82: How to Self-Audit Your Business.
On today’s episode, I am going to take you through my process to self-audit your business. I like to do an overall audit or a year in review every year around this time. Auditing is also something that you want to do regularly to check-in and see where your business is and what has and hasn’t been working.
I am going to talk about the three parts of a self-audit. Once you learn the system, you can implement it over and over again. I also share how often you should consider implementing a self-audit to help you gain understanding and help you create intentions for how you want to move forward.
In This Episode:
[01:04] Linsi’s process to self-audit your business.
[01:19] Auditing is something that you want to do regularly, to check-in and see what has and hasn’t been working in your business. It can be done quarterly or at the end of each major project. And, of course, an end-of-year audit is a business best-practice,
[01:42] Make sure to listen to the very end for a special offer.
[02:01] In an audit, you are looking at three things. What worked, what didn’t work, and what you want to improve next time.
[02:45] Starting with what worked gives us a bigger perspective on what we don’t have to worry about, what is going well, and it is important to recognize our accomplishments.
[03:34] Start with looking at what has been working over the last few months or a defined period of time that seems relevant and then work your way back to other milestones and dates.
[04:19] Then take a deeper look by looking at what did work by categories like branding, packages, services, marketing, projects, sales, etc.
[05:10] Once you have this picture of what is working then it is time to move onto what didn’t work.
[05:28] The whole purpose of an audit is to have an objective view on both sides. When you are going through what didn’t work, state it factually and ask yourself why.
[06:12] We always want someone else to tell us what their opinion is and what they see, but the truth of the matter is that we always have a pretty good idea if we are willing to ask and listen to what the answer actually is.
[06:30] Learning to audit ourselves is very challenging because we’re not very objective about where we succeed and fall short. If you can stay as neutral as possible you will get so much insight.
[07:13] Step three of the audit is to decide what you want to improve. Focus on three things that you would like to improve moving forward.
[07:47] After the audit, you can create supercharged strategies. Decide how you are going to implement the three things you chose to focus on.
[08:19] Linsi shares an example from her own audit.
[09:17] She was doing a lot of writing during a tough time and had a personal breakthrough. She decided that she wasn’t going to do anything in her life and business that didn’t ultimately feel fun to her.
[10:41] She shares the waves she noticed in her own audit.
[13:17] After you choose your supercharged strategies then you can look at setting goals. Linsi recommends setting 90-day goals. Then decide what action steps you need to do to achieve those goals.
[13:56] A self-audit is a good information gathering tool that will help you set yourself up for success.
[14:13] Introducing the 2021 Game Plan! Two private sessions with Linsi that includes a full business audit and action plan for the next 90 days. Click here to sign up for the 2021 Game Plan.
Connect with Linsi:
Transcript
You are listening to Be Brilliant in your Business, the podcast for busy business owners to take charge of your time and energy to create meaning and momentum in your life. I'm your host, Linsi Brownson, certified coach and seasoned entrepreneur, and I know what it takes to run a thriving small business that works for your life. Join me for an honest look into the minds of small business owners, as I share with you stories, coaching and solutions to the biggest problems that keep people from realizing their dreams.
Before we dive into today's episode, I want to welcome new listeners. I'm so glad you're here. And I look forward to being part of your brilliant business. Be sure to hit the subscribe button, because we've got new episodes for you each week.
Are you ready? Let's go. Hey, Mavericks. Welcome to the show. Today, I'm going to take you through my process to self audit your business. And auditing is something that I like to do, I like to do a an overall audit or a year and review around this time every year. But also auditing is something that you want to do regularly to check in and see where businesses at what's been working, what hasn't been working. So maybe it's something you do quarterly, maybe it's something you do at the end of a specific project. But this is a process that you can use over and over again to help you gain understanding and create intentions for how you want to move forward.
So I'm going to take you through the three parts of a self audit, and then make sure that you listen to the end, because they also have a special offer that is related to this today. And it is special. I'm going to tell you why. But you need some context first. So here we go. All right, in an audit, we're looking at three things. The first is what worked. The second is what didn't work. And the third is what you want to improve on next time or what you would do differently.
So you always want to start with what worked or what is currently working. This is a positive thing. And of course, I like to lead with the positivity. But it's also important just to recognize that there are a lot of things that are working. And that has been working because so much of our focus, especially as business owners, is on constantly looking for the what didn't work. And those are much easier to find, usually, because that's more top of mind for us, because we're always in sort of that scan and fix mode. So starting with what worked gives us a bigger perspective on what we don't have to worry about what is going really well. And it's important to recognize our accomplishments to really see what we have created. Because in order to create more of what we want, we need to recognize what we're capable of and what we already have.
So start with what worked or what is currently working. And I like to gather information for this in two ways. So I start with looking at timeframes. So I look back over a specific period of time. And so generally for this year long audit, I'm looking at the recent past. So what is currently working what has been working over the last couple of months, or the last quarter, or some sort of defined period of time, that seems relevant, right, and then work my way back to other milestones to other specific dates that I remember. So for me this year, I had some pivotal moments in July. And then of course, in March when the quarantine really started and the things that were going on around that time. And then for me back into January and February when I was creating a new program and launching a membership. So those are kind of my major milestones in terms of timeframes.
