planning
Analyze, Set Goals, & Plan for 2024
Happy New Year! Now that the busy holiday season is in the rear view, it is a good time to take some time to relax and reflect on the previous year to begin planning for 2024 (if you haven’t already done so). I have created a quickstart planning guide with tools to help your through your planning process.
With most of the clients I work with taking a month or two off during the winter months, I encourage you to take this time to plan for the busy season, because we all know that once the season kicks in there’s no time for reflecting, analyzing, planning or making any significant changes to the business.
Analysis
To get started, it’s important to take a look back at what happened in 2023 to what worked, what didn’t and discover opportunities for 2024. It’s also a good time to reflect personally about your business and think about where you would like to be focusing your time and energy and think about how making changes that support your vision will impact your business.
This is a basic guide to review your sales, understand where the bulk of your business is coming from and evaluate your expenses to plan for profitability. For starters, I’ve created a very basic sheet looking at overall sales, top category sales or, depending on your business, channels of business (online vs. store) or different segments (private events or dine-in) and expenses. If you’re a data junky like me, once you get started analyzing these aspects of your business, you’ll discover a lot of interesting facts about your business. If data analysis is not your thing, I’m happy to help in any way!
Analyzing your business information is a good gut check against what you perceive is happening in your business (or, sometimes a check on what you wish was happening with your business). Analysis is a good balance of data and what you instinctively believe about what is happening in your business.
Also take time to think about all of the external factors that may have impacted your 2023 season: economic factors, social factors, weather impacts, etc.
Get to know your customer: where do they live, what brings them to your business, what are their expectations, what experiences can you provide that set you apart, what will make them want to come back, or shop online. If your systems provide analytics about where your customers are coming from that will be valuable information in planning for the future.
After completing this exercise, you’ll be prepared to begin seting goals and plan for your 2024 business.
Goals
Now that you’ve reflected on what happened in 2023, what worked, and what you would like to focus on for 2024, it’s time to set some goals. Take time to allow your self to picture what success or fulfillment looks like to you.
Carefully consider goals after visualizing what success looks like and set a plan in place to understand why you are setting the goal, how it will impact your business, customers, team, vendors and you! Have a realistic understanding of the resources needed to achieve each goal. It is also important to note how you will measure these goals and follow-through with progress on a regular basis.
Consider what it will take for you to achieve these goals, and craft the goals in a way that is concrete, easy to measure and has a positive impact on your business.
Planning
So, now that you know what has happened in the previous year, and you have some goals and plans for 2024, you’ll be able to set a monthly plan. I like to look at sales for each month compared to the previous year and set a percentage increase (hopefully) or decrease (if you will be closed for a period of time you weren’t in the previous year or anticipate some other external factors that will negatively impact your business). Add notes to support your theory of an increase or decrease to help plan.
It is important to note that this is a live document, meaning that as we go through the year and things change, you can and should update the plan based on factors that are impacting the business. A good plan is fluid and flexible and is something you should be continually monitoring and adjusting so you maintain a good understanding of what you want to achieve and what is actually happening. Monitoring the plan also allows you to notice changes and be proactive in your approach rather than noticing changes too late without any time to shift gears.
My Goals
One of my goals for 2024 is to be more helpful to you, so let me know how I can help! I plan to post regular tips and tricks on the Birch Co. website throughout the year: beginning with this planning guide and followed with a content calendar shortly. Other tips and tricks in the works are product photography, branding, and more. Please let me know if there are topics you would like me to cover.
