Yeah, sure. Nobodies popping the champagne or partying to the break of dawn, but that doesn’t mean we should treat the start of a new financial year as just another event.
As a business, the end of financial year (EOFY) is a crucial time for you to dig deep into the numbers, reflect on your successes and analyse your shortfalls.
Your new year business resolutions start now. Here are four strategies to help you make this financial year your most productive and successful yet!
Strategies #1: Look Beyond the Pie Charts
Source: Unsplash
As you prepare your financial reports for tax time we ask that you take half a day, if not more, to dig a little deeper into your data.
Whether your business growth trajectory was positive, negative or closely resembling an over-active caterpillar, this past year, it’s important to ask ‘Why?’
In a report titled, Are We Really Getting Value From Our Promotions? it is said that Australia has one of the most highly discounted retail sectors in the world, with the percentage of products sold on promotion increasing from 30% to 40% in the last eight years.
“Australian retailers are wasting over $11 billion a year on unnecessary product discounts”
Smart Company, 2018 Nielson Report
If your profit margin isn’t quite what you expected it may not be a matter or needing to sell more, it could be a matter of selling smarter.
Analyse:
- Your most profitable months, channels and product categories
- Of your sale/holiday campaigns, which had the greatest engagement and resulting profit
- Your average order value and whether this has changed
- Have you tried shipping/express post offers? What was the result of this?
Once you’ve laid all the data out ask yourself, what is this telling me? Were your sale periods necessary? What offer types were most successful?
Break your findings down to granular, actionable ideas by performing a retrospective.
What’s a retrospective? Just keep reading!
Strategy #2: Retrospect
If you’ve ever played a team sport you’d know every game, won or lost, finishes with a huddle.
You discuss what you did well. What you could do better. And what you’ll work on in training. Now a business ‘huddle’ is far less sweaty but equally important. Also, lolly snakes are a must!
A retrospective is a moment of reflection. Whether it’s your financial reports, campaign analysis, engagement metrics, customer personas or product scope, a retrospective involves you asking:
- First: What did we do right?
- Then: What could we have done better?
- Finally: What will we change next time?
Now, break down your reflection and plug your action items into your project manager.
MANAGING WORKLOADS
Throughout a year responsibilities and workloads change. As team members leave and you hire new staff responsibilities are passed between team members as it’s easy for a few to fall on the wayside and be forgotten.
After performing the retrospective ask your team members to write down:
- The responsibilities they perform every day, week and month
- The time it takes (roughly) to complete each task
- The input needed from supporting team members to get each task done
Now discuss:
- Are the workloads assigned to each team member realistic?
- Could we simplify the collaboration and approval process to be more efficient?
- Are there particular skillsets that aren’t being utilised to their full potential?
Spend some time reestablishing the responsibilities of your team, ensuring workloads are realistic and defining the chain of communication for collaborative tasks.
Read – The Essential New Business Practice: Slowing Down to Speed-Up
Strategy #3: Inject Some Creativity
Creativity in the workplace is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.
If you want creative workers, give them enough room to play.
John Cleese
Creative workers are more productive workers, and undeniably staff efficiency will have the greatest impact on your bottom line.
Great ideas are rarely stumbled upon when you’re being hammered with work emails or while sitting in on a tedious ‘strategy meeting’. They come to you when you least expect it. On the toilet, in the shower and when you’re about to doze off.
The moral of the story: give your team space and freedom to be creative. At MI Academy we do this with internal design thinking workshops.
Design Thinking encapsulates the creative, strategic and practical processes by which innovative marketing, sales, design or customer experience problems are solved. It has been used by creatives for years, arguably centuries, to coerce innovative ideas out of the crevices of your mind and into reality.
Check out our Playbook for Team Design Thinking here to learn more.
In Conclusion
Whether you choose to implement our advice in the coming weeks or not, we hope that you enter the 21/22 financial year with a strong vision and goals for the next 12 months.
If you would like to spend 30 minutes establishing your marketing opportunities and laying out a plan, please reach out to us at enquiries@milkit.com.au she will put you in touch with one of our expert marketing consultants.
Time to whip out the books, reflect on the fin year that was, and set some juicy new targets. A ritual as old as time, yet, often missing one crucial element…alignment!
Too often we focus on what we want to achieve, not how we will do it (strategy alignment), and who will be driving change (your team).
That’s why until June 30 we will be offering 20% off our new Team Alignment Workshop
Want to try something drastically different? Request a FREE 30 Minute Training Exploration Session!