December 26, 2023 • 14 mins
As the year comes to a close, it’s important to navigate the highs and lows of your eCommerce journey. Review your successes and stumbles with me as I share my own process for reflecting on my business journey this past year. As we look at our accomplishments and struggles, I will guide you through reflecting on your year without judgement so that you can prepare for the new year armed with positive mindset and essential insights from your past experiences.
Grab a pen and paper or open up a digital document and get ready to look back at your business journey.
Mentioned Resources:
Join our new free Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/bcsesolutions
Be sure to subscribe to our podcast where ever you are listening!
You can find our show notes at:
https://www.ecommercemadeeasypodcast.com
Find more of our resources and newsletter subscription here:
https://linktr.ee/bcsengineering
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As an online business owner, you might be wondering
what else can I do to love aboutmy business for the new year,
or what can I do to be moreefficient and increase revenue.
In this episode, we have youcovered with ideas you can use
not only now, but alsothroughout the year.
Welcome to the Ecommerce MadeEasy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
(00:21):
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine-month old.
My main goal To help others.
Now, with over 20 years in theEcommerce building industry, and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I have seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech and to easily
understandable bits to helpothers be successful in their
online business.
Whether you're a seasonedEcommerce veteran or just
(00:42):
starting out, you've come to theright place, so sit back, relax
and let's dive into the worldof Ecommerce together.
Welcome back to this week'sepisode of the Ecommerce Made
Easy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
Today we're talking about howdo you use a year-in review or
really a review you could doanytime of the year to propel
(01:03):
your business forward.
I'll be talking about makinglists in this episode, but if
you're driving or working outand can't make the list right
just now, don't worry about it.
Listen in process informationand then come back to this
episode for some quick exercises.
All right, so first off, I liketo start with the list of
things that I am proud of thatwe accomplished.
(01:24):
Creating a list of items thatyou and or your team
accomplished is a great way toget started.
First set a timer for aboutfive minutes and just let the
ideas flow.
Nothing is good or bad here, sodon't judge whether you're
proud of what you're proud ofand whether it's good enough to
be proud of, et cetera.
The goal is to start withpositive things you're happy
(01:46):
about.
This will help set the tone foryour review.
For us, we have several thingswe're proud of this year.
For example, we began theprocess of rebranding our
business.
Given it's over 20 years oldnow, it's well time to review
and evaluate if our currentbrand is still relevant.
Things have changed.
Technology has, for sure,changed, but it is a big leap of
(02:09):
faith to rebrand a business,this old right.
So I'm really proud that westarted this process.
I also started this podcast in2023 as well.
May 2nd, to be exact, is whenthe first episode released.
It was a big undertaking, butit's been thoroughly enjoyable
to create content that helps youand your business.
(02:29):
And this is our 35th episodethat I'm speaking to right now
and I still enjoy recordingthese for you just as much as I
did back in the beginningProbably maybe more so now that
I'm a bit more comfortable doingthem too.
Also, me and my team, along withour clients team together
because that's really what makesa project successful completed
(02:51):
one of our larger shopping cartmigrations this year.
We have done some very bigmigrations in the past and this
was one of them.
Over a year in the making andover a thousand hours this
project took.
As a cohesive team between usand the client, we were able to
make it as seamless and assmooth as possible, with very
(03:13):
minor hiccups.
So we were really proud ofourselves as well as our client,
because, in the end, the clientneeds to do a lot of testing as
well as we do our testing, ofcourse, but the client knows
their website and what they need, so we were super proud of
their dedication and theirtesting of their website.
Also at the end of the 2023, asI'm speaking to this episode
(03:36):
right now, I've created a newFacebook group where we'd be
going live regularly and sharingonline business and tech tips.
So be sure to join us atwwwfacebookcom forward slash
groups forward slash b, c s esolutions, and we will link to
it in the show notes and why.
I'm really proud of this.
(03:56):
It's something that's been onmy mind for a while.
I love giving back and I lovehelping others, but creating a
free Facebook group is a bit ofan undertaking and it takes a
bit of resources to do so.
I'm really proud that I waspatient and waited.
