A mid-year review is a great way to ensure you’re on track to reach your business goals for this year. However, many reviews tend to focus on the more practical and tangible elements of your business – such as the facts and financial figures of your business. However, these only give you one side of the picture.
If you want to use a mid-year review to get to the nitty gritty of your business, you need to be prepared to ask yourself some deep questions – questions that get to the heart of your thoughts and feelings about your business so far. So let’s look into what a mid-year review is all about, as well as what I consider to be 10 great mid-year review questions to ask yourself!
Why carry out a mid-year review?
We need to carry out regular reviews of our business progress, as they help keep us on track, and give us ample space to make any necessary changes. Business plans and goals are never set in stone. They can evolve and change, depending on our outcomes, beliefs and values.
A mid-year review will help identify how and when those plans need to be consciously changed. This helps us to set clearer goals to focus on for the rest of the year, as well as checking that we still want any goals we’ve already set.
(Sidenote: If you’re not sure whether you even need a business plan, check out this article: ‘Does a VA business need a business plan?’ Need to learn how to create a marketing plan? Here’s one of our previous articles on what a marketing plan is and how to create one for your VA business.)
Ask the right questions
A mid-year review needs the right questions asked, if we want to benefit from a review. It’s good to ask ourselves the basic business-related questions, those that often relate to the facts and figures of our businesses. These include how much income am I producing, what are my best selling products and services, and how good are my Google Analytics etc.
However, they only give us one side of the picture. The other side you need to consider, is what we’re feeling about our business, the results we’ve already achieved and our plans for moving ahead.
This type of deep questions will really get to the heart of our business – but they do need us to dig deep. If we’re willing to do this for our mid-year review though, we’ll be totally focused and clear on how our next six months will shape up.
To make it easier, I’ve listed 10 great questions you can ask yourself, to really dig in to some awesome thoughts and actions going!
#1: What am I most satisfied with achieving so far?
This question helps you measure success in terms of satisfaction, rather than financial. Both are needed – but we seldom ask ourselves questions that don’t focus purely on financial aspects.
#2: What’s currently bringing me in the results – and what isn’t?
It’s only when you set yourself clear goals, that you can know what’s working. This question helps you to think about the results you’re after – and whether your actions are in alignment with them.
#3: What are my personal and professional development goals for the rest of this year?
I’m a big believer in continued personal and professional development, so feel it should be an essential element of your business plan and goals. Not only do courses help you stay abreast of the latest business best practices, they also give you a track record of improvement and show a willingness to be the best person you can be. (Here’s a recent article on 5 ways the VACT can help with your professional development, if you’re interested in seeing what training we can offer you.).
#4: Am I connecting and building relationships with the right people?
Relationships are the core of your business, but are you building them with the right people? Are you focusing on even building them? You can also think here about collaborations, guest interviews and posts, joint ventures etc – they’re all relationships you can build, to help your business grow.
#5: Am I living my purpose and making a positive impact?
We all go into this business to help others, but we also all have our own personal reasons for taking the VA business path. So what impact are you making to yourself and to others? Are you doing what you love and growing your business in a positive, authentic way? If not, what can you now start to impact and change, to get more on track?
#6: What habits do I need to look into changing and/or improving?
Whether you’re on social media too much or find yourself skipping lunch – what habits are serving you, and which ones aren’t? Having a positive mindset is essential, if you’re working for yourself. But mindset is something we all need help mastering. You can check out our previous article on how to improve your mindset, here.
#7: How do I see the next 6 months shaping up?
This is about visualising and imagining what you want the rest of this year to look like. Often, we start by sitting and making a list of our goals, but they all originate from a scenario that runs through our head; an image of how we want things to be. So, sit down and let your imagination have free rein for five or ten minutes. How has your first 6 months impacted on your year so far? How can you improve on the first half of this year? What do you envisage this year end looking like?
#8: What am I avoiding doing, that needs to be implemented, and what do I feel is currently missing from my business?
This question not only helps you to think bigger, it also takes away any blame that may be lingering over something you haven’t been doing. We often know what we should be doing, and we also know what is missing, but we avoid implementing and solving because of guilt, fear, finances, and plain old honesty. So get honest – and see what comes up for you!
#9: How can I be of greater service?
As previously mentioned, we all want to be of service to others, otherwise we wouldn’t be in the VA business. Anyone who’s followed me for a while will also know, I’m a big believer in the Go Giver principles of Bob Burg. Give more value and you’ll reap exceptional rewards. So how can you give, do and be more?
#10: What additional resources do I need, to make the rest of this year go the way I want it to?
What help do you need to move yourself and/or your business forward? Do you need to invest in some mentoring or courses? Maybe you need to start outsourcing or putting in more of your own time into your business? What about that blog you still haven’t started or that scheduling software you need to invest in? What tools and resources do you need, to make your year go the way you want it to?
Don’t stop at a business mid-year review – carry out a personal review too!
By asking yourself the above ten questions to carry out a mid-year review of your business, you’ll have some clear thoughts, plans and action steps to carry into the remaining six months of this year.
But why stop at just your business? Why not carry out a personal review too! If you want to carry out a personal review, check out ‘How to Do a Personal Mid-Year Review’ from Life Hack. And if one of the results of answering the above ten questions is to put more of ‘you’ into your business activities – read Ali Moore’s article on the VACT site from earlier this year (https://vact.co.uk/authentic-be-true-to-you-guest-blog-from-ali-moore/) as it will help you know how to become more authentic in your business.