4 points to release your balance as an entrepreneur!
In freelancing, the end-of-year review is an important stage. Bent on carrying out an assessment of the last 12 months it invites to review all its past activities, to question the fundamentals of its project and eventually get off to a good start in their new business cycle. Of course, reviewing a full year of freelancing involves intense preparation, optimal focus, and the right tools to record thoughts. This article offers you 4 key indicators to draw the annual report of your project and plan the rest of your business venture without difficulty…
1. Successes and failures
Between the task of looking back and introspection, keeping track of your accomplishments and setbacks throughout the year is the first step in a complete entrepreneur assessment.
Entrepreneurial achievements
It is a question of making a course on missions completed, goals achieved, new professional encounters, etc. However, it can also consist of listing events that have had a positive impact on the freelancer’s daily life. But the most important thing is to sweep a wider spectrum and project oneself into as many lived experiences as possible. The goal is to create a complete panorama of its achievements throughout the year in order to freeze the positive elements at the professional and personal level and to visualize the actions that should be intensified for the coming year.
failures and difficulties
Even if it tends to annoy us, a review at the end of the year should not overlook the setbacks experienced throughout the year, because these bad experiences always contain important lessons to be learned. Sample reviewECs, mistakes and difficulties make it possible to find flaws in its business process and to develop structural solutions for the future activities of its company. In other words, it is a question of making a checklist of failures so that you can mobilize the appropriate way to better overcome new challenges, adjust the course or bounce back.
2. Financial indicators
These financial indicators are distinguished by their quantitative aspect. It lets you support your decisions with factual elements, not with simple feelings or impressions. In other words, here are two indicators that all expenses will be included in your financial statement at the end of the year.
Compare turnover
It is the main index for measuring the financial health of the organization. At the closing of the balance sheet, the turnover must be compared with the turnover of the beginning of the year to determine the rate of profitability and financial development of the company.
Does turnover cover all purchasing costs, salary costs, etc.?
Has the revenue generated decreased compared to the previous year’s results?
And if so, what are the causes of this decline?
In short, the results of this assessment will be used to determine the financial potential of the company and better define the financial goals for the next year.
Estimate the loads
During your year-end review, you should be attentive to the increase in professional costs, as they always have a direct impact on the company’s turnover. Unchecked, they can reduce profits and create serious obstacles to the realization of new activities. In fact, the results of the annual balance of charges should allow you to predict the real needs of your company, to reduce or even eliminate unnecessary charges and to calculate the costs that may amortize in the next accounting year.
3. Technical and organizational indicators
Mastering the organizational aspect is a real challenge for the autoentrepreneur. Between optimizing time management and rationalizing your productivity, the annual report is a big challenge.
Synthesize skills
Here, the exercise consists of taking stock of the skills expected if you are a novice freelancer, and the newly developed skills if you are an expert. For a novice Web developer, this is for example to test his basic knowledge of CMS and WordPress. And if he is at the senior level, the assessment is to study his ability to create a page with personalized features. In all cases, the results of the assessment should allow the self-employed entrepreneur to predict the skills to be improved, his new training needed or the need for follow-up.
Review work tools and processes
Regarding the process, the implementation of the annual review focuses on the way the company operates.
Is it sufficiently managed and optimized?
Does it need improvements?
Or are there new techniques to increase productivity while saving more time?
In addition, taking stock of your organization’s tools lets you know whether they should be retained, optimized or replaced for new work tools in the next cycle.
Work on your organizational dynamics
Here, you put on the hat of an HR manager. In most cases, a work organization assessment focuses on three areas.
First, the analysis of organizational motivation: you must measure your ability to deploy your human capital to achieve your goals.
Second, the analysis of organizational capacity, that is, the processes that you can mobilize to manage this capital.
And third, the analysis of the external environment of the company, which can facilitate or hinder the efficiency of the internal organization.
4. Marketing indicators
The sustainability of a company is also based on a sound and healthy commercial relationship. But this stage of balance remains delicate, as it addresses the most human aspects of entrepreneurship.
Assess relationships with partners and peers
Service providers, suppliers, collaborators… partners are not customers or prospects. However, their activities have a decisive influence on the development of the company. Establishing an annual report on your networking then involves asking yourself the following questions:
Which contracts need to be renewed and which need to be terminated?
What new strategies should be used to maintain your existing relationships?
Where can I find new contacts?
Assess your relationship with your customers and prospects
In commercial prospecting, the assessment consists of measuring the entrepreneur’s ability to generate leads and convert them into customers throughout the year. Actually, it’s a question of taking stock of the marketing levers that have been deployed (web content, emailing, calling, etc.) and mainly those that have been most effective.
Of course, the customer side is also important in the annual balance. Some startups fail because they focus their marketing strategy on acquiring new customers while forgetting to keep existing customers. To avoid this, the freelance balance reports customer satisfaction through their testimonials or why not through the results of online surveys.