Do I felt like I had thebandwidth to get that started?
Okay, so those are just a fewexamples of what I'm proud of
(04:18):
that either I did or my team didtogether, and I want to just
give it to you as an example ofwhat you can be think about
Seriously, no judgment here.
I mean some of these things aresuper small.
I mean I just created theFacebook group just a few weeks
ago as of this recording, butsome of the things were really
big and some items were new tous and some are things that
(04:41):
we've done before.
So what are your items?
Take some time and list themout Again.
We need to make sure we have nojudgment.
Don't worry whether it's goodenough to make the list or not.
Just start writing, okay.
So next we're going to set atimer for five minutes, unless
the items you felt that you fellshort on whether it's you and
(05:02):
your team that you feel like youfell short on, and then this
one's a little bit harder to doemotionally, but it is, in the
end, really good for us to do.
Again, don't judge here anddon't feel badly that you didn't
excel at any of these items,just list them.
Don't have, like I said and Iwant to emphasize this any
judgment, because the point ofthis is not to bring ourselves
(05:24):
down but, in the end, to liftourselves up.
So I do want to give you a fewexamples of some things I'm not
quite so proud of that hashappened this year.
For one, some segments of ourbusiness lost money, like that
kind of stinks right, somesegments just lost money.
But I need to know that, to beacknowledged that and to fix it.
(05:45):
Also, while rebranding is agreat thing, it has not happened
nearly as fast as I wanted itto.
I don't need to get down onmyself over it, but I do need to
state that and just have it bewhat it is.
It just didn't happen as fastas I wanted it to.
Some of that's on me, some ofit's not, and it's just what it
(06:05):
is.
But without acknowledging it Ican't work to fix that right.
We also had some.
While we had a great client youknow, several clients go great
we had a handful of few smallclients that just didn't go
quite as planned for theirprojects While we fixed and
figured out things.
In the end, you know, it'sstill it's not great when things
(06:26):
don't go as planned.
It kind of hurts some right.
And I also wanted to start upregular staff meetings.
That's something I haven't evengotten to yet.
It's the end of the year and Ihad goals to start this in about
the summertime and I haven'tgotten to it yet Now, granted,
we've done rebranding and thingslike that in between, but
(06:46):
stating that I haven't got to ityet, without excuses, without
any judgments, is really whatwe're trying to do here.
We just need to state it so wecan make a plan to move forward.
So those are few brief examplesof what didn't go well for us.
Some items were a surprise tous and some weren't, but without
listing them you can't fix some, you can't make a plan to move
(07:07):
forward with them.
You must acknowledge what needsimprovement so that you can
improve it.
Now I'd like to end on apositive when I'm doing a review
, so we're going to continue torun with the items that need to
be improved.
So go through your list of theitems you just made, and this
next task might take a littlebit longer.
(07:27):
Set the timer for 10 or 15minutes.
Use your best judgment on howlong you've run the need for
this, and I want you to gothrough each item and I want you
to think about these points I'mgoing to talk about and write
your answers down when possible.
What did you learn about theitem that didn't go well?
What could you have done better?
(07:47):
Again, no judgment when you'rewriting these down.
Just simply state what couldhave done.
What could you have done better.
No emotion behind it.
I mean you're probably going tohave some emotion, like let's
be honest here, but you know,try to detach a little bit of
emotion from it so that youdon't bring yourself down in
depression.
What changes would you make nexttime to make things better?
(08:10):
What metrics can you track tohelp you succeed better?
For example, where the businessthe part of the business that
lost revenue didn't make anyrevenue.
If I were tracking, if I'd beentracking that a bit better, I
would have seen it sooner and Icould have fixed it sooner.
Now, I'm not saying that to behard on myself.
(08:32):
I'm just stating that as asimple fact.
The fact that I didn't measuresomething made it so that it
didn't work, and if I'd measuredit, I could have done some
corrective actions.
So the point of this part is tobe able to make corrective
actions next time.
So, again, let me read thosequestions again.
We'll put them in the shownotes too.
What did you learn?
(08:52):
What could you have done to dobetter?
