S H OW M E T H E M O N E Y Best Business Practices
Measuring Progress
A Guide to Your Second-Quarter Performance BY LUANN NIGARA
Half of 2023 is nearly history. How is this possible? Summer is upon us and the International Window Coverings Expo, High Point Market and Exciting Windows! Conference are all in the rearview mirror. It doesn’t seem right, but it is. I do hope you attended one or more of these industry events and that you learned something new to take to your business, that you found new resources to boost your profitability and that you reconnected with friends. Re-energized and feeling positive, it is time for some CEO work. The work of working on the business, not in the business. Ideally, you should take time each month (if not each week) to do activities that up-level your business, as well as your business acumen. But, at this halfway point in the year, I want you to look a bit more closely at your business. Particularly if you have not developed the practice of doing this regularly, quarterly reviews are the minimum. I especially like the secondquarter review because we have enough data to see the year’s trends, but we still have enough time to either get back on track or to put the pedal to the floor and blow out our goals.
Your Quarterly Reviews Should Address These Five Key Areas: ■ Finances ■ Sales and Marketing ■ Operations ■ Team Management ■ Year-End Goals
Finances In reviewing your finances, start with an overview of your financial health by looking at your balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. Look to see if you find trends in your revenue—either going up or down—and see if you can determine the reason for the trend. Did you take on soft treatments and average sales are higher, therefore so is the revenue number? Do you have a salesperson who is underperforming that you have been ignoring? Understanding the reasons for changes enables us to plan accordingly to maximize or mitigate them. Look at the profitability of your business. Do you know which products and services generate the highest profit margins? You are in the driver’s seat. You can and should choose to sell the items that are the highest profit centers for your business. Things happen when we decide on them, not by accident. Identify any areas where profitability has improved or declined and evaluate the reasons behind these changes. Look at your budget and compare projected to actual. Also compare the first second
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quarters of last year to this year. Look for areas where you are either on track or off track. Remember, whenever you find you are exceeding your own goals, always take time to give yourself a high five … then figure out why and do more of that!
Sales and Marketing Look at your sales for the first two quarters, again comparing them to the goals you set as well as to the same period last year. This year may be different from typical previous years. Most of us in the home industry are not holding ourselves to an expectation of duplicating or exceeding the sales numbers of 2022 or even 2021, but, instead, we are projecting growth against the 2019 sales figures. As an aside, all of the goal-driven entrepreneurs I speak with are still giving an eye to 2022 … even if it’s just to have the big carrot. At Window Works and now at Exciting Windows!, Vin has trained us all to aim as high as possible because then no matter what we achieve it is almost guaranteed to be outstanding. So, do you, but do something. Have goals for gross profit for every salesperson, including yourself. Talk about the profit margins so everyone understands them, strives for them and achieves them.