handle the end of the year. Some people like to give gifts as a standard practice. If I haven’t touched my client with a unique gift during the year, I like to do that at the end of the year with a credit on an invoice. If you choose to give a gift, it doesn’t have to be a tangible or purchased one; a handwritten note goes a long way. What’s a special touch that you could give to your clients?
While you’re thinking about your clients and how you served them this year, think about how to improve that in the coming year. Are there systems or processes you’d like to improve next year to make their experience even better?
Operations Optimization
To optimize operations so that your business functions smoothly and easily as it grows, consider doing a systems audit. List out the systems (tools/software) you’re using. If you can’t remember them all, look through your expenses to see what you’re paying for. Another place you can check, thats even more all-inclusive, is LastPass.
When you have your list, rank them. Which are your top 5?
Are there things that aren’t working for you? Are there things that you’re using but not that much (so maybe you can back off a bit and reduce them)? For example, I was using Trello, Slack, Voxer, and email to manage project communication. I combined everything into Samepage so I only have to log in once (and only occasionally use Voxer/email).
Team Growth
Do you need more people on your team to grow your business or increase the impact of your services? Even if you’re a solopreneur, is there a specialist you can work with?
If you’re not sure, here’s a good exercise: brain dump everything you’re doing; and then use a system to rank them. What things do you have to do yourself vs what could you delegate to someone else?
For instance, no one can replace you on a podcast; but someone else can do some of the visibility stuff.
Once you have that sorted out, look at the list of things you could have someone else do. See if you can categorize those things into buckets of similar tasks, like administrative, accounting, social media, and so on. The more things you have in one category, the more you might consider hiring someone to take care of those things for you. Ashley Cox of SproutHR has a great article called Who Should I Hire First? that will help you think through this.