What changes would you makenext time, and what metrics can
you track to help you succeedbetter?
Again, don't do this when anyjudgment or shame.
You may need to even come backto this in a day or two and do
this part of the evaluation, andthat's okay.
(09:13):
Just be sure you do it, though,because if we're not evaluating
what went wrong, we can't makeit better, and without self and
team reflection, you're just notgoing to get better, like I
said right.
So for us, like I mentioned,the segment of business that
lost money.
I could have helped mitigatethat by keeping an eye on it,
but really, what does keeping aneye on it mean?
(09:35):
Saying I need to keep an eye onit is one thing, but what exact
metrics could I have used topredict the outcome?
Be really specific when you'rethinking about the corrective
actions you can do next time andthe metrics that you can use.
Be as specific as possible andreally think through this part,
and that's going to make thisprocess a lot more effective and
(09:57):
work better for you.
Alright, so let's go back to theposthum.
Let's go over the items thatyou are proud of.
We want to end on a positivenote here.
I think, when we're doing selfevaluations and self reviews,
it's a great idea to start witha positive and end on the
positive.
Our mindset is everything.
Obviously, we can't ignore thebad, but we need to keep things
(10:19):
in perspective when reviewing sowe can make progress.
So we need to focus on the goodso we can keep a good mindset.
Again, set a timer for 10 or 15minutes here.
I want you to go through eachitem and write what did you
learn?
And again, remember we'retalking about the positive
things.
What did you learn from it,though Still, you probably
learned something.
Why did it go well?
(10:40):
Think about why it went well.
What changes would you make, ifany, to make it go even better?
Again, this is no judgment, notsaying you could have made it
better, but maybe you could have.
Let's recognize that here andthink through that, and did you
track specific metrics on thisgoal to make it happen?
Can you apply that to the itemsthat didn't go well, likely the
(11:03):
things that went well?
You kept metrics and trackedthings.
For me, for example, thepodcast, creating the podcast.
I had specific steps andmetrics that I wanted to hit
leading up to launching thepodcast, and I had those set.
I was reviewing them and I wasdoing all the things and that's
(11:23):
why that was successful, similarto the really large client that
had this huge migration.
We had regular reviews, we wentthrough all the tasks, we
prioritized them, we figured outwhat was going well, we worked
on the things that weren't goingwell and we reiterated on it
over and over again through thelist until the list was small
enough that everything was donethat needed to be done to go
(11:45):
live.
So what did you do right withthe things that went well and
use those to help you propel thethings that didn't go well Next
time.
Also, if you need to take abreak, I do think it's good,
like I said before, to go backin a day or two and re-review
these notes.
What would you add?
(12:06):
What do you see differently nowthat you process in your brain?
We kind of process things whenwe sleep.
We process things when we'redoing mind-numbing that task,
maybe when we're cooking or whenwe're working out, and that is
a really good downtime,especially for not using our
phones.
When you're doing those things,it's a really good idea to get
your brain calm and you may beusing your phone to listen to
(12:28):
something, but you know,scrolling and doing things on
your phone visually can reallymake it hard for your brain to
process, especially things likethis.
So once you've given your braintime to relax and process, come
back to the exercise, go, lookat what you wrote down.
What would you adjust?
Are you pretty accurate?
You know were you in a moodthat day and you weren't really
(12:52):
very honest with yourself.
So I hope you, I hope thisreally helps you and you found
some great things to celebratethat you had forgotten about or
even dismissed, and I hope youfound some things you can
improve upon, but keeping it ina framed and a positive manner
so that you can really make thatgreat improvement, because
(13:13):
you're in a great mindset, yousee what happened, you
acknowledge it and you're justgoing to move on and make it
better next time.
That's what we need to be doingwhen we're thinking about this
exercise in this episode.
That's all I have for thisweek's episode.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I know I did creating it andI've already started a review
like this and plan to revisit it.
Be sure to visit our show notesfor this episode and other
(13:36):
episodes atwwwecommercemadeeasypodcastcom.
If you're watching on theYouTube channel, make sure you
hit that subscribe button.
