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2025 Year-End Business Report Card

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Reflecting on the waning year is the best way to give yourself an honest and very helpful big picture understanding of what occurred in your business. You will come face2face with planned initiatives, unexpected opportunities and risks that paid off, or at least broke even, and those that, unfortunately, failed to fulfill your hopes. , and what you might adjust to reach your 2026 goals. A year-end review suggests which strategies will likely build on successes, gives insight into what you should eliminate, as least for now, and what might come through for you in the new year, perhaps with some adjustment. A year-end review encourages productivity that brings good results by helping you move forward and build momentum—and ensuring that you avoid reinventing the wheel or repeatedly start from ground zero, which is sure to slow your progress. 

Review the year in business

When reviewing the past 12 months of your business, there are a few questions and metrics that will give you a good baseline of what you would be wise to pursue, adjust, or eliminate during the upcoming year.  After answering these questions, you can more effectively map out your goals for next year. Set attainable, data-driven targets that challenge, but are also within reach. This is also a great time to identify if you might want to outsource certain functions in the next year to help you reach your 2026 goals.

  • How many projects did I work on?
  • What was my total sales revenue?
  • What were the sources for these deals? (e.g., referrals, networking, social media, website marketing funnel)
  • On a scale of 1-10, how would I rate my new client prospecting efforts?
  • How consistent was I with marketing—blogs, newsletters, webinar appearances, social media? Did I create and follow outreach strategies or was it intermittent?
  • What could I have done better in terms of marketing?
  • What did I do exceptionally well that contributed to my success?
  • What area did I struggle with the most? (Hint: this may be an area to either get help with or improve in 2025).

Evaluate performance of lead generation strategies

  • Inbound marketing continues to be an absolute requirement for B2B growth. Creating a consistent stream of leads is very important if you want to build a business that is sustainable and that you can scale and grow. The goal is to invite a steady flow of leads from different sources. Inbound marketing is considered the most practical and method for keeping your pipeline filled with prospects who are curious about your services or products. Inbound marketing is also efficient, with numerous marketing studies confirming that inbound marketing campaigns and activities generate about 54% more leads than outbound marketing. Furthermore, inbound marketing costs up to 62% less per lead than traditional outbound marketing. In 2026, inbound marketing appeals are predicted to remain the primary source of how B2B buyers themselves expect to discover, evaluate and shortlist vendors, as 80 % of all B2B sales interactions will take place across a spectrum of digital channels, from company websites to social media platforms. Think of inbound marketing content and activities as a magnet that pulls in already-curious prospective buyers. The purpose of inbound marketing is to educate, build trust and generate qualified leads by providing valuable, problem-solving, content. Be advised that most of the buyer’s journey unfolds long before a prospect reaches out to a select group of potential vendors to obtain deal-sealing (or deal breaking) information. Those on a serious buyer’s journey already have a list of key questions to ask, to discuss and learn about the particulars of a service, or would like to see a product demonstration. Note that inbound marketing leadgen results in the prospect initiating contact with companies that look promising as they define it. The content you create (or fail to create)—stories, education, testimonials, case studies, conversations—determine whether you’ll be chosen to make the prospective buyer’s vendor shortlist. Review and assess your inbound marketing activity and confirm which campaigns were the most successful and which may benefit from a reworking. Your inbound marketing activity most likely includes some of the following activities.
    • Thought leadership (producing relevant and valuable information—e-book, case study, webinar or podcast appearance, blog, newsletter)
    • Sales/marketing funnel (company website)
    • Social media posts (text or audio/visual formats)
    • Referrals
    • SEO search (company website)

  • Outbound marketing content and activities enable you to broadcast your pitch to everyone in your chosen target demographics. The style is push: you/your brand initiates the contact with prospects whether or not they’re hyper-local in-market as you disseminate your message (“This is who we are and why you want to know us”). Outbound marketing methods are typically promotional—attention-grabbers, such as cold emails and direct mailings (recipients are often taken from membership or other lists), conference or event sponsorships, paid display advertisements/ paid social media ads.
    • Public speaking (guest speaking, teaching, panel/moderator) 
    • Face2face networking events (business groups or social gatherings)
    • Email updates
    • Participating in community charity events 
    • Paid online leadgen (pay-per-click)

Create a content calendar and map out marketing campaigns

Planning and scheduling your content is one of the best things you can do for your business—and your time and creativity. There are a few ways you can look at the year and decide the message of your content. Readers who have been with me for a couple of years or more will, for example, recognize that in late June – early July, I publish an annual Summer Reading List, which consists of 10 business and leadership-themed books that should appeal to those who are independently employed, whether as Freelance consultants or small business owners. Certain books might also appeal to traditionally employed executives in either the for-profit or not-for-profit sectors. In late November, I publish a December holiday client gift suggestions list.

