Year end online business strategies

As the year comes to an end, it is a great time to reflect on the state of your business currently and going forward.  Here are some things I like to look at this time of year.

1. Review the past year.

In order to see where you are going, you have to know where you’ve been. Not looking back at what you have done is like running a campaign with no tracking or analytics - it doesn’t work that well.  That’s why reviewing the last year is so important to success.

I like to take a long look at the past year and consider what really happened. Where was I successful? What failed?  Where did I waste work time being unproductive?  What can I learn from all the mistakes made? Being able to honestly evaluate your past performance with a critical eye is very important to future success. But you have to be honest with yourself.  How much time did you spend reading forums or Twitter? Think of all the new campaigns you could have tried with all that time over the year….  Don’t beat yourself up over mistakes, just use them to renew your focus going forward.

2.  Set new goals.

Goal planning should really be an ongoing task, but the end of the year is a great time to set new new priorities.  I have a giant full wall sized white board that was absolutely crammed with writing.   I had to admit to myself that some of the tasks were never going to get done.  I took a picture of the board so I had an archived record of everything, but then I wiped the whole thing clean!  I added some things back that were really important, but a most of it has been filled with new brainstorming.  I forced myself to spend long chunks of time just brainstorming and writing down new ideas.   There are some bold new directions that came about during those long sessions.    I now have a basic roadmap set for all of 2010.

3. Tax Strategies.

You hear about people going out a buying a lot of things for the business to generate write offs before the end of the tax year.  Unless you really need the items, this is flawed logic.  You shouldn’t spend money just to get a 35% tax break, when you are still out the other 65% for the purchase price.  Do meet with your accountant to plan some tax moves that make sense for your type of business.  There are some expenseable things that are expiring at the end of this year that you would need to buy now to take advantage of.  Deferring income until next year is always a good idea if you can.  But, your accountant is the best source of this information so don’t forget to meet or talk with them in December.

4.  Time off

Most important of all I believe is taking time off to spend with family and friends.  You’ve worked hard all year and you deserve a break before hitting it hard in January.  Enjoy any time that you can spend with your family, even if that means working less and leaving some money on the table.   You will never get to the end of you life and say you wish you would have worked more.   Time spent with loved ones and doing things you enjoy is what its all about.