BIRD WILLIAMS: You’re listening to Bird Means Business Episode 53. 

Hello, hello, and welcome to the Bird Means Business podcast. I am so glad you're here. We are talking about all of the year-end to-do’s for your business in this episode. And it’s gonna be good, y'all. Even if you haven't launched a business yet, if you're like, “Look, Bird, I'm just trying to get my thing up and going. I don't even know if I can handle thinking about year-end to-do’s for a full-fledged business.” Look, an episode like this will help you become more strategic in how you build your business as you're getting ready to launch. So I'm glad you're here. Stick with it. And I think you're gonna really enjoy it. Make sure you listen to the end as well, because I'm actually going to share a story from one of my star clients of how she used these principles, and how it made a huge impact in her business. So you're definitely gonna want to hear that story. It's going to help tie everything together. 

I also want you to know, we're going to cover a lot in this episode because there are so many different considerations at the end of the year for any business. And I'm going to just share some. But don't worry, I have you covered. If you go to the link in the show notes, you can download your Year-End Business Checklist. I'm going to give you a full checklist of everything I discuss here today so that you can just check it off the list. So if you're driving or doing laundry, or dishes or something and you're moving all around, don't worry. You can go to the show notes and download your Year-End Business Checklist so that you can print it out and make sure you apply it to your business. 

So let's just dive right on in. The first thing I want you to do, as we are here at the end of the year, you're thinking, “What do I need to do as I prepare for next year?” I want you to first review, and we're going to talk revenue first. But don't worry, we're gonna get to expenses in a bit. It's not just money, hang in there with me. But one of the first things I want you to do is just look at all the ways you made money this year, all of your different revenue streams. How did money come into your business? And I want you to look at which products or services performed the best. Then I want you to compare how those products or services did with last year? Did you know your t-shirt sales maybe increased by 20%, while your bracelet sales decreased by 10%? Why might that be? Or you might notice that there's double the amount of family photo shoot packages that you sold this year. Was that because of your marketing efforts? I want you to really analyze your revenue streams and how things changed year over year. And if you're like me, and this is the first year of your business, of course, you're kind of creating a standard and you're kind of setting a precedent. So you're just going to really look at why was one product or service more profitable than another? Why did it bring in more money than another? And of course, things are going to look a lot different. The fact that we lived through a pandemic in 2020. So it's been just a little crazy, a little different than normal. So you definitely want to consider that. Of course, there's so many things that changed your revenue stream in 2020 because of COVID-19. But I still want you to have these principles that I'm going to walk through to think through like in a normal situation because hopefully, 2021 will be a little bit more normal. 

So other things I want you to consider. What promotions in your business resonated most with your target audience? Promotions being maybe you did a challenge, or you had a workshop. And maybe there was one or two that really took off and really resonated. You want to make note of that. You also want to look at your content. So were there certain emails or topics you brought up on social media or blog posts that really moved the needle when it came to engagement with your audience? That's a really important consideration in terms of what might be most effective and where you need to really focus your efforts. 

Another thing you want to think about is, what work did you do this year that you really enjoyed most? What work really lit you up? What product release or service offering did you just really enjoy? And at what moments were your team morale at the highest? If you do have a small but mighty team, when did your team really rally around a product or service? What were some of the most fun projects for you as a team? You want to take all of this into consideration as you map out the next year. 

I also want to share this. My financial planner, her name is Helen Ngo. And we actually had a money talk interview in Episode 27 on the Bird Means Business podcast. Y'all, it’s a fan fave! So if you haven't checked out Episode 27, you want to go back and listen to that one. I'm on her email list. And she sent out an email recently about asking herself the year-end question of, what can I cut out? And I thought it was such an important perspective to have because we're really prone to thinking, “Well, what can I add? What do I need to add next year, maybe a new hire or a new marketing strategy? Or a new piece of equipment or this, this and that, and new technology to add to my business.” But she was actually talking about, “Well, what do I need to cut out? What isn't serving me in my business? And what do I need to let go of? How can I simplify?” And that really resonated with me. 