Which events that occur in your industry might serve as focal points for your content? Could it be “back to school,” which could prompt you to present related content in August, or the arrival of a season—wintertime skiing and ice skating, an early spring marathon, an annual national conference that is regularly attended by members of your core target market, or Small Business Saturday in November?

When you develop a plan now, you can expect to emerge with a draft that you can finalize as you get closer to scheduled target dates for your content. Your content calendar draft will support and encourage you to publish relevant marketing content that’s timed to maximize its impact. Planning is so much better than flying by the seat of your pants!

Budgeting

In sum, the year-end review of your business entity can be a catalyst for growth and success. It encourages continuous learning and improvement and inspires you to think and act proactively. Your year-end review is among the most effective processes you have to evaluate the overall performance of your venture and by so doing, give yourself an opportunity to learn from successes and failures, make informed decisions and set challenging, yet realistic, strategic goals for the new year. In your review, you can analyze your 2025 actual spend against your budgeted expenses. You’ll be able to identify spending variances and learn why budget targets were exceeded. Insights from your 2025 budget review will assist in building realistic budget forecasts for 2026.

Keep in mind that forecasting is about anticipating the funding you’ll need to implement marketing campaigns, as well as paying for business operating expenses, from bookkeeping expenses to business association member dues to purchasing customer relations software to enhance your marketing functions. One hand washes the other when your leadgen marketing funnel brings in the revenue that enables you to operate at peak performance (as you define it)!

So—how did your budget and business expenses line up in 2025? Consult your financial statements— Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss (Income) Statement and Cash Flow Statement and conduct a financial health assessment of your entity. These documents provide a snapshot of your company’s assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses and profits throughout the year. It would be a great idea to discuss company financials with your business accountant, to get his/her perspective on how to enhance your company’s sustainability and financial possibilities. Why not send an email now and get a meeting on your January calendar?

Happy New Year and thanks for reading! I look forward to greeting you in 2026.

Kim

Image: © Freepik

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Perfecting Your Pivot

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If the quintessential American motto is “change is good,” then in the business sector change finds its ultimate expression in the pivot. You have no doubt noticed that business publications often feature reports of a pivot executed by one entrepreneur or another. The pivot is the new American myth, a swashbuckling action-adventure narrative that stars a Luke Skywalker archetype who launches a start-up. If sales start tanking, our brave and brilliant entrepreneur-hero correctly diagnoses the problem, intuits the marketplace zeitgeist and engineers a flawless pivot that not only saves the company from bankruptcy, but carries it to phenomenal success.

These heroes’ journeys are exciting and tremendously appealing but as you know, reality does not unfold like scenes in a movie. What’s lost in the fawning admiration is the cold fact that a pivot is a complex process. Getting it right demands a deep dive into both your data and that of your marketplace. The ability to recognize the story that the data tells and the good judgment to know what to do about it is another requirement. A dose of good luck is the third resource you’ll need.

It may take a couple of disappointing quarterly financial reports to convince you that a change must be made, and soon, to avoid getting trapped in a permanent downward spiral. Once it becomes obvious that corrective action is necessary, your first challenge is to identify which aspects of the business need to change and what might be left in place.

Resist the temptation to assume that major surgery, i.e., a pivot, is the best remedy. Choose the course of action that data indicates is the most specific and least disruptive solution and should have the best chance of successfully turning the company around. The purpose of your research is to discover and confirm growth opportunities and how to either successfully enter a new market or hit the restart button on the market you’re in, by refining your methods. Carefully research the size of potential new target markets, your access to those customers and the competitive landscape.

For example, as you analyze the efficacy of your marketing strategy, you may realize that some combination of ramping up your inbound marketing activities to increase outreach to target customers, reassessing your pricing strategy and/or upgrading pre- and post- sale customer services provided could make a substantial positive impact.