And then I like to go even deeper and gather even more information by looking at what worked in terms of categories. So specific categories, like your brand, what is working or what has been working for you in terms of your brand, and your packages or your services that you offer. What has been working for your marketing, what's been working for your sales, what has been working for the way that you schedule, or manage your time? What worked for the projects that you specifically worked on this year? And then look at how you've been showing up in your business. So what are the things that you handled really well? What are specific challenges that you overcame or problems that you faced, that you were really proud of how you showed up or that you were able to work out and solve, those are also really important categories for the success and health of your business.
So once you've got this big picture of what is working and what has worked for you this year, then it's time to move on to what didn't work. Now, like I said, usually these are easier to come up with or faster to come up with because they are more top of mind for us. But I want you to look at this, the whole purpose of an audit is to have an objective view on both sides what worked and what didn't work. So as you're going through what didn't work, just stated very factually, what really, truly didn't work or isn't currently working for you. And then ask yourself why. So this is where you get to dig in and really understand. Why didn't that work? Is it because you missed the mark a little bit? Is it because you didn't really go all in on it? Is it because you were afraid to fail. So you just failed ahead of time, really look to understand why something didn't work.
What's so fascinating is that we always want someone else to tell us what their opinion is and what they see. But the truth of the matter is that we always have a pretty good idea if we're willing to just ask and listen to what the real answer is. So learning to audit ourselves is challenging, because we're not very objective about this topic of where we succeed. And where we fall short, right? It's very easy to slide into judgment or into justification, right? If something didn't work, but if you can stay as neutral as possible, and just be really curious about this, you'll get so much insight into why you think something really truly didn't work or isn't currently working. So learn how to do this for yourself. And then that's when you can get that outside opinion, and a truly objective perspective to kind of help you fill in some of those gaps and see things even more clearly. So that is step two, what didn't work.
Step Three of the audit is to decide what you want to improve. Now, with what worked and what didn't work, I want you to list as many things as you can possibly come up with the whole laundry list of the stuff. But for this step, you just want to choose three things. So focus on three things that you would like to improve moving forward. So those are the three steps for the self audit, and then you get a lot of information to help you decide how to move forward. So the next thing that I like to do after this audit is to create what I call supercharged strategies. So looking at those three things that you want to improve, how are you going to implement those improvements? Or what are you going to put in place to make sure that you're taking your own feedback and utilizing it in a way that works for you? So what are the strategies specifically to help you do that?
I thought I'd give you one of my examples from my audit that I wanted to improve on, not wanted, I want to improve on. So the thing that I decided to improve on is to focus on fun. It's really interesting. So fun was the theme of this entire year for me. And every year I like to choose a new theme or goal or an intention for the year. And a little, little bit of backstory on this. So at the end of last year, and some of you know this, who've been listening for a while, the end of last year, I got very sick. And I actually think I had Coronavirus before we knew that it was here in the states. But this is the sickest I've ever been. I ended up being sick for almost two months. And I lost my voice for about a month. Once everything was said and done. And I was just horribly sick. I've never felt this bad before. So in that time when I couldn't speak so I couldn't record a podcast. I couldn't talk to anyone.
I was doing a lot of writing. And through the writing, which was a very difficult process for me at the time, I had a lot of resistance to actually, like physically sitting down and writing things out. I had a big breakthrough and fun was part of that breakthrough. And I decided that I wasn't I just wasn't going to do anything in my business or in my life anymore. If it didn't ultimately feel fun to me. Now, you know, I've talked about how fun is a thing that we create. It's not something that happens to us we bring the fun we don't stumble upon it, and that we're not supposed to be having fun all the time. It's not just like 24 seven fun, but it is a core element of my business because what is the point, if not happy for not having fun, right? The bigger purpose of my life is to enjoy my time here on earth. And it's just so easy to slip into the weeds with things and to really go head down and be so serious.
I just decided that I was going to do my very best to be less serious and less focused on anything that wasn't fun for me to always bring it back. So anyway, that's the backstory. So what I noticed in my audit is that I did a great job with that all year long. But it was a bumpy road. So what it looked like for me is, if I could graph it out for you, it looked like starting with fun. So every project that I decided to do our clients that I decided to work with just all of the major things that I had going on in my world, the podcast, right, it started from this really fun energized place. And then I would get to work. And I would work really diligently, I'd be really focused and kind of get into the flow of things. And I was having fun, up until a point where I wasn't anymore. And I, because I have this kind of default setting where I just dig my heels in, I would kind of grind through things for a while until I had that same kind of aha epiphany moment again, where I had to come full circle and come back to fun and do that same conversation, where I was saying, if this isn't fun, I'm not doing it. And so I kind of repeated that cycle over and over through the course of the year.