This year, my husband, Terry, and I, our whole theme for 2020, before we knew what it would be. When we sat down at the end of the year and made our goals for 2020, our theme was ‘Simple and Strong’. And I actually talked a little bit about it in Episode 29 here on the Bird Means Business podcast, about how we just focus on being simple and strong. And now knowing what this year would bring, it was so crucial that we went into a year like that with this mindset, not trying to do the most. Just where can I simplify? And how can I be strong in that? So I want you to ask yourself, as you're thinking about all the different things you can add to your business and make it better, what can you cut out? That's an important question. 

Okay, so you're going to review and then you're going to reassess. So based on what is and isn't working for you and your clients, I want you to determine what changes you need to make in your business. There are three things you may want to reassess: your business offerings, your prices, and your systems. 

So maybe when it comes to business offerings, you need to really hone in on one particular service offering that is bringing the most transformation for your clients. Or maybe you need to get rid of ones that aren't serving you and your clients best. Maybe it's that you need to add on a new product line because earlier this year, when you tested something out or kind of teased something to the market, to your audience, they were like, yes, we want more of that. So maybe you're going to focus more on one product or service. Or maybe you're going to get rid of those that aren't serving you well. 

Another area where you can reassess is in your pricing strategy. And in most cases, you're going to need to raise your prices. You know, there's inflation, right? Every year, there's inflation. So that's something to consider. But also, especially if you're a service based business, remember that you're one year wiser. You're one year more experienced. And you should always be charging a premium for your knowledge and your time. This is important. You want to make sure that you're charging what you're worth. And you're charging based on the value that you're bringing your clients, the time that you're saving them. And then too, if you’re a product based business, make sure you're keeping your eyes on the broader market and you're staying ahead of trends and finding opportunities there. So your pricing strategy is something that you might need to reassess based on what is and isn't working in your business. 

Another thing is your systems. Oh, systems. As y’all know I love systems. If you've listened to the podcast long enough, I've said it a million times. Your systems will save you. So maybe as you're thinking through all these changes in your business, you might need to reassess how you interact with your clients. In just a bit, I'm going to share a story about one of my star clients, who did just this and is really rethinking how she interacts with her clients in her business. And it's been a game-changer. 

So you're reviewing, you're reassessing, and then you're going to audit and update things. So two, in particular, one is your contracts. Based on what we’ve talked about already, maybe you're making some changes with your clients, or with your team, or with your vendors. You may have had an attorney draft the contract for you two years ago, or even a year ago. Is it still relevant today? Does the language still make sense? Do you still offer the same things the same way? Make sure you read through your contracts and make sure that they are in alignment still. And if you're making any really big changes to your business or operations or services, you might need to consult your attorney again and say, “Hey, let's just make sure that I had the language right, and I'm not going in and tweaking something that could be misleading.” 

Another thing you're going to want to audit and update is your website. It's possible that your copy, like the text on your website, might need a refresher. And especially if you're making any big updates based on what we've talked about, based on your year-end review process. You're going to want to make sure you add all those changes to your website. 

Now this list as I go through can seem a little bit daunting. It can be like, whoa, this so much. But a lot of it should be done throughout the year. You're not waiting till the end of the year to do everything. But, if you have and you're in that boat, that's all right. There's no judgment there. You're going to just do what you need to do now to set yourself up strong for next year. But then you're going to make sure that you're reviewing your business plan quarterly, which I'll talk about in a little bit. That's a part of my Prove It Plan framework for developing a business plan. I teach students how to make a solid business plan using my framework. That is my signature process that I've used time and time again, not only with my businesses but also with clients. And I've seen incredible results. We look at your foundation, your financials, your operations, and your marketing. And I don't teach them to just develop a business plan in the beginning. I teach them to review it every single quarter. So each quarter, you're asking yourself a lot of these same questions to think about. Do you need to make changes here or there so that at the end of the year, it's not this huge, daunting task that you're having to do because you're staying on top of things in your business? And you have the foresight. You have the ability to be proactive and not reactive. Ooh, I know that hit somebody. Because I know that when I was in the first few years of my business, I felt so reactive. Something would happen, and I'm trying to figure out what I need to change, what systems I need to get, what tools I need to get. As opposed to being on top of things and being able to say, proactively, we're going to make this change. I see this out in the future, because I'm staying on top of what's going on in my business, and what's working and what isn't, and the marketing channels that are most effective, and on and on. And I'm going to make changes proactively as opposed to waiting for something to happen to me, and then me having to scramble to make things work. So I say all of that to say, this might seem daunting. But remember, I have a checklist for you. If you go to the show notes, there's a link there that you can click and download your FREE guide. And also, you should be reviewing your business plan quarterly so that you’re not having to do all of this at the end of the year.