Once you’ve analyzed your business and marketplace data, you would as well be wise to review your company mission and vision statements. Before making any big changes to the purpose or mission of your enterprise, make sure that the new direction of your company will align with your values and guiding principles. Or will your pivot necessitate a rewrite of your vision and/ or mission statements?

Pivot to solve a problem

Analyze your KPIs, with special emphasis on marketing data and revenue streams. Get input from your customer-facing team members and feedback from high-volume customers—both groups have wisdom to share. Every pivot is different, but every pivot must solve a problem. Following your analysis, you can develop your pivot strategy, the roadmap that defines the aspects of your business that you’ll pivot and the aspects that will support the new direction and can remain in place.

Your pivot plan will outline the steps you’ll take to execute the pivot. It should include timelines, resource allocation and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure its success.

As well, encourage yourself to be confident once your decision is made. A pivot is a significant challenge but it is nevertheless a sign of robust strategic thinking and problem solving, essential qualities that support the long-term viability of your enterprise. Signs that a pivot might be necessary include:

  • Insufficient customer base
  • Weak brand equity
  • Unsatisfactory revenue and profit
  • Negative customer feedback
  • Overwhelming competition

Types of Pivot Strategies

Pivots offer customizable options—-there is no one-size-fits-all template. Your company’s pivot may involve a group of small changes that together result in a significant positive impact. Conversely, your pivot may be based on a very visible alteration in your signature product or service that precipitates a re-calibration of your brand and all the ways you market and sell it. Below are five of the most common pivot strategies:

Marketing Pivot: Signals a big change in your company’s core marketing strategy. Pivoting in this instance may include targeting a different audience, using more appropriate outreach channels, re-calibrating your use of inbound and outbound marketing techniques, or adjusting the company’s brand voice and messaging tactics.

Product Pivot: Describes a change of the company’s product or service offerings. Pivoting a product may include altering the product’s ingredients, features, or packaging. In a more dramatic approach, the defining characteristic of your pivot may be the introduction of new product or service lines to provide solutions that are more responsive to customer needs and priorities.

Brand Pivot: A branding pivot strategy entails one or more adjustments to a company’s characteristic image and philosophy. Pivoting a brand may include renaming the company (see Facebook to Meta), editing its mission to serve a new target market, updating the company tagline, or refreshing the visuals, e.g., the logo and/or color scheme used.

Pricing Pivot: In this choice, a company may change the pricing tier in which it has previously operated. For example, a retailer that originally priced in the mid-market tier may conclude that economy pricing will better reflect the perceived value of its products. The expected outcome is a broader customer base that generates greater revenues and increased profits.

Distribution Pivot: Closing all or most of a business’s physical locations in favor of operating in the e-commerce sector is a bold example of a distribution pivot. The strategy involves changing how a company delivers its products and services to consumers. Pivoting your distribution model could include expanding into new geographic markets, adding or discontinuing retailer partners, or introducing the franchise model.

Communicate and monitor

In advance of your venture’s pivot, encourage support by explaining the upcoming changes to stakeholders—employees, customers, investors. Outline the changes you plan to make and clearly articulate how those changes will benefit their relationship with the organization. Schedule videoconference meetings with each key constituency to discuss the pivot and make the case for why it is necessary.

Be certain that your explanation adequately answers the anticipated questions and potential concerns of each group. Consider creating a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet for each stakeholder constituency. Finally, closely monitor the pivot’s progress as reflected in the KPIs you’ve chosen, as well as feedback from key members of your constituencies.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: The Academy Drum and Bugle Corps of Tempe, AZ

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Staying Alive: KPIs Make the Difference

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You’ll recall the overview of the 5 stages of growth that businesses of every type or size experience, if they survive, as discussed in the April 11 post. Today we’ll explore how three standard financial statements can help business owners maintain the health of their venture and position it to survive long enough to pass through the growth stages and grow as intended. Actionable data—Key Performance Indicators— are waiting for you in those financial statements and the numbers will show you how to best manage your entity.

Math might not be your strength but little by little, you can learn to recognize and interpret the numbers and allow your KPIs to do their job and function as guard rails that will make you an astute decision-maker. Running a business is all about making informed decisions that help your business operate efficiently and grow successfully. Just as your primary care physician monitors numeric values associated with certain of your bodily functions—-vital signs, your personal KPIs—-you do the same for your business.