Or if you're listening on thepodcast, make sure you hit that
follow button wherever you'relistening.
If you're listening to this andfound value in today's episode
or any of the episodes atecommercemadeeasypodcast, we
(13:59):
want to hear from you.
What other content do you wantto hear on the show?
Drop us an email at podcast atbcsinjoneeringcom, or leave us a
review.
Thank you again for listeningand I will see you next week.
As an online business owner, you might be wondering
what else can I do to love aboutmy business for the new year,
or what can I do to be moreefficient and increase revenue.
In this episode, we have youcovered with ideas you can use
not only now, but alsothroughout the year.
Welcome to the Ecommerce MadeEasy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
(00:21):
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine-month old.
My main goal To help others.
Now, with over 20 years in theEcommerce building industry, and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I have seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech and to easily
understandable bits to helpothers be successful in their
online business.
Whether you're a seasonedEcommerce veteran or just
(00:42):
starting out, you've come to theright place, so sit back, relax
and let's dive into the worldof Ecommerce together.
Welcome back to this week'sepisode of the Ecommerce Made
Easy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
Today we're talking about howdo you use a year-in review or
really a review you could doanytime of the year to propel
(01:03):
your business forward.
I'll be talking about makinglists in this episode, but if
you're driving or working outand can't make the list right
just now, don't worry about it.
Listen in process informationand then come back to this
episode for some quick exercises.
All right, so first off, I liketo start with the list of
things that I am proud of thatwe accomplished.
(01:24):
Creating a list of items thatyou and or your team
accomplished is a great way toget started.
First set a timer for aboutfive minutes and just let the
ideas flow.
Nothing is good or bad here, sodon't judge whether you're
proud of what you're proud ofand whether it's good enough to
be proud of, et cetera.
The goal is to start withpositive things you're happy
(01:46):
about.
This will help set the tone foryour review.
For us, we have several thingswe're proud of this year.
For example, we began theprocess of rebranding our
business.
Given it's over 20 years oldnow, it's well time to review
and evaluate if our currentbrand is still relevant.
Things have changed.
Technology has, for sure,changed, but it is a big leap of
(02:09):
faith to rebrand a business,this old right.
So I'm really proud that westarted this process.
I also started this podcast in2023 as well.
May 2nd, to be exact, is whenthe first episode released.
It was a big undertaking, butit's been thoroughly enjoyable
to create content that helps youand your business.
(02:29):
And this is our 35th episodethat I'm speaking to right now
and I still enjoy recordingthese for you just as much as I
did back in the beginningProbably maybe more so now that
I'm a bit more comfortable doingthem too.
Also, me and my team, along withour clients team together
because that's really what makesa project successful completed
(02:51):
one of our larger shopping cartmigrations this year.
We have done some very bigmigrations in the past and this
was one of them.
Over a year in the making andover a thousand hours this
project took.
As a cohesive team between usand the client, we were able to
make it as seamless and assmooth as possible, with very
(03:13):
minor hiccups.
So we were really proud ofourselves as well as our client,
because, in the end, the clientneeds to do a lot of testing as
well as we do our testing, ofcourse, but the client knows
their website and what they need, so we were super proud of
their dedication and theirtesting of their website.
Also at the end of the 2023, asI'm speaking to this episode
(03:36):
right now, I've created a newFacebook group where we'd be
going live regularly and sharingonline business and tech tips.
So be sure to join us atwwwfacebookcom forward slash
groups forward slash b, c s esolutions, and we will link to
it in the show notes and why.
I'm really proud of this.
(03:56):
It's something that's been onmy mind for a while.
I love giving back and I lovehelping others, but creating a
free Facebook group is a bit ofan undertaking and it takes a
bit of resources to do so.
I'm really proud that I waspatient and waited.
Do I felt like I had thebandwidth to get that started?
Okay, so those are just a fewexamples of what I'm proud of
(04:18):
that either I did or my team didtogether, and I want to just
give it to you as an example ofwhat you can be think about
Seriously, no judgment here.
I mean some of these things aresuper small.