So we’ve talked about reviewing. We've talked about reassessing, We've talked about auditing and updating things, making sure everything is in alignment. Let's talk a little bit about expenses. When it comes to your expenses, I want you to ask yourself some questions. What can be eliminated? What is not really that useful? Are there any subscriptions that are really unnecessary? I don't really need to be subscribed to that anymore. Could you combine some of the tech platforms you use? Maybe you can streamline some of that so you're not paying for multiple services that can really be done with one other service if that makes sense. I also want you to ask yourself, what might you add in terms of expenses? 

When you think about your goals for next year, which we're going to get into in a second, making goals for the new year. Will these goals require more manpower or woman power? Will they require more software? Will you need more machinery or equipment in order to actually fulfill those goals or make those goals achievable? And then can your finances actually support this? So that's why I love this very thorough process of developing a business plan, looking at your finances. Because you're not going to just say, “Hey, these are my goals. I'm wishing for the best. Let's hope for the best and just keep our head up.” No, you're going to actually look at how this is going to work in your business. And like I said, I'll talk about that in just a second. 

All right, when it comes to expenses, you're going to make sure that you meet with your CPA at the end of the year. Now, remember, this is not something you're going to do just at the end of the year. You're meeting with your CPA on the regular. Your CPA is a part of what I call your money team. Your money team is made up of your CPA and your attorney, at a minimum in a business. Super-duper important that you meet with your CPA regularly.

My CPA does our bookkeeping. So every month, he's sending me all of my transactions, all of my financial statements, and I'm able to review them, ask questions, get with him if I need to. But you want to meet with your CPA a lot more than once a year because they'll make it a lot easier when it comes to tax time. But you especially want to make sure you meet with them at the end of the year because there might be things that you really need to get tight on with your numbers. There might be things that you want to fix or reconcile, like any errors before the year ends. Because once the books are closed, you don't want to have to go in and make adjusting journal entries. And I'm not going to get super nerdy about all of that. But it's just a lot easier if there's something that needs to be transferred or something that needs to be purchased or whatever might need to happen before the end of the year, and before you close the books, that is done and taken care of. You also want to make sure that again you're reviewing your financial statements and looking at everything that’s gone on in your business in a year from a macro standpoint. Your financial statements are your income statement, or p&l, profit, and loss statement. Those are the same thing. Your balance sheet and your cash flow statement. Those are the three main financial statements. You want to make sure that you're reviewing this with your CPA at the end of the year. And again, you doing this now is going to make tax time a whole lot easier. 

You also want to ask your CPA where you could get some tax savings. So two things. One, there might be personal expenses that could transfer legally to business expenses. Things like your cell phone. Or if you have a home office, there are tax advantages for that. So you want to make sure you ask those questions. And you shouldn't be waiting till the end of the year to do that. But if that is the case, you want to make sure you just go ahead and cover it. But then also, this is the big one, you want to make sure that if he's looking at your numbers, and he's like, you're going to be paying, let's say, $15,000 in taxes this year. Hopefully, you've been paying your estimated quarterly tax payments or have it saved somewhere so that you can make sure you can pay that. But you could say, I could make a purchase, a $2,000 purchase on a piece of equipment that I really need in order to reach the goal that I've defined. And if I make that equipment purchase, it's going to be a tax write-off. So that's less money, I'm going to have to pay to the IRS. Does that make sense? You can kind of get strategic about expenses at the end of the year, and make sure that you think strategically about your taxes in that way.

