645: 3 Questions To Think Through Before The Fall

It’s summertime… school will be back in session before we know it and the routine will be upon us! So what questions do we need to ask our business BEFORE fall hits? Let’s dive in… I’ve sat in with clients over the last month and summer is always a weird time. It seems like there is a ton of work, but payments are slow coming in, employees lack motivation or are just absent, and we begin to see the sprint towards the holiday season quickly approaching.  So what questions do we need to ask today to prevent chaos down the road? Well, I may not hit all of them today, but I’ll touch on 3 important ones to ask and engage your team with. Where are we in relation to our written down Vision Story? Don’t have a written Vision Story? Well, start there. Touch on the life you want for your family and the things you want in relation to freedom from work. Talk through your business financials, the products and services you need to offer to hit those financials. Walk through the team size and the culture. All of that. And write it down so you can revisit it regularly and stay on track. Already have it written down and documented? Perfect! Now pull it off the shelf and dust it off. Or open up that google drive and open it up. And read through it bullet point by bullet point. Color code it… red/yellow or green. Green means it's done! Accomplished, check it off the list. Yellow… it’s in progress. Red, not started yet. Having a visible representation on the progress is so much better than just a simple reminder. If it’s all red, better schedule some time to get to work!  Things changed over the last 6 months? That’s fine. Adjust, tweak it. It’s your vision. The thing we’re hoping for is when it’s all said and done and we arrive after accomplishing it, let’s be excited and grateful that this is what we wrote down. Not upset because we didn’t place the bullseye exactly where it needed to be.  So, step one, pull out that Vision Story and find out where you are! What are we consistently doing that we need to revisit? This was a question we asked every year in the Young Life world. Sometimes you get stuck in patterns and habits that you never intended to get stuck in. So, look at your team meetings, your production meetings, and any other areas you meet with the team regularly. Are they accomplishing what you want them to accomplish? If not, why not?  Don’t stop there, pull out your dashboards you use to track your cash and finances. Are your percentages right? Do you know your numbers? If not, what else do you need to track? Or do you need to look at them more frequently? Do you need to get better at job costing or forecasting? What help can you pull from your numbers?  Even look at things like your culture calendar? Is it producing the culture your hope for? What do you need to add or take away? This is a great time to start some new habits or engage the team to see what’s working! Ok, now you’ve revisited your vision, you’ve looked at what you’re doing consistently and audited that… What do we need to start now that will make life better at the end of the year? Think about this for a second… most businesses wait for the opportunity to arise instead of doing the work on the front end. They end up missing out on the full effect, simply because they weren’t prepared and ready to take advantage.  Maybe it’s making a hire by the end of the year. Great! Start your hiring process now. Interview multiple candidates. Update the job role. Put the performance metrics together. Add processes to support the role! Maybe it’s knowing your numbers for next year. Great! Start forecasting and job costing now so you have 5-6 months of data to pull from for your budget.  Maybe it’s adding a new sales role or productions role. Great! Add the processes needed to train that role now. That way when you hire or split job roles up, the support is there for them to succeed.  Maybe it’s adding another bank account to your business and starting to file away some cash for the next truck in the fleet or maybe even the next hire. That way you have the cash on hand and don’t have to pull on your line of credit or finance anything and can simply take advantage when the time is right. Thinking through all of this now gets you ahead and allows you to take full advantage of the opportunity. Don’t wait. Don’t let the fall sneak up on you. The next few weeks will go by quickly! You can keep your head down and push through them, or you can take one question a week to think through and prepare for the end of 2023. It’s going to be a great finish to the year… but prepare to completely maximize it. Look over your vision, think through what habits you do consistently, and begin doing now what will make the end of the year better. Hope this is helpful for you! Have a great week