As we are deep in the month of June, it’s important for business owners to take stock of their operations and prepare for the next six months of 2023.
Conducting a mid-year business check-up is essential for ensuring the success and growth of your company. This process involves reviewing your financial statements, analyzing your marketing strategies, assessing your employees’ performances, examining your goals and objectives, and determining if you need to make any adjustments to your budget or pricing strategies.
A typical mid-year review breakdown involves looking at all aspects of your business including:
- Financial Health: Are you meeting your financial goals? How well are you performing against your budget (you do have a budget, right?) How are your ratios and KPI’s vs. expected results? Dedicate the needed time to evaluate your cash flow and what areas of your business you’re spending too much on. Your financial health at mid-year can foreshadow what’s to come so it’s crucial to resolve any financial issues.
- Employee Wellbeing: How long has it been since you talked with your employees? Is employee attrition/turnover high? When was the last time an employee survey or evaluation was conducted? Are you taking proper measures to make your team feel heard? Do you need to re-evaluate your team structure?
- Sales & Marketing Efficiency: What audiences could you be reaching that you haven’t yet? Has revenue met your expectations? How can you increase your ROI on your marketing expenses? Are sales numbers growing, declining, or hitting a plateau?
- Logistics and Operations: Are your products/services being delivered timely and accurately? Have your margins changed/costs increased (i.e., service & installation costs)? Have quality or customer satisfaction changed? When did you last look at your suppliers? Are they still good partners with your business?
This year, these points are more important than ever. From global economic shifts to escalating inflation to higher payrolls and customer demands, 2023 has had its own set of unique challenges. In result, business owners and CEOs like you are adjusting your pricing models and overall strategies to combat what continues to be a difficult economic landscape.
The 6 Point Business Mid-Year Assessment
Financial Health:
A financial health assessment should be done more than bi-annually. Naturally, the mid-point of the year is a great time to help you identify any areas of concern and make necessary adjustments to ensure you meet your financial goals for the year. Review your financial statements by analyzing the balance sheet, income statement, and, especially, cash flow statement to assess your business’s financial position. Look for trends in revenue and expenses and identify any areas where results are not what you expected.
Your cash flow statement is a crucial tool for understanding how money flows in and out of your business. Use this statement to identify any cash flow gaps and determine whether you have enough cash on hand to meet your short-term obligations. Compare your actual financial results to your budget for the year. Identify any areas where you may be overspending or underspending and adjust your budget accordingly. Review your outstanding debt and determine whether it’s manageable given your current cash flow and revenue. Consider refinancing or consolidating your debt if it’s becoming a burden on your business. Finally, look for opportunities to improve profitability by identifying areas where you can increase revenue or cut costs to improve your business’s profitability. Have you considered renegotiating contracts, finding new suppliers, or developing new products or services? This is the perfect time of year to assess all opportunities.
Inflationary Strategies:
Prices on almost everything have gone up. Have you been adjusting your pricing accordingly? Are you taking note of the pricing changes whether it be with your supplier, your deliveries, your sourcing, or cost of production? Have you thought about creating long-term contracts with vendors, suppliers, or shippers so that the pricing isn’t impacted as much by inflation? Are your customers staying loyal through your higher prices and are you being transparent with them through the process?
When you do have to raise prices make sure you communicate with your clients your rationale and that they have many other reasons to stay with you and are not motivated to price shop.
Employee Performance:
Mid-year employee reviews are a great opportunity to assess an employee’s performance, acknowledge their achievements, and identify areas where they can improve. To make the most out of these reviews, it’s important to consider several factors.
Do you have clear expectations for the review process and have procedures to review their job responsibilities and performance goals? Take this opportunity to review job descriptions and any goals or objectives set at the beginning of the year. Discuss any progress they have made towards these goals, identify areas where they can improve, provide constructive feedback, and acknowledge their hard work and contributions. Send out an employee survey to collect feedback and ideas so you can improve the workplace culture. Good lines of communication will yield rewards.
Customer Satisfaction Measurement:
A mid-year review is a great time to measure customer service performance. When considering how to assess customer service at your company, you will quickly realize that there are quite a few different factors that you could measure. It might also become apparent that focusing on just one area at a time will leave major blind spots.
What is your customer retention rate? Do you know if your customers are completely satisfied with your service, products, quality, and prices? Do they see the value you offer, or could they easily be swayed to go to a competitor? Customer surveys are an ideal tool to get honest, constructive input that you can quickly implement resolution strategies and reach out to customers to further build the relationship.
Marketing ROI:
A mid-year review of your marketing campaigns and programs can help identify what is working well and what needs improvement, enabling the company to make data-driven decisions and adjust strategies for the remainder of the year.
Start by reviewing your original marketing objectives for the year and assess how well you have achieved them so far. Are you on track? If not, identify the areas that need improvement and prioritize them. Analyze your performance metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, social media engagement, and lead generation. Identify which channels are performing well and which ones need improvement. Use this data to optimize your marketing strategies for the remaining months so you can be prudent with your marketing dollars, investing in the best marketing vehicles that will improve your brand awareness and lead generation.
Resource Allocation:
Meet with your Fractional CFO to review cash flows, your allocated funds, and your budget. Where is your money coming from? Where is your money going? What department spends the most and why? Are there certain activities and expenses that aren’t adding value, or a product you sell that doesn’t meet your profitability and margin benchmarks? Have you invested in programs, machines, equipment, etc. that can drive revenue in the long run?
There are many touch points in building a great business, so taking the time to truly be real and honest about your company’s performance in these key areas can impact the next six months and beyond.
Here at AETucker Consulting, we can help you get there! Contact me, Andrew Tucker, for help with your mid-year financial check-up.
I can guide you through an effective midyear assessment and provide action plans to keep you on course. I can be reached by e-mail at andrew@aetuckerconsulting.com or schedule a call on my calendar here -> .
I look forward to starting a conversation with you.