The next thing you want to do at the end of the year is have an annual meeting. This is actually a requirement. It's a corporate formality for even just having an LLC. We talked in Episode 51, with the great Soluto Uba. He's so fun and so spirited. It's one of the fan-favorite episodes. A more recent one, but folks just loved it. I got so many emails and Instagram DM’s about how much they love this episode with Soluto. And we talked all about LLCs and trademarks. He talked about the difference between having a paper LLC like you just filed with the Secretary of State and you have your LLC technically. Versus having a performing LLC, where if he were to actually get sued, the judge, the courts would be able to say yes, you're performing your LLC, like it's a real entity separate from you, and so on and so forth. It is a great episode if you haven't listened to it. Well, one of those corporate formalities to make your LLC a performing LLC, and not just a paper LLC, to make it legit, is to have an annual meeting. And this doesn't have to be like some fancy trip that you fly somewhere, especially right now. But it is an official annual meeting that you have. And here's some things you would discuss. First, any changes in leadership if there was a new equity partner or business partner who had a big role. Or if you had any changes in your board of advisors or your board of directors, you're going to want to make sure to address that in your annual meeting. You're basically looking back over the year and thinking of any big things that have happened. So you're going to, of course, review your financials in your annual meeting. And, if there were any employees brought on or metrics, like maybe you brought in a whole bunch of new clients. That's something you want to share in your annual meeting and discuss. In your annual meeting, you're also going to have a goals discussion where you're going to not only talk about goals for the new year but look at the goals from last year. And I want you to start there. I want you to evaluate the goals you set in 2019 for 2020. Did you achieve them? Why or why not? Maybe something like a pandemic affected some of them. Maybe not. Maybe the pandemic helped propel your business forward. Maybe some of you are even listening to this podcast, because you were laid off or because you had a light bulb moment, or because you were like, “Look, I am making this happen.” And the pandemic helped you reach your business goals in that way. So you're going to look at your business goals and really understand why you did or didn't achieve them. In a normal year, of course, you're going to look at other metrics outside of there being a global pandemic. But you want to make sure that you look at that first. Then you're going to list your goals for the new year. And I don't want you to just think about financial goals like your revenue. I also want you to think about your marketing goals like, “Hey, I want to have X amount of people read my blog post each week or 7000 podcast downloads.” Straight up, that was one of my goals for the year. And like right now I'm at 6.6 thousand, so I'm almost there. 

I also want you to think about management goals. How will you be a better leader? How will you give your team more autonomy? And I don't want you just to write your goals down. I don't want you to say, “This is my revenue goal. These are my marketing goals. These are my management goals.” I want you to actually look at how you're going to make those goals happen. How are you going to make them real life? Because so many people just stop with writing goals, and it drives me crazy. 

When it comes to revenue goals, I actually want you to work backward. Let's say based on what you did last year, based on the different things you want to do in your business, maybe how much money you want to take from the business, maybe different goals you have. “I need to make $100,000 in revenue next year.” Then I want you to work backward from there. “Okay, of these five different products or services I have, I need to sell X amount for each one. To sell X amount of product A, I'm going to need to price it at this. I'm going to need to make sure I get my marketing to this level so that I can get this many leads.” And so on and so forth. You're going to actually put some strategy and analysis behind the goals you create. 

Now, when it comes to marketing, I want you to actually look at, for example, I want 7000 podcast downloads. I want you to look at what systems you need to put in place to make sure that you get those 7000 podcast downloads. How can you be consistent with getting new content out each week? Does that take you having a podcast editor? Does that take you batching your podcast episodes to make it real? 

And then when you think about management goals, like, “Hey, I want to empower my team to make better decisions.” Well, don't just write that down. Actually think about what you can do. Maybe there's more open communication and dialogue. Maybe I'm more open to their ideas. Whatever it might be, you're going to write down some practical and real examples of how you're going to actually reach your goals. 

In this annual meeting, you should also review your business plan. Remember, this is something that you should be doing every quarter. So you're definitely going to need to do it in your annual meeting. But you're also going to be doing it three other times during the year. It's so crucial, like I said before, to stay ahead and to be proactive instead of reactive here. And in your business plan, when I say review it, I mean, you're going to literally look at the foundation, and say, “Alright, these are our core values that we outlined. How are we actually effectuating them in our business? Do our clients know and feel them? Does our team own them and run with them?” 

When it comes to your financials, we've talked a lot about that already. When it comes to operations. Do you have your standard operating procedures set for all the different ways that you get new products out or the process that you take a client through in a service based business? Do you have all that aligned? 

When it comes to marketing, have you really analyzed your marketing channels and ways that you can really tap into the low-hanging fruit? That's what I mean, when I say review your business plan, you want to make sure you do that every quarter, but of course in your annual meeting. 

