Taking Inventory of Your Business in 2013, Before Making Goals for 2014

When I was a teenager growing up in Long Island, I worked in a store called E.J. Korvette, in Green Acres Shopping Mall. I remember how two days a year they would shut the store down to take inventory. It was pre-internet so all the workers, mostly fellow teens, would rally around with our pencils and charts, and record all the inventory on the shelves. 

We would tally up all the broken items, or broken boxes and items in good standing. As a young person entering the work environment, I always thought it was mundane and silly, but hey, you got to wear jeans, and we all got pizza, so I just went with it.

It wasn't until years later, that I realized the power of the process of taking inventory of what your "store" (or business) has in stock, what's broken and what's working fine. 

While it's important to set goals and have a mission for your company, the foundational step before that, is to look at the current state of your business, so you can assess the steps you need to take moving forward, which will of course, impact your goals.

As 2013 draws to a close, these are six questions to ask yourself about your business:

• Given my goals for 2013, which ones did I meet? (i.e. better communication within the team, greater efficiency with outsourcing four products, etc.)
• What were the top three practices or principles that we integrated as a company to make those goals happen? (i.e. review of my goals weekly,  clarifying and pursuing target markets, etc.)
• What are the three biggest lessons that I learned through that process? (i.e. every sales call must have a call to action, correct one challenge at a time, etc.)
• Given my goals for 2014, which ones didn't I meet? (i.e. didn't find a way to automate catalog sales, phone system is still an issue, etc.)
• What are the three biggest lessons that I learned through that process? (i.e. if we try to take on too much at once, we usually fail, better to roll out changes in small sections, etc.)
• What were the top three practices or principles moving forward that you will integrate as a company to make those goals happen? (i.e. greater organization, better client referral program that can be automated, etc.)

Congratulations! Now that you've reviewed your "broken boxes" and "returned items" you can also celebrate the aspects of your business and move forward into making 2014 the best.

Lois Barth is a NYC Speaker, and Life Coach helping groups and individuals close the gap between where they are and where they want to be so they can thrive personally and professionally.