Reflection and Goals: Those are two things that come to mind when approaching the end of one year, and the beginning of another. They seem to have even more importance when entering the new decade. This is a chance to examine what has brought you success and what has brought challenges either within the last year or the last couple years. Reviewing your short and long-term goals can help decide the targets for the new year. Additionally, this is a time to examine how you want to grow your practice in the long term. You can set benchmarks for your practice to help drive growth into the new decade.
When looking at the objectives created for your practice, it is time to ask yourself whether they were met. By turning to your financial statements, you will be able to get a better image of the overall health of your practice, and these will help you determine where you are with your goals. They can demonstrate where there is strong growth in the office and where there is room for improvement. By identifying these areas, you will be able to more accurately establish short- and long-term targets. This will help to drive your practice and employees to newer and greater heights when you can see a clear picture of how the office is performing.
One of the most important tools available to help you and your practice is your business advisor, accountant or financial advisor. These professionals help you understand the financial statements. This allows you to more clearly and accurately establish targets for the new year and decade. A business advisor, accountant or financial advisor can help create an action plan so that these goals being set are achievable. This may include setting up a budget or cash flow document or having an accountability system set up. Meeting with the professional you set financial goals with, more than once a year besides just around tax time, will help you to stay on track to achieve, and plan accordingly to exceed your, objectives.
Taking the time to reflect on your previous goals and understanding which did well, and identify the areas of improvement, can help guide you to your 2020 goals. These targets and objectives can be broad or narrow. For example, they could be wanting to add another practice sometime within the next couple years or increase the number of multiple pairs sold this next year. These goals can be as simple as wanting to replace or improve office furniture or as complicated as figuring out the best manner to increase patient retention, when to add a full-time associate, or plan your exit strategy. All your goals do not have to be related to the practice’s financial health. They can relate back to the employees or patient care. Having goals that improve employee satisfaction and the culture of the office as well as patient satisfaction, will also affect the financial growth of a practice. Employees will want to stay, and patients will happily come back and refer their friends.
By reflecting on your previous goals to identify those you exceeded, and which are still a work in progress, you can set up objectives for the new year to help your practice move forward in a positive direction. As the new year approaches, these are some thoughts to keep in mind to start the new decade off strong!
For more information on preparing for the new year, check out our webinars on Planning for Year End and 20/20 Vision for 2020!