Because 70% of businesses will fail after 10 years and you don’t want it to happen to you, let that scary thought motivate you to keep both hands on the wheel and manage your business wisely. There are many factors to evaluate, including your client list and the sales of your products and/ or services, but today’s focus is the financial management that your monthly or quarterly bookkeeping statements allow you to do. BTW, those statements also make preparing your quarterly and annual tax forms are more efficient and less stressful process.

Basic 3 financial statements

  • Income (P & L) statement. The income statement, also known as the profit & loss statement, is also known as the profit-and-loss statement. It sums up the money you collected from operations plus any other gains, as well as the money spent over a specific period of time. The basic formula is: Net Income = (Total Revenue + Gains) – (Total Expenses + Losses). You want your net income to be positive.
  • Cash-flow statement. The cash flow statement shows whether your business can pay its bills. This will give you a sense of where your business’ cash will come from and where it will be spent. Here you can also see customers that may “slow pay” to decide if they are putting your cash position in jeopardy.
  • Balance sheet. Your balance sheet summarizes your company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity (or investment in the business), providing a snapshot of the financial health of the business at a point in time.

Trend analysis

Looking for trends can help you determine which products or services to promote, keep in stock, or stop selling altogether. Certain of your products or services may sell more frequently during some seasons and less frequently during other times of the year. Special promotions, perhaps advertised by way of email marketing and social media, is just one smart decision that examining sales trends can lead you to make. Another smart decision you might make is to initiate a demand pricing strategy and increase the prices of popular products or services during the time of year that they sell the most.

Get an unfiltered look at what clients prefer to buy on the top line of your P&L, Gross Sales Revenue. While many obsess over the bottom line, because it shows the total revenue earned (or lost) for the month, quarter, or year, the top line should not be ignored. When the top line shows healthy sales, it’s obvious that you’re doing something right. After that, it’s a matter of controlling expenses. Keep an eye on the trends in top line sales data, it is instructive.

Analyze and interpret

Also monitor your expenses, fixed and variable. Fixed (operating) expenses include office rent, W2 payroll wages and utilities. Variable expenses are often sales related, such as marketing and professional development. Increasing expenses may mean that you’ll have to alter some other part of your business (for instance, increasing prices when expenses grow). If certain clients are making late payments , potentially causing you to make late payments to your creditors, consider requiring late or slow payers to make a deposit of at 25% or so on the project you’ll do and/ or increase your project fee for late paying clients.

As you become more proficient in your understanding of financial data and interpretation, you can also calculate and follow certain financial ratios that can provide guidance. On your Balance Sheet you can calculate Net Working Capital, which is your current assets less your current liabilities. This is the amount of money you can use to operate the business day-to-day and invest in growth.

The Current Ratio equals current assets divided by current liabilities. In general, a ratio of one (1) or less indicates that there is not enough available capital to pay your expenses, which is a real problem. If your Debt-to-Equity Ratio (total liabilities divided by total assets) is greater than one (1), it is understood that the business is carrying too much debt—literally at a dollar to dollar ratio. Credit card debt and perhaps also other borrowing as a means to grow your business or pay expenses is bound to cause lending institutions to see your company as a credit risk. Direct your resources to paying down debt.

Bookkeeping software

If you have few transactions in a typical month, you may prefer to record client financial activity in Excel and send invoices in PDF format. If you have several client bills/ month you may prefer to install bookkeeping software. Freelancers and small business owners tend to work with small business specific, cloud, industry specific, or open source software.

Bookkeeping/ accounting software usually fulfills several functions in addition to generating the basic financial statements on a monthly or quarterly basis. You’ll also receive a collection of services that may also include invoicing, inventory management, payroll, financial reports and customer relations management features such as tracking client interactions, sales history and maintaining contact info. To compare features and monthly costs of several software services, click https://www.business.org/finance/accounting/best-bookkeeping-software/

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: This photo is from an album Elstner Hilton compiled in Japan between 1914 and 1918.

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10 Steps to Fortify Your Business

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Here come the lazy, hazy days of summer. The sun is warm and days are long, but billable hours can be short, the result of vacation schedules at client workplaces. For that reason, Freelancers may often find it convenient to vacation in July or August. But those who prefer a winter vacation, whether on ski slopes or in warm surf, might long for a worthy assignment to get their arms around. I’ll suggest that Freelancers, as well as small business owners, look no further than our own organization for a project that can generate billable hours.