I mean I just created theFacebook group just a few weeks
ago as of this recording, butsome of the things were really
big and some items were new tous and some are things that
(04:41):
we've done before.
So what are your items?
Take some time and list themout Again.
We need to make sure we have nojudgment.
Don't worry whether it's goodenough to make the list or not.
Just start writing, okay.
So next we're going to set atimer for five minutes, unless
the items you felt that you fellshort on whether it's you and
(05:02):
your team that you feel like youfell short on, and then this
one's a little bit harder to doemotionally, but it is, in the
end, really good for us to do.
Again, don't judge here anddon't feel badly that you didn't
excel at any of these items,just list them.
Don't have, like I said and Iwant to emphasize this any
judgment, because the point ofthis is not to bring ourselves
(05:24):
down but, in the end, to liftourselves up.
So I do want to give you a fewexamples of some things I'm not
quite so proud of that hashappened this year.
For one, some segments of ourbusiness lost money, like that
kind of stinks right, somesegments just lost money.
But I need to know that, to beacknowledged that and to fix it.
(05:45):
Also, while rebranding is agreat thing, it has not happened
nearly as fast as I wanted itto.
I don't need to get down onmyself over it, but I do need to
state that and just have it bewhat it is.
It just didn't happen as fastas I wanted it to.
Some of that's on me, some ofit's not, and it's just what it
(06:05):
is.
But without acknowledging it Ican't work to fix that right.
We also had some.
While we had a great client youknow, several clients go great
we had a handful of few smallclients that just didn't go
quite as planned for theirprojects While we fixed and
figured out things.
In the end, you know, it'sstill it's not great when things
(06:26):
don't go as planned.
It kind of hurts some right.
And I also wanted to start upregular staff meetings.
That's something I haven't evengotten to yet.
It's the end of the year and Ihad goals to start this in about
the summertime and I haven'tgotten to it yet Now, granted,
we've done rebranding and thingslike that in between, but
(06:46):
stating that I haven't got to ityet, without excuses, without
any judgments, is really whatwe're trying to do here.
We just need to state it so wecan make a plan to move forward.
So those are few brief examplesof what didn't go well for us.
Some items were a surprise tous and some weren't, but without
listing them you can't fix some, you can't make a plan to move
(07:07):
forward with them.
You must acknowledge what needsimprovement so that you can
improve it.
Now I'd like to end on apositive when I'm doing a review
, so we're going to continue torun with the items that need to
be improved.
So go through your list of theitems you just made, and this
next task might take a littlebit longer.
(07:27):
Set the timer for 10 or 15minutes.
Use your best judgment on howlong you've run the need for
this, and I want you to gothrough each item and I want you
to think about these points I'mgoing to talk about and write
your answers down when possible.
What did you learn about theitem that didn't go well?
What could you have done better?
(07:47):
Again, no judgment when you'rewriting these down.
Just simply state what couldhave done.
What could you have done better.
No emotion behind it.
I mean you're probably going tohave some emotion, like let's
be honest here, but you know,try to detach a little bit of
emotion from it so that youdon't bring yourself down in
depression.
What changes would you make nexttime to make things better?
(08:10):
What metrics can you track tohelp you succeed better?
For example, where the businessthe part of the business that
lost revenue didn't make anyrevenue.
If I were tracking, if I'd beentracking that a bit better, I
would have seen it sooner and Icould have fixed it sooner.
Now, I'm not saying that to behard on myself.
(08:32):
I'm just stating that as asimple fact.
The fact that I didn't measuresomething made it so that it
didn't work, and if I'd measuredit, I could have done some
corrective actions.
So the point of this part is tobe able to make corrective
actions next time.
So, again, let me read thosequestions again.
We'll put them in the shownotes too.
What did you learn?
(08:52):
What could you have done to dobetter?
What changes would you makenext time, and what metrics can
you track to help you succeedbetter?
Again, don't do this when anyjudgment or shame.
You may need to even come backto this in a day or two and do
this part of the evaluation, andthat's okay.
(09:13):
Just be sure you do it, though,because if we're not evaluating
what went wrong, we can't makeit better, and without self and
team reflection, you're just notgoing to get better, like I
said right.
