10 Steps to Creating a Terrific New Year

As the year draws to an end and you bring in that last bit of revenue for 2007 a focus should be towards the future. With every new year approaching, my partner and I like to make up a goal sheet to really kick off the upcoming year.

Unfortunately, this year my partner is in India for his brother’s wedding so I will be left to my own devices to come up with this list. Of course we will discuss it when he gets back but in the mean time it still has to be done.

Being that I have to do this all alone this year I have devised some strategies to make it the best list ever. Here are the steps to creating a great new year.

1. Reflect. The most important part to me is reflection on the year past. This does not mean figures and charts. This means your personal assessment of how you did for the year as an entrepreneur. Customer services, speediness, efficiency, growth, fulfillment of goals, personal fulfillment. All these on a general level are what need to be taken in first.

2. Compile Data. Start by collecting all your data from 2007. This doesn’t just mean total revenue. This means amount of projects, clients, leads, lead-to-client convergences, sales, tax deductions, website hits, hits-to-lead convergences, and on and on. Every aspect of data you can collect will be beneficial.

3. Organize Data. Once everything is put together, you need to separate and make a flow of all the parts and how they fit together. This can be done in numberous ways but I will most likely take the general data and put it in a spiderweb format in my notebook.

4. Analyze. This is different than reflecting because instead of making a mental assessment you are making conclusions directly (and only) from the presented data. This allows you to see how your goals and reflections played out in the numbers games.

5. Conclude. Take your reflections, data, and analysis and put them together to come up with a conclusion of how the year went. Take into account what you tried to accomplish, how close you got (or how far you bypassed), and how you could have done better. Accounting for your failures and successes simultaneously will allow you to act better next year.

Now it is time to think to the future.

6. Make Goals. Yearly goals are important to give direction and make success in a company. You cannot get anywhere without knowing the direction you need to head to get there. Take the time to make goals that show where you want to be exactly one year from now. Take into account how far you went last year and then figure how far you can grow in the next year.

7. Make a plan. For each goal you have, a plan of action is needed. Break it down into what needs to be done (ex. create new design team), what will be needed to do it (ex. new machinery or technology), and what it will take to accomplish (ex. capital investment).

8. Find Problems. There are a million and one ways your plan can go wrong. Take the time to create contingency plans and backups for all the little and big things that can go wrong. Make sure your budget is prepared for problems. They will most likely occur.

9. Double Check. Check all your stats, figures, resources, means, etc. again and figure out if your goals are definitely feasible. If not, fine tune it to make it a well working and reachable plan of action. Also have others you trust check it over to see if they think it is worthy.

10. Make Fireworks. When you have everything ready, then you can start the show. If you plan well, the fireworks will most likely go off just as they should.

Photo by Naomi Ibuki