#69 End of Year Planning Prep with Robin Kramer

Tracy Matthews I November 29, 2016

The holidays are officially here, so there’s no doubt you’re super busy with orders and shows.

But all the craziness aside, there’s one other thing you might have forgotten…

Planning for 2017!

I know it seems impossible when you’re already spread so thin but it’s important to take the time now to plan for next year.

Full disclosure, I’m guilty, too!

In the past, I’ve been guilty of getting caught up in the holiday craziness and not making the time to plan for the following year. I always came to regret it and my next year’s trajectory for success was always stifled!

So I REALLY encourage you to look at your numbers and plan for the upcoming year because it’s essential to your jewelry biz success next year.

I know you’re thinking, “I hate looking at numbers.”

And I feel your struggle.

But remember this, analyzing your numbers is going to keep you ahead of the game and on top of 2017 like nobody’s business.

Plus, you can start to make it fun, sort of like a game….to take that pain away. Hey, you might even be pleasantly surprised.

To help you out, I brought in my co-founder, Robin Kramer for this episode.

If you are listening to this in the eve…let’s grab a glass of wine (you’ll see how this plays out in the episode) and jump right into the podcast.

Click here to download the show notes

Evaluate This Last Year

I cannot stress enough how important it is to evaluate the last year of your business. If you have numbers for the last two years, even better.

Look at different parts of your business like overall sales, decreases, increases, wholesale, consignment, events, holidays, and more to get a full view of what’s going on.

But it’s also important not to get too overwhelmed, so keep it simple: start with the metric that is most important to YOU and build on it.

[Check out the checklist below to help you stay on course!]

And don’t worry if you didn’t have a great year. By looking at the numbers, you’ll be able to improve next year.

Set Goals

Once you’ve looked at your numbers, it’s time to set your goals for next year.

Make projections based on your history and set goals for your desired increases for 2017.

…Yep, that was the whole point of the numbers. See how well that works?

From there, you can break your yearly goals into more bite size pieces will help make even lofty goals more attainable. There is a reason that most businesses think in 90 days or quarters! You should too!

Still feeling a little overwhelmed by by all this planning talk?

We've got your back!

The checklist I mentioned outlines every step… and you can download it for free and make 2017 planning easy breezy.

end-of-year-planning-chelckist