So for us, like I mentioned,the segment of business that
lost money.
I could have helped mitigatethat by keeping an eye on it,
but really, what does keeping aneye on it mean?
(09:35):
Saying I need to keep an eye onit is one thing, but what exact
metrics could I have used topredict the outcome?
Be really specific when you'rethinking about the corrective
actions you can do next time andthe metrics that you can use.
Be as specific as possible andreally think through this part,
and that's going to make thisprocess a lot more effective and
(09:57):
work better for you.
Alright, so let's go back to theposthum.
Let's go over the items thatyou are proud of.
We want to end on a positivenote here.
I think, when we're doing selfevaluations and self reviews,
it's a great idea to start witha positive and end on the
positive.
Our mindset is everything.
Obviously, we can't ignore thebad, but we need to keep things
(10:19):
in perspective when reviewing sowe can make progress.
So we need to focus on the goodso we can keep a good mindset.
Again, set a timer for 10 or 15minutes here.
I want you to go through eachitem and write what did you
learn?
And again, remember we'retalking about the positive
things.
What did you learn from it,though Still, you probably
learned something.
Why did it go well?
(10:40):
Think about why it went well.
What changes would you make, ifany, to make it go even better?
Again, this is no judgment, notsaying you could have made it
better, but maybe you could have.
Let's recognize that here andthink through that, and did you
track specific metrics on thisgoal to make it happen?
Can you apply that to the itemsthat didn't go well, likely the
(11:03):
things that went well?
You kept metrics and trackedthings.
For me, for example, thepodcast, creating the podcast.
I had specific steps andmetrics that I wanted to hit
leading up to launching thepodcast, and I had those set.
I was reviewing them and I wasdoing all the things and that's
(11:23):
why that was successful, similarto the really large client that
had this huge migration.
We had regular reviews, we wentthrough all the tasks, we
prioritized them, we figured outwhat was going well, we worked
on the things that weren't goingwell and we reiterated on it
over and over again through thelist until the list was small
enough that everything was donethat needed to be done to go
(11:45):
live.
So what did you do right withthe things that went well and
use those to help you propel thethings that didn't go well Next
time.
Also, if you need to take abreak, I do think it's good,
like I said before, to go backin a day or two and re-review
these notes.
What would you add?
(12:06):
What do you see differently nowthat you process in your brain?
We kind of process things whenwe sleep.
We process things when we'redoing mind-numbing that task,
maybe when we're cooking or whenwe're working out, and that is
a really good downtime,especially for not using our
phones.
When you're doing those things,it's a really good idea to get
your brain calm and you may beusing your phone to listen to
(12:28):
something, but you know,scrolling and doing things on
your phone visually can reallymake it hard for your brain to
process, especially things likethis.
So once you've given your braintime to relax and process, come
back to the exercise, go, lookat what you wrote down.
What would you adjust?
Are you pretty accurate?
You know were you in a moodthat day and you weren't really
(12:52):
very honest with yourself.
So I hope you, I hope thisreally helps you and you found
some great things to celebratethat you had forgotten about or
even dismissed, and I hope youfound some things you can
improve upon, but keeping it ina framed and a positive manner
so that you can really make thatgreat improvement, because
(13:13):
you're in a great mindset, yousee what happened, you
acknowledge it and you're justgoing to move on and make it
better next time.
That's what we need to be doingwhen we're thinking about this
exercise in this episode.
That's all I have for thisweek's episode.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I know I did creating it andI've already started a review
like this and plan to revisit it.
Be sure to visit our show notesfor this episode and other
(13:36):
episodes atwwwecommercemadeeasypodcastcom.
If you're watching on theYouTube channel, make sure you
hit that subscribe button.
Or if you're listening on thepodcast, make sure you hit that
follow button wherever you'relistening.
If you're listening to this andfound value in today's episode
or any of the episodes atecommercemadeeasypodcast, we
(13:59):
want to hear from you.
What other content do you wantto hear on the show?
Drop us an email at podcast atbcsinjoneeringcom, or leave us a
review.
Thank you again for listeningand I will see you next week.
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