Donna: If you want to show up stronger and with a better work-life balance in 2022, you first need to identify where you can make some positive changes, objectively review your business before you can future focus on your ideal lifestyle. This is where a comprehensive business check is important to identify areas for positive change.
It's an exercise and an activity that has helped so many of my clients. So on the podcasts today, I'm going to go through the six core pillars of business success in the form of a business health check and why you should be doing it quarterly, if not on an annual basis. If you've never done a business health check before, if you don't know where to start, when it comes to reviewing the health of your business, the good news is I have you covered my friend, this week, on the state of the 25th of November, I'm presenting a 60 minute workshop style webinar. That features a business health check. Plus we'll be unpacking the year that was taking the lessons from it and letting go of the negativity. We're going to set some new boundaries to support your fresh new goals and put it all together on a one-page plan.
This is for new business owners wanting to hit the ground running. And it's also for established business owners who are ready for a fresh start. It will be recorded. So if you can't make it live, you can watch the recording. And I've got a special bonus for those who register. It's called reflect recharge and plan for 2022.
And you can grab your ticket at my website, donnahann.com/reflect. Let's get into the podcast. And let me tell you about why doing a business health check is so important.
So we're coming close to the end of the year, which is the perfect time to reflect on the year that has been. Vision set goals for the year ahead and make some changes that you can use to shape your business, to be a heart-centered business, aligned with your values. I'm really, really big on creating a heart centered work-life blend.
And you might be thinking, Donna, what is that? What does that mean? Well, a heart centered work-life blend is when your core values are infused through your business structure, with the choices that you make, the goals you set and the aspirations that you have, and these values are a way of being or a belief that we hold most important.
Renee Brown has a quote. She says, if we are clear about the values that guide us in our efforts to show up and be seen, we will always be able to find the light. If you are honest with yourself, when you ask the question, am I happy with my work-life blend? Is the balance where I want it to be? Am I equally present with my business as I am with the people who mean the most to me? And does my busy-ness afforded me the freedom to rest and reconnect with myself to recharge my batteries?
If you'll answer to any of those was no, then perhaps your work-life balance might need a bit of a shake up. And a really good place to start is with a business health check and a lifestyle health check. A client of mine came to me, I guess it was about 12 months ago and she was feeling completely drained.
Stress and anxiety was a daily experience for her. And she was on the brink of closing the doors to her business, our starting point in working through where she was at and where she wanted to go was a detailed business health check. Not only did this help me as her business coach to really understand where I could help her.
But it also helped her to see clearly the things that were causing her, the overwhelm. And then what we did was we went through a series of coaching sessions where we mapped out her vision, which aligned to our core values. And then she started to take action on the areas that were lacking structure.
And she made some really positive changes. She's now a thriving entrepreneur and she's loving the work-life blend that is now her new normal. And the reason that I wanted to share this story with you is because, one of the biggest mistakes that business owners make is not taking the time to review their business.
She had not reviewed her business and she didn't have a strategy, but once she started to do that, she started to get that clarity. She started to see where she could make some really big steps forward in reshaping, what her business outcomes were. It was really impactful for her. She had this strategy that we created together that she would have otherwise given up on because it all had seen too hard, too.
When I look back on my previous businesses and the very early days of my current bricks and mortar business Dance Kix, I was like a captain without a map or a telescope. And I was steering a ship that was traveling why faster than I could manage. And although I had an idea of what I was trying to create, I didn't have a clear vision or a map to guide me to my destination.
If you fast forward five years. Now, when I look at my business, I have this beautiful multi six-figure business that runs without me micromanaging my team. And it's set up in a way that really allows me to unplug when I need to. And I did that through careful planning, goal setting, and by reviewing my business on a regular basis.
So how do you go from, one thing to the next, without really reviewing where you're at. And I want to ask you that question. Do you go from one thing to the next, without questioning what you do or why you're doing it? Do you assess the things that you're doing? Are you taking your vision that you have for your business and I actually doing the things that are in line with that?. Are you creating the life and the business that you really want? Have you ever gotten to the point where you feel lost or you don't know where to start to get back on track? Maybe this is what you're feeling right now at the end of a pretty crazy year.
I really insistent on the importance of planning because when you have clarity within your business, you gain power. And this is why reviewing the cool areas within your business, doing an audit or a sort of like a dashboard review is a really great way to get clarity and then power up for the new. The business health check that I use, and I share with my clients is about being really honest with where your business is at and that my friends can be a little bit confronting. To look at the areas of your business that are not going so well, but let me tell you this, every, every single business has areas that need improvement. And continuous improvement is something that should never be overlooked.
So by doing this activity, the aim is not to make you feel like an underachiever or make you feel like you're not made to be a business owner. What we're doing together is shining a light on the opportunities that you have right in front of you. It's acting on these opportunities that will move you closer to the life and the business that you deserve to have.
So if this is of interest to you, if you're interested in checking out the business health check that I'm talking so much about, I am including it in the workbook for the webinar that I'm running later this week. It's uh, uh, what's awesome about having access to the workbook is that you can use it over and over again.