And then another big thing here I want to point out is examining your team needs and y'all know I'm really, really big on people. I'm really big on team and culture. And I say this a lot. But in order to grow your business, you will have to grow your team. Even if you just start with a very small team, just one other person, a virtual assistant that you hire for five hours a week. But the thing is, you can't be a one-woman show forever and actually grow and take your business to the next level.

So if you already have staff, you may not actually have them attend your annual meeting. But you definitely want to meet with them. And if it's a small team, you might even meet with them individually, even if over Zoom just to check in with them at the end of the year. I really strongly believe this should be happening much more than once a year. We in our business, for our gym, for example, we have 11 employees, which we call our team. And we actually have quarterly team meetings. And for some people, they're like what? Your team meets quarterly? That seems so far out as a stretch. We used to do it every month, and it just was overkill. And we are not the kind of people that we meet just to meet. Like we meet only when we have updates for you. And we do connect with our team every single week through our team email that we send out on Sundays. But, outside of that, we’re gonna just meet quarterly. It used to be in person, of course. And now with the pandemic, it's been just on Zoom. But we meet with them and we're staying in touch. And we also meet with them one on one. And we kind of split it up. Sometimes Terry will take the instructors and I’ll take the service reps who work the front desk. But we make sure that we have a one-on-one connection with our team, every quarter at least. We say, “Hey, how are things going in your life? Like even outside the gym? How are things going with the gym? With the business? Do you feel aligned? Is this really something you enjoy doing? Where can we be better leaders? How can we be a better gym? How can we serve clients better? What are you hearing from clients that we maybe aren't hearing because we aren't there as much?” 

So when you meet with your team like this, you're really going to be able to get a pulse on what's going on in the business. And you're going to be interested in their personal development, which is going to make them feel more tied into the business and feel like they're actually cared for. And you're given the opportunity to tell them about what's ahead, whether you do that with them individually or as a group, and maybe a quarterly team meeting situation. You're going to say, “Hey, guys, this is what's happening next.” And that's really exciting. You want your team to feel very involved, helping you make decisions. In our team meetings, it's not always like, “Let us tell you what's going to happen.” It's like, “Hey, what do y'all think about this? Do you think the clients would like this? What are your ideas? Like please tell us.” We probably ask for feedback more than our team wants us to because we love feedback from them. So again, you want them to be bought in because then they're going to run the business more like they’re owners, and not like they’re employees. They are going to be thinking at a much higher macro level. And it's going to affect your culture. I've talked about this so much because it's important to me. But you can check out my culture building freebie. I'll include that in the downloads, as well, in the show notes, so you can download it there. But yes, something I get really excited about, as you can tell. 

Another thing you can do with your team at year-end is consider some sort of year-end incentives like business-wide paid time off, or some kind of monetary bonus. This again is just a good way to really boost team morale as you head into the new year. And of course, a lot of businesses are super strapped and aren’t able to do those sorts of things in a year like this. But you can definitely get creative and find ways to really connect with your team and make sure that they feel seen and loved.

Alright. So those are some considerations for your annual meeting that you'll have at year-end. Something else I want you to consider to book at the end of the year is a total immersion weekend. And I've talked about this in Episode 41. And I promise you it is a game-changer. I explained all of what I did on my total immersion weekend, why I did it and the impact it had on my business. The thing about this is that you can do a lot of what we discussed, really all of what we've discussed, during your total immersion weekend. You can even have your annual meeting during your total immersion weekend. So again, go check out Episode 41, cause it'll really cover all the nuts and bolts. 

If you want some time to just get away, have a staycation. Even if it's in your own home, just blocking time where you have no interruptions, zero. You have a babysitter. Your spouse knows that you're not available for the weekend. Your roommate isn't going to charge in and ask questions. No, it is a special time, doing it just for your business where you can really work through. This isn't a business retreat that's enjoyable, necessarily. It’s moreso, “I'm going to fix these problem areas in my business and attack them and leave this weekend feeling like, yes, I have some solution, I have some clarity and direction.” It is so good!

And finally, what I want you to do at the end of the year is that I want you to celebrate. And I want you to really celebrate. I want you to do something fun that you would actually really enjoy and really want to do and celebrate what you've accomplished in this insane year. I want you to look back on all the year’s accomplishments, despite what's happened. Even the small ones, even those small wins. Those are the most important ones, right? And give yourself and your team a pat on the back. This is so important. And it's something that as entrepreneurs, we skip over. “I'll celebrate when I have double the amount of revenue. I'll celebrate when I have this or that or when I finally launch this product.” No, celebrate right now, at the end of this year. We're switching over a whole year. And you're going to look back and say I'm grateful for what has happened. And I'm going to do something nice for myself, nice for my team. Celebrate wherever you can. This is super-duper important. 

