For the month of October on the Christian Business Advantage podcast, we’re starting a new four episode series: How to Effectively Market Your Business in the Fourth Quarter. Today’s episode, “Preparing for Q4 Success”, walks you through practical steps to ensure a strong finish to the year. I explain why Q4 is a pivotal time for business owners – author, speaker, or coach – and how to evaluate the first three quarters of the year in areas like finances and marketing. You are a business owner and the fourth quarter of the year is so important! You must think about what lies ahead and prepare for Q4 success!
Whether you have a goal for the year that you still want to reach or you’ve already hit your goal, you want to keep going! The fourth quarter is the last opportunity to hit those goals for the year!
I hope you set some goals for the year – at least for each quarter – but whether you did or not, you can look back at what your business has achieved in these past three quarters.
Evaluate the Year
First we’re going to evaluate Quarters 1 through 3. A couple of the areas that you can evaluate are finances and sales.
Look for trends in your business.
Where have things gone and what did you do to accomplish that?
If one of your goals was to gain followers on social media or grow your email list, ask yourself what worked and what didn’t work. So evaluate those things.
Hopefully you are tracking goals in your business. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, I’ll link to the podcast episode where I talk about tracking. (I even offer a free spreadsheet for tracking!)
Why is Marketing So Important? was one of my most popular episodes on marketing, tracking, and those sorts of things, because that’s the way you know if you hit business targets.
It helps you to see the trends—what’s working and what’s not working.
Then you’ll need to look at your finances. For me, that is a difficult thing, which is why I outsource this particular task. I don’t do my own bookkeeping. I actually have a bookkeeper who sends really detailed reports and those are super important for me to look back on, to see if I am reaching the goals that I’ve set for myself financially. I can see where I am and what needs to be done to finish the year out strong!
Set Goals
You will want to set some goals for Q4. If you listen to last month’s podcast, I talk all about The 12 Week Year. If you’ve not listened, you should revisit all the episodes from September where my accountability partner, Trisha, and I shared how we use the concepts from the book, The 12 Week Year, to set quarterly goals.
Achieving the quarterly goals should ultimately help you achieve your annual goals.
So you can look at those and say, Okay, I’m 75% of the way to my goal; therefore, I need to do 25% more work in Quarter Four. Trisha and I track our actions and goals each quarter. If I have four main goals for Q4 to finish out the year, I look at those four.
Create Actionable Steps
Next break the goals down into actionable steps. Ask yourself, What do I need to do each week during Quarter Four in order to make those goals a reality?
Follow the actionable steps and make sure that you have accountability in place. Accountability is key. If you’re committed, then a like-minded accountability partner ensures you follow through with your plan.
Plan a Reward
You also want to plan for how you will reward yourself! It doesn’t have to be a large reward.
Let me tell you, I hit a goal – a big goal in September – and it was on a Friday. My daughter asked if we could go to the next town to a little boutique. We went and I rewarded myself by going to our favorite coffee shop and buying us both a coffee. It only cost me $5, but a reward nonetheless.
Sometimes it doesn’t have to be a large reward, but reward yourself for hitting the goals that you have set for yourself!
Remember, you can prepare for Q4 success in your business!
- You want to look back and evaluate the year so far.
- You want to set your goals.
- You want to break those goals into actionable steps.
- You want to seek accountability.
- You want to be sure and reward yourself.
Questions? Join the Group!
If you have specific questions about hosting a virtual summit, I’d love to get those because that would help me to make sure that I’m covering everything that you’re interested in knowing during this series on the podcast. You can submit your questions inside The Christian Business Advantage Facebook group. I look forward to seeing you there!