The link to join the webinar is in the show notes, but if you want to jump in and grab a spot before the 25th of November. Then you can jump into my Instagram bio or go to donnahann.com/reflect right now to grab your ticket. Make sure you do it before the 25th of November, because obviously that's when the webinar's happening.
So I want to give you a quick rundown on the six core pillars of business that ultimately shape your business. The first one is business planning and professional development. As business owners, we need to continually evolve for a number of different reasons. We need to keep our edge, either establish yourself as the go-to in your area or remain as the go-to business in your local area or industry for whatever it is that you are offer.
The other reason why being in business and not evolving is so dangerous is because we need to continually improve what we do and how we do it. And we also need to keep ourselves inspired and fresh and engaged. I group business planning and professional development together because evolving your business to grow requires careful planning.
And as the leader as the visionary, you need to be leveling up your edge all the time. So that's the first part. That's the first core pillar of business.
The second one is finances. So no brainer, right? Knowing exactly. Where your business's sitting financially is really vital, but this is the area that people often put on the bottom of the Stu list.
And I used to be guilty of this, and maybe you are guilty of this right now, but speaking from experience, when you get really familiar with your numbers, You will grow your profit because what you focus on gets done. And this was certainly the case for my client that I was just telling you about before, when she realized how much money she was losing.
When we did this business health check, we were able to then work together to look for the whole. And plug them up so that she could hold onto that revenue that she was losing. But we also were able to look at creating new revenue streams to help increase their profit budget. If you can't tell me what the health of your cashflow is, right.
If you can't tell me what your revenues was or your profit was from the previous year, then this is a red flag for you. Perhaps you need to spend more time and pay more attention to this area of your business. And if you don't know how to really dig into that area, then reach out and get some support, learn how to manage your business finances. It's super important.
The third one is looking at your products, programs, and services. So these are all the things that you offer within your business. It could be merchandise, it could be highways, toys, food. It could be more like services. If you offer classes or events or workshops, maybe you do photography packages or entertainment, or maybe it's programs that are delivered over a length of time.
Maybe you've got a bit of a mix within your business. We need to review the quality. We need to review the variety. And also we need to make sure that they are meeting your customer's expectations.
Alright, next sales and marketing marketing is really the key ingredient that your business needs to thrive, and survive.
Sales and marketing go hand in hand. You guys knows that, know this, and it should really be a big focus within your business because we need to be consistently bringing new leads and new sales into your business to get that growth in that wealth, that you would have say.
Effective marketing is driven by bold branding. It's driven by consistency and showing up all the time. And also by knowing your ideal customer avatar, making sure that you've got a marketing strategy, that you've got a sales funnel that you've got client onboarding and referral strategies as well.
My second last one is operations and executions now.
If you've listened to my podcast before, or if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you would know that I love systems and processes. The reason why is because they do three things for business owners, firstly, they ensure that there is quality and consistency in the delivery of how you do what you do.
Secondly, it allows opportunities to scale your business. You can delegate, you can outsource. And the third part is that you can create systems and support structures within your business, which will ultimately become the insurance policy for your business. Now, what I mean by this is if you need to step away from your business at short notice, say for example, for an emergency or. If you have planned a holiday, like amazing, you should definitely be planning holidays. That's part of having freedom within your business, right? If you want to be able to do those things, then you need to make sure that you've got your operations within your business documented systems and processes.
The reason this is so important is because you want to be able to step away from your business whenever you feel the need to, or at short notice for an emergency and everything, is there ready for your team to implement. They can read through your procedures. They can look at how to operate your business and do it, just as well as if you were the one doing it, that adds value to your business, if you ever want to sell it. But it also means there is a very, very high level of consistency for your customers. And it doesn't matter whether it's you doing the work or somebody else.
And the last piece of this puzzle is team and leadership.
If you are a one-woman show, or if perhaps at the moment you currently don't have a team, but you would like to have a team. This is how does the business health check, which is really worth considering, especially if you want to leverage growth revenue and freedom within your business. Having a team is one of the biggest assets that you can add to build scalability within your business.
So those in a nutshell are the six core pillars. Success when it comes to running a business. So if you want to go from being an overwhelmed entrepreneur to becoming a thriving entrepreneur, it does really start with this activity in the business health check. And then what I do. Is I pair this up with the next activity that we do during the webinar or the next activity that we do.
If you're a private coaching client of mine, where we look at the eight areas of your life, and we ensure that you're making choices and you're setting goals and boundaries that have you living a heart centered, work life blend. So that being said, I hope I've got you fired up to join me this week in the Reflect, Recharge and Plan for 2022 webinar.
It's my step-by-step method. That has been a work in progress for me for about three years. Now. I do it myself every year. And I honestly, I wouldn't be here banging on about it. If I didn't feel that it was important for you as a business owner in setting yourself up for a really successful year. So go grab your ticket.
donnahann.com/reflect. The link is in my bio. It's also in the show notes. I'm going to go have a wine. Thank you so much for listening. And I look forward to seeing you in the webinar later this week. Bye for now.