So to sum all of this up, at the end of the year you basically want to just take a step back and get a bird's eye view of your business. Look at your business objectively. Analyze things, from an unbiased perspective. As if it was an investor to your business and looking, or even a business strategist or someone who was to look at your business and say, “That doesn't seem to be working”. Take a step back and really look at what's going on in your business and then use that to decide how to move forward. 

I want to share with you, one of my star clients. I'm not gonna give her name or business. But I'm just so proud of her. She was a part of my first business plan course, back in January of 2020. It's now called Prove It Plan. And over the year, she crushed it in the course. She built a solid business plan. I remember us meeting in person and looking over everything. And then over the year, we'd have these one-off strategy sessions. And I remember her big thing after creating her business plan was just wanting to launch her website and she was all nervous about launching a website and wanted it to be perfect. And I was like, “Girl, push launch on that. Others aren't going to be as critical of your website as you are. Just go ahead and launch it.” She had a date in mind. And she had it pretty much ready. She just needed to do it and pull the trigger. And she did. And her business just took off. We would have these strategy sessions. And in our most recent one, she was like, “I'm like booked out basically.” And all of that happened within a matter of months. And like I said, I'm just so proud of her. And we were really just in this last strategy session, looking at how we can take her business to the next level. She's like, “Okay, I'm almost booked out. But I'm having a lot of issues with this and that in my business. And I know that I'm going to need to change some things with my client contracts and systems” All of this I've been talking about in this episode. And so at the end of our session, we created a game plan. We were like, “Look, this is what needs to happen.” And it was a lot. And she was like, “Okay, I know what I need to do. Now, I just have to go do it.” And she remembered the total immersion weekend episode, Episode 41. And this girl went ahead and booked it. And that's what I just love about her. She's like an action taker. She's like, “I listened to that episode months ago, and I wanted to do it. But now that it's being brought up I'm remembering it. And I'm realizing that I could actually tackle all these things that we've talked about in our strategy session, during the total immersion weekend, I'm booking it.” So that very next weekend, she had her total immersion weekend, y'all. And oh, my goodness, she sent me this long email with how helpful that weekend was for her, and how much clarity it gave her, and how much motivation it gave her. And she felt like she had so much momentum in her business. She's getting ready to work with an attorney to get things straightened out here and there. And she's increasing her prices. And she's building a business that works better for her so she won't just be at the beck and call of her clients. But it's going to really make sense for her business. I'm just so happy. Because she's basically done a lot of what I'm talking about, at the end of the year. She looked at things that are working, but they're not working the way I want them to. They're not really firing me up the way that I want them to. And I'm going to make sure I make the changes that I need to make in order to change that next year. And I'm just so proud of her. I know she's going to do great things in 2021. 

And so I just wanted to provide that example to see really how all these things sort of fit together. And y'all I too am making some big changes in my business. I'm going to have some big announcements in December and January. So make sure you're in the know and sign up for my weekly emails. I promise you all my weekly emails are never spammy. I hate that myself. So I would never do that to you. I also don't flood your inbox. I send one email a week, sometimes two. But they're never spammy. And they're really full of deeper level perspectives and insights. For example, the email that went out to my tribe today actually was about how I 12 X’d my revenue in November. 12, y'all. Right now, I'm not sharing those details anywhere else, but to my email subscribers, because again, that's where I really go deeper. So if you're interested in joining, and getting these weekly emails that are full of business tips and insights, go to birdwilliams.com/join. 

All right. Just as a reminder, I have all of these items listed out in your year-end checklist as a free download. Just go to the show notes and there'll be a link right there that you can click and download and get the goods. 

As always, thank you so much for tuning in to the Bird Means Business podcast. It means a whole lot. Thank you for subscribing on Apple Podcasts. I'd love it if you would leave me a review. That'd be awesome. You can also follow Bird Means Business on Spotify. And make sure you tell every entrepreneur you know about this episode so that they too can end their year strong. Talk to y'all next week.