Why it's Important for Businesses to Revisit Financial Goals Annually

It’s more important than you realize to revisit your financial goals at least once every year. Whether you’re a small business or a multinational corporation, making this a habit can lead to great things for your business while failing to do so can lead your business to stagnation and a lack of growth in the future. These are a few of the most important reasons why you need to make revisiting financial goals a priority for your business each and every year.

Laws Change

While that might not seem like a big deal, new laws impact businesses every day. New tax codes, the Affordable Care Act, and even new laws regarding truck drivers and how much sleep they are required to have before they can drive again affect the financial outlook of businesses. This requires a new look at your financial goals in order to determine if changes are necessary. The more attention and consideration you give your financial goals, from year to year, the better able you are to adapt to these new changes without experiencing significant blowback.

Customer Needs, Wants, and Demands Change

Consumers are a fickle bunch of people – often off to chase the next shiny new object that comes along. This Shiny New Object syndrome keeps many businesses running. While you may not create new mobile devices that come out two or three times a year with something new added each time, you do provide either products or services to your public.

You need to keep your fingers on the pulse of what they want, need, and require in order to keep coming back to the well of products or services you offer. If you’re losing customers or not gaining new customers at the pace you expect revisiting your financial goals can help you adjust your goals and the plans you make for accomplishing those goals to accommodate these changes.

Stuff Happens

Your business does not exist or operate in a vacuum. Things that happen in the world around you impact your business and your financial goals. Everyday situations such as data breaches, evolution in technology, wars, and even changes in the worldwide economy can have big consequences for your business – or even be a boon for your business. If you’re not revisiting your financial goals as you should, you might miss out on golden opportunities. Or you may fall victim to your own shortsightedness by not making key changes in time to do good things for your business.

Forces You to Keep Your Business Model Fresh

The thing about financial goals for businesses is that they drive the business model. The model you have for your business is all about achieving your financial goals. This includes your yearly business plans, the products you launch, and even the way you conduct your business. Without financial goals lighting your way, you’d have no direction. If you’re not consistently updating your financial goals, you’re not refreshing your business model and making effective changes to your business plan.

Gives You the Opportunity to Explore the Effectiveness of Current Goals and Strategies

Sometimes, your current goals and strategies are ineffective. Either they are too ambitious to accomplish in a reasonable amount of time or they are not ambitious enough. Either problem can lead to a lack of motivation among key players and an overall atmosphere of failure. Revisiting your financial goals once a year allows you to assess them more objectively – removed from the emotions of the time when the goals were set – so that you can make critical changes to those goals and strategies.

Financial goals are critical for businesses today. They give you specific numbers to strive for and require a plan of action to accomplish. For most businesses, it is these goals that is the driving force behind marketing, research and development, product creation, and the development of new technology. These financial goals deserve far more thought than a “one and done” business meeting and must be revisited often in order to keep your business on task and on target.

These are just a few quick reasons why they are so important. There are sure to be reasons that are specific to your business that may require you to revisit your goals even more frequently. Once a year should be the absolute minimum if you’re interested in gearing your business up for success.