During the summer slowdown, ambitious Freelancers and business owners will use the available time to build a more efficiently run and profitable business. We’ll reconfirm our customer knowledge, examine our product and service lines, analyze our financial statements, review operations processes, evaluate customer service protocols, update competitive intelligence and refine marketing tactics.

Smart Freelancers will look inward to shore up our businesses internally. We’ll also look outward, ready to pounce on intriguing opportunities that become available. If you’re not doing so already, here are 10 smart business planning steps you should take this season.

  1. Analyze your financials

Examine your Profit & Loss and Cash-flow Statements and make note of the top line, that is, Gross Sales on the Cash-flow statement and Gross Revenue on the P & L Statement. That number (they are the same) reflects the amount of all billable hours and other income you generated in a particular month (or quarter, or year). In a potential business slow-down, it’s essential to confirm that you’ll have the funds to cover all accounts payable, including payroll, if you have employees or outsourced help.

Next, take a look at your Balance Sheet and make note of the total Accounts Payable figure. that number represents monthly business debts (e.g. office space rent and insurance premiums). If a shortfall looks like a possibility, you’ll need to find a way to either negotiate with creditors to ask for an extension, or find a way to generate money quickly. Maybe you can find a part-time under-the-radar job?

  1. Conduct SWOT Analysis

The acronym known as SWOT you may know stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal (personal) attributes and can be impacted by you. Your strengths may include an exceptional client list, fortunate business and personal relationships that you can leverage, relevant educational or professional qualifications, and/or a product or service line that clients value and support. Brainstorm new ways to capitalize your company strengths. Acknowledge also company Weaknesses and find ways to eliminate, minimize and/or camouflage.

Research happenings that may potentially impact your organization to manage the external factors of Opportunities and Threats. Approach all potential Opportunities with forethought, so that you will remember to apply the most appropriate of your Strengths to effectively laying claim to the good. Take steps to sidestep or soften the blow of potential Threats.

  1. Rank clients

Determine who’s profitable, and who’s not. If some clients are a drain on resources, perhaps because they give few billable hours and the rate is low, either raise the price or “fire” them. You can’t afford to carry unprofitable clients.  Aim to work lean and mean. right now.

  1. Network

There will be a handful of conferences held in July and August and some may be worthwhile. If you become aware of a conference where the topics will be relevant to you, the speakers interesting and the attendees people who you may want to meet, try to find the money to attend. You may find your next client or referral partner (and remember to reciprocate).

  1. Streamline work processes

Time is the resource that those who work in the Knowledge Economy, i.e., the intangible services business, value most.  How can you provide your services faster and still maintain the high quality of deliverables for your clients? The objective is to create time to pursue more clients, analyze your business and clients, network, or simply rest and recharge your batteries.

  1. Create strategic alliances

Forming simple partnerships can make or save you money.  One of your clients could be an excellent referral source for your business and you may be able to return the favor for your client’s organization.

  1. Reduce expenses

Do you rent office space? If so and especially if your lease will expire in less than a year, why not call your landlord and suggest that the two of you negotiate a longer-term lease in return for cost concessions?  Or, if you’ve been able to pay all insurance policies on time for the past 12 – 18 months, inquire about a lower annual premium? Do the same for your credit cards regarding interest rates.

  1. Refine marketing strategies

Assess the impact and ROI of your marketing efforts and then ensure that your marketing goals make sense for your business.  What exactly do you want your content marketing, marketing and advertising and social media postings to accomplish?

  1. Target competitors’ clients

If learn that a competitor is struggling, reach out to any of his/her clients whom you know or feel comfortable approaching to discuss the advantages of doing business with your organization. If your competitor’s clients sense a possible decline in quality or fear a service disruption, they may be receptive to your pitch.

  1. Eyes and ears open

Be on the lookout for fresh ideas and opportunities. Stay abreast of news and trends in your industry and also in your clients’ industries. Interact with other Freelancers and business owners to see what they’re doing. Learn from them what’s going on around you and be prepared to explore promising opportunities that come your way.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: The Second Crop (Le Regain), 1880  Julien Dupre (France, 1851 – 1910)

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Business Forecasting Helps You Make Money

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Summer 2017 will officially arrive on June 21 and the warm temperatures promise to seduce us with sunshine and flowers. Summer is the primary vacation season and many businesses slow down with its arrival , with the exception of tourist industry service providers and wedding planners and their usual sub-contractors: caterers, florists, photographers, DJs and videographers, many of whom are Freelancers.  The rest of us, however, have to get creative and try to maintain our discipline and resolve as the heat and humidity conspire against ambition.  This lovely time of year can present a real financial challenge for Freelancers.  How can we remain productive and scare up some billable hours? Summer is the ideal time to devote attention to positioning  your venture to make money in the fourth quarter and beyond.

