WHY EVERY BUSINESS OWNER NEEDS TO REGULARLY DO SELF-ANALYSIS

Is self-analysis a waste of time for a business owner?

Some people love self-analysis and do it frequently. If you’re one of those people who is not on board with the idea you probably want to stop reading this now but, for the benefit of your business, please read on!

Although self-analysis should be as in-depth as works for you, self-analysis in a business context does not have to be a complete baring of your soul and every aspect of your life (nor be so probing that you feel it is based on the first half of the word analysis either!), but it should at least be an analysis of how your business is performing to meet your goals.

Meeting your goals

As a business owner you should expect that your own business already is, or at least is following a plan towards, meeting your own business goals. If not, why not?

Hopefully, when you started your business you spent time analysing your original business idea against your goals and worked out how to achieve the business of your dreams.

• If you didn’t do this, it’s never too late
• Even if you’ve done this you need to periodically review and reassess because nothing stays the same for ever

It may be that your goals have changed because the market that your business operates in has changed or because life has a sneaky way of happening all around you, throwing new obligations and responsibilities at you.

Too busy?

Starting and running a business is really time-consuming, no matter how organised you are, because there will always be some new challenge to deal with (expected or otherwise). Business life is just like that, no matter what anyone says and no matter how well you plan. This means that all too often we get caught up with “doing” our business to the point where we never step back and examine exactly how it’s working for us.

Of course you need to concentrate all of your efforts into your business but how often have you

• felt that you are running to stand still
• felt that you don’t have enough time
• seemed too busy working to market or build your business
• wondered why your business is not more profitable
• been confused as to why you don’t feel you are reaping rewards comparable to your efforts

If you have ever felt like this (be honest now) you need to do a quick self-analysis.

You don’t have to spend days on self-analysis, but working through a process which will help you and your business achieve your goals is definitely worth doing.