The End Of The Year Is Nigh!

So here we are, the last few days of 2019 and the end of the decade. Please don’t write in and tell me I’m a year early, I’m going along with the tabloids here.

Do we count from 0 to 9 or from 1 to 10? Whatever we count it seems easier to say the twenties than the noughties, which to me always sounded a bit naff.

However, I sincerely hope the decade has been kind to you. It hasn’t been kind to lots of big businesses and the high street looks a bit different now. Toys R Us, Toys R Bust. BHS is now British Home Shut. And so on.

It’s good to learn from the mistakes of others, such as missing the internet trend, not investing in shops people want to visit, or massive debt burdens that just won’t go away.

In our own world of business we can reflect too, so here are a smattering of questions to get the old grey matter limbered up for the year ahead.

Here we go…

Q1. What’s one thing you did really well in busines over the last 5 or 10 years?

Q2. What business habit do you need to change?

Q3. How will you invest in your own skill development next year?

Q4. What new product or service will you launch next year?

Q5. Who do you need to network with next year?

My answers to these would be…

Q1. I hired a PA. Having someone else to do the admin has been so helpful because instead of staying home to write up expenses and so on, I use that time to network.

Q2. This is an easy one. I need to block my time more. It’s too easy to start three tasks and finish none. The change I will make is to start and finish one task. I’ve already been practicing this with the mantra ‘just do one thing a day’ and it seems to work. Focus is better than a shotgun approach and over time my todo list is shrinking.

Q3. I’m looking for more therapeutic counselling clients. The training is fun and the work is challenging. The work is also the training too. Let me know if you know someone who’d like some free Skype time.

Q4. Ah well that would be telling. However it’s good to have little side projects and I’m always chatting to people and developing new ideas. One thing I will be doing is making more of my ace leadership programme. Lots of leadership training misses out practical application and my approach is to avoid sheep dip workshops and instead combine three distinct strands of learning. Fun, sticky and practical.

Q5. More SMEs. It’s too easy to forget our target market and stay local. I’ve set a goal of finding and getting to know 5 businesses that employ between 50 and 250 people.

So that’s my end of year reflection and forward thinking. It’s super useful to set a couple of goals to provide a clear direction of travel, otherwise we start scoffing Easter eggs and wonder where the time has gone and what we’ve been doing with it!

How did you get on with my questions?

And finally, thank you for reading my blogs. They are a labour of love and I’m a writer at heart and love to share my skills with the world.

Have a very happy New Year!

Next week: Personal Responsibility Rocks