I suggest that you conduct business forecasting at your organization this summer. Business forecasting is the cornerstone of business planning and business planning is the foundation of enabling business profitability.  Forecasting helps business owners and Freelancers to objectively examine the monetary value of each revenue stream that the venture generates, so that it becomes very clear which lines of business are making money and the amount of profitability of each line.  Forecasting shows you where you should devote your resources and in that way generate increased billable hours, revenues and profits.

Forecasting in your Freelance venture is crucial: client work, teaching assignments, writing assignments, subcontracting work for other Freelancers and maybe even an under-the-radar odd job along the way to fatten the coffers are among the business activities in which we engage to maintain cash-flow.  It’s very useful to know which of these lines of business is worth more attention and those that you may want to drop, since the returns are meager.

Let’s face reality—we B2B Freelance service providers often don’t know when our next client will come along, or what s/he will want to spend on services when that happens.  It’s so easy to wind up scrambling from new client to new client without getting much repeat business, or adequate control over our earning capacity. That’s why it’s vital that we:

  1. Identify where the earning potential really is (and it might not be client work)
  2. Create strategies and action plans that promote successful participation in those of your business activities that are the most profitable

There are thousands of Freelancers who make their real money not from client work, which can be both scarce and erratic, but on other related business lines.  For hiilucky Freelancers who have national renown, that could be book sales, paid speaking engagements and paid writing assignments.  For others, it’s their coaching business that is the real profit engine.  In such cases, the client work is necessary to lend credibility and enable access to the other, much more profitable, activities.

So how does one conduct business forecasting? If you use Intuit QuickBooks software, you can build a model on that system.  If you have at least three or four years’ of client data in QuickBooks, you will receive much valuable, actionable information about your business, including:

  • Profitability and profit margins
  • Average revenue /client
  • Average billable hours /client

If you keep your financial data on Excel, review the past five years’ of invoices (or as far back as possible in a newer venture) and identify your top five or ten most lucrative revenue streams, whether that is client work or other related projects.  Invoice dates will reveal seasonal revenue generating patterns and the invoices will remind you of which of your services sells the most and which the least.  Billable hours and hourly or project fee rates should also be noted. It will take longer to generate the data, but as with QuickBooks, much valuable and actionable data can be extracted from your Excel based financials.

There are two basic methods of business forecasting, Qualitative and Quantitative. Qualitative forecasting models are based on market research and they’re most effective in predicting short-term cycles. Quantitative forecasting models are based on data and the approach is more effective than the qualitative model in predicting long-term cycles.

There are various types of quantitative forecasting approaches and for small and medium size business forecasting, the Time Series Method is most useful.  The Time Series Method uses historical financial data to predict future results.  When you go to your bank for a business loan and five years’ of your financials are requested, the loan officer is using the Time Series Method to predict whether you will be able to generate enough cash-flow and sales revenues to repay the loan on time.

Once you have your financials in hand, Step 2 of Business Forecasting is the development of a marketing plan that contains strategies and action plans that create the road map that your organization will follow as you seek to expand those business lines that generate the most revenues for you and consider dropping those that perform poorly.

When you see with irrefutable data that reveals which of your services brings home the most money, you will likely get a clearer picture of your ideal clients and the messages and marketing platforms that resonate with them.  An amended pricing strategy and/or sales distribution method may be instituted, as might tweaking of your business model.

Business forecasting reveals patterns in client activity that are often overlooked and the process allows you to anticipate demand for your services, reveals which services historically have produced the greatest sales revenues, reveals the types of clients that spend the most with you and in general, shows on what side the toast is buttered.

With objective confirmation of your best client categories and most popular services, you can concentrate on how to access those clients, including bigger budget clients within the categories and you’ll know how best to sell to them.  You will work not only hard, but also smart, to grow your client list and increase billable hours, revenues and profits and that will be the best use of your time during this glorious summer.

Thanks for reading,

Kim