It was so fascinating to see that in my audit to actually see the the waves in my experience. And I think ultimately I would I would evaluate this as saying that that was successful. So I did focus on fun this year. But I think I could do better. So I think I could have a better experience and be more connected to the fun in all of the things that I do, I should say, throughout my experience, instead of having such a high and low experience of the fun and then the misery, right. So overall, it balances out. But I'd like it to be a little more even keel along the way.
So that's a very long example. I hope you're following me there. But that is something that I want to improve that I specifically want to work on moving forward. So the question is, how am I going to implement that? How am I going to make sure that I'm creating a process for myself or just, you know, checking in with myself to make sure that that is something that continues to be on my radar? And how do I handle it? Or what do I want to do when I do fall off track? because inevitably, that's going to happen, it's going to come up some time. So is there anything that I want to do differently, or any specific protocol I want to put in place to help me overcome that and to stay on track, and keep moving forward with it? So that's supercharged strategies.
Then you can look at setting some goals. So I like to pick a 90 day goal at this point in the year, that puts us kind of mid January. So where do you want to be over the next 90 days? What do you want to accomplish? How do you want to make these improvements that you have been looking at? And then what are the action steps that you need in order to get there? So that's all the strategic thinking and the planning that you'll do after you do this audit.
But those three simple steps, what worked? What didn't work? And what do you want to improve on? Or how to self audit, and I hope that you will take some time to do this for yourself. It's such a good information gathering tool to really help you set yourself up for success over the next few months over the end of the year moving into the first part of 2021.
All right, you guys, I promised you a special offer. I would love for you to join me to create your 2021 game plan. So this is happening in November and the first part of December, so basically the next six weeks from this recording, and that is it. So the 2021 game plan is a private it's two private sessions with me where we are going to do a full business audit, and create your goal and your action plan for the next 90 days, along with strategies to help you navigate the holidays, to kick off the new year and to really set yourself up for success no matter what happens in the world. Because the world is still a crazy place.
You want to be prepared to handle anything and to keep your business thriving no matter what. So this is a special offer for a couple reasons. The first is that it's only two sessions. So we are laser focused. And I wanted to come up with a way to give you a high level of coaching very quickly. So, as you guys know, I don't offer short term programs, my programs start at six months. And they go even longer than that. So I really sat down to think how could I help more people at this part of the year, this time of the year was something that's really impactful. At a price point that is accessible, I want to set you guys up to really go into next year with a clear head, lots of focus, and be really excited about what you're creating next.
So even though we don't really know what is going to happen in the future, this process of creating a solid plan makes a massive difference in your ability to show up and do your work and to really put yourself out there in a way that is meaningful. So it's the difference between you running your business and your business just happening to you, it's really important to do audits like this, and then to put that information to good use.
So another thing, this audit that I'm going to do with you is different from your self audit. So your self audit is going to give you lots of self awareness, it's going to help you understand why the business that you have is the business that you have, and then use that to understand your intentions and how you want to move forward. But my audit is a neutral third party business inspection. So what I'm looking at is how your audience perceives, what you're putting out there, how they think about your brand, your marketing, the offers that you're making. And I really want to help you make sure that your business model lines up with your financial goals, and then that your marketing is all fully in support of that.
So if you've ever wished that someone would just come in and tell you like, Hey, this is what I see, this is what your business looks like from the outside. That is what this is this audit is me taking my brain and putting it on your business. And then we can put our heads together to look at your goal. Focus on what's important, and create a plan that you're really excited to work on. So if you've been following along on the podcast, or if you've been wanting to work with me, but feeling intimidated about that six month commitment, this is the perfect time to come and work with me just two sessions, we're going to knock it out of the park this year. And you'll be all set to go for next year. And if you've been trying to DIY your way through it, maybe you're in a group program, or you're listening to podcasts, other podcasts that are useful, or you've been taking courses, if you've done all of that work, and you're just ready to get out of your own head. This is the perfect time to come and work with me.
So once again, I'm only offering this for a short period of time to help you prep for January. So if you're thinking that maybe you'll just wait and get through the holidays and see what happens. Or maybe you're thinking that last week of December is the quiet time that you need to really put your focus on next year, that's fine. But then you're going to miss out on this chance. And we can really put our heads together and create something really powerful for you if you hop on and work with me right now. So go to linsibrownson.com forward slash gameplan. And you can sign up for the first of two sessions. There. Join me there, linsibrownson.com forward slash gameplan. I hope to talk with you soon I would love to work on your business with you. All right, you guys have a fabulous week, I will talk to you next week.
Hey, I know that running a small business can feel complicated. So let me help you uncomplicate it. I teach people how to harness their creative brainpower to take clear and focused action to accomplish their goals without burning out. I offer a free one hour consultation where we uncover what is really getting in your way right now. And I'll show you step by step how to create an aligned business that you will love to build. In this conversation. I'm going to give you the foundation to work confidently every single day. And it's going to be super simple. I want you to have the time, energy and freedom for everything that you want in life. And I want you to start having it right now. To find a time that works for you visit linsibrownson.com