Business planning and creating strategies take a long time, so as a business owner, you only want to do it once a year or every six months. But, doing that could be holding your business back. Reviewing every aspect of your business on a regular basis can help you identify what is working and what is not and make changes quickly.
How Often Should I Review Things In My Business?
Once a month is a good amount of time for a review. It gives you enough time to implement the change and gather enough data to make a decision. If you review things too frequently, you may be making decisions based on anomalies or just spending way too much time reviewing aspects of your business. If you review things less frequently, then you risk letting things that are damaging your business run for too long. Monthly reviews still allow you to pivot quickly and make tweaks.
When you review aspects of your business, you may take one of the following actions:
- Scrap something entirely and try something new
- Make tweaks
- Leave it to gather more information
- Leave it because it’s working
What Should I Review in My Monthly Reviews?
You should review most things, if not everything. Ask yourself if what you are reviewing is getting you closer to your goals.
Let’s say for example, the goal of your social media strategy is to convert more of your following to buyers. Track the data to see how many people are following the link in your social media bio to go to your website or to your product pages. If you have seen no change or a decrease after a month, then your social media strategy might not be working. You have the choice of making tweaks or scrapping it altogether.
If you see an increase but not quite what you wanted, then you might decide to wait for another month to see if you can gather more information or make tweaks to see if little changes will work.
Compare your business strategies to your goals, both your overall business goals and your goals for that particular business strategy. This should be the only thing you compare your business strategies to. It doesn’t matter what other people are doing because their goals may be different. Your goal for your social media strategy might be to create a small following of loyal customers and warm prospects. Another person’s social media strategy might be to gain as many followers and eyes on their profile as possible. For them, their social media page may be the first step in a customer funnel. You just can’t compare your social media strategy to theirs because you are making decisions based on different things. It makes perfect sense for them to make reels based on trending sounds or subjects, but that would make zero sense for you.