Holding Yourself Accountable, Part Four

Photo by wwarby.

In this article, I’m going to talk about how you can hold yourself accountable on a yearly basis. The first three articles in this series covered:

Daily accountability. At the start of each workday, you made a list of things you absolutely had to accomplish. At the day’s end, you asked yourself what you did to make money and what you did to bring in business.
Weekly accountability. At the end of your work week, you wrote a review and evaluation of how things went. You also planned the following week, with special attention paid to the tasks involved in doing the work for which you are paid, getting more of it, and running your business.
Monthly accountability. On the daily and weekly level, you were working in the world of words. For your monthly accountability, the focus shifted to numbers, specifically, your profit and loss statement as compared to your budget and to the previous year. You also looked at your cash flow and bank balances, and you forecasted your revenues and expenses.

On the annual level, we’re looking at big things like trends and transitions in your business. What better way to record them with an annual report? Like the publicly traded companies’ annual reports, yours will offer two types of information:

Narrative
Financial

There’s no need to write a War and Peace narrative. After all, you don’t want to fall into the trap that one of my mentors pointed out. She told me, “Martha, you spend too much time writing about your business. You need to do business!”

Oh, was she right!

So, let’s follow her advice and keep our narrative to one page. And on that page, write down your Five Best and Worst Moves of the Year. Where would you find the material for these two Top Five lists? In a couple of places:

Your weekly review/evaluation writeups. Are you seeing any disturbing trends? Say, like projects getting tougher to land and clients being slower to pay? Or are you seeing positive transitions, like success in breaking into more lucrative markets or the development of new profit centers?
Your financial statements. I’d suggest pulling a couple of profit and loss statements, one that compares your actual results vs. your budget and another that compares this year with last year.

On the P&L vs. your budget, you may see things like cost overruns. There’s one that’s already bopping me over the head, and the year isn’t even over yet. That Big Bopper would be my website redesign, which blew well past its budget. Reason: When it came to choosing subcontractors, I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. So, look for that one on my Worst Moves list.

The P&L vs. the previous year is an excellent check on the progress your business is making. Now, you may be dealing in an economy where just staying even with last year is quite an accomplishment. Or maybe your business down compared to what it was last year. Don’t beat yourself up if the news isn’t good, but don’t just say, “Oh, it’s the economy,” and stop trying to find new business. That’s an easy trap to fall into, and a lot of people do. Many of them don’t get out.

Okay, so you’ve listed your Five Best and Worst Moves of the Year. Next to the Best Moves, write a sentence or two on why these were such good moves. If you’re doing things right, you want to keep up the good work. Recording the whys behind the actions gives you some history to refer back to. (“Hey, if I made that happen back in ’08, I can repeat that success now.”)

For the Worst Moves, what did you learn? And how will you fix the problem so that it won’t happen again?

After the writing’s done, don’t hide this document. Every year, I call a family meeting and share my Best and Worst Moves with them. If your family isn’t readily available, share it with key vendors (such as your accountant) and your mentors.

We’ve reached the end of this accountability series. I’d like to leave you with three books that I’ve found helpful:

Getting Things Done by David Allen. Many people consider this book to be the go-to reference for stress-free personal productivity.
Get Clients Now! by CJ Hayden. If you’ve been stumbling and fumbling with your promotional efforts, CJ will get you on the right track. But be forewarned that this isn’t one of those “client attraction” systems that allow you to sit back while the work rolls in. Sorry, but you’re going to have to go out and find those clients and (gasp!) sell your services to them. CJ’s also big on the notion of holding yourself accountable.
Twist the New by Greg Loumeau. Back in my weekly accountability article, I talked about the tasks involved in doing, getting, and running a business. Greg turned me on to this idea, and many others. This is one of those books that packs a lot of good stuff into just a few pages.