#210 - Your EOFY Reflection + Review
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There's something energising about the end of financial year and in my business, I use this natural checkpoint as an opportunity to set myself up for success in the financial year ahead.
EOFY is a perfect time to step back, assess what's working and make strategic adjustments before diving into the next twelve months. So today I'm sharing the exact process I use every year in my own business and with the clients I work with to realign vision and build strong foundations for the year ahead
1. Financial Reality Check
Start with the numbers - they don't lie. Compare your actual performance against the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Look at where your revenue is actually coming from versus where you thought it would come from.
This is also the perfect time for a subscription audit. I'll admit it - I'm guilty of signing up for shiny new tools throughout the year. If they're not adding clear value, they need to go.
2. Debt Strategy Review
Debt management is front of mind for many business owners, particularly in this economic environment. If you're considering refinancing or restructuring debt, now's the time to understand your options and exit strategies. Review your financial commitments with fresh eyes and consider what changes might strengthen your position.
3. Pricing and Value Alignment
When did you last review your pricing? Many service-based businesses evolve their offerings throughout the year without checking whether profitability still matches the value they're delivering.
Your prices should reflect your current expertise and market position, not what you charged when you started. Crunch the numbers and ensure your pricing structure supports your business goals.
4. What Worked (And What Didn't)
With a full year of data, you can identify patterns that quarterly reviews might miss. Which strategies delivered unexpected wins? What initiatives fell flat? This reflection helps you double down on what's working and eliminate what's draining resources without results.
5. Annual Legal Review Checklist
In my opinion, an annual review of your legals is non-negotiable. This is what I recommend you check over to ensure every aspect of your business is compliant and protected.
Core Client Documents:
Client agreements
Website terms and conditions
Privacy policy
Team Structure and Agreements:
Employee agreements
Contractor agreements
Review of your team structure to ensure proper distinction between employees and contractors
Business Operations:
Commercial lease review (if applicable)
Process for managing unpaid invoices
Insurance coverage assessment
These documents aren't just compliance requirements - they're your business protection system, ensuring your operations align with current legal standards and your actual business practices.
Instead of just ticking compliance boxes, treat this like your annual business check up. The time you invest now in reviewing, adjusting, and planning will pay dividends throughout the coming financial year.
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[00:00:19] Tracey: Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Rise Up in Business Podcast. We are up to episode 210 today. My goodness, I'm so grateful that you enjoy this podcast as much as I enjoy recording it for you. We have just started a new financial year. I.And if you're a longtime listener, you'll know that I love the start of anything new.
[00:00:41] I love January. I love the start of the new calendar year. I love the start of a new financial year. I love Mondays. I'm that person. So for me, it's all about clean slate, fresh start, and building momentum. That's why I really wanna share with you today the process that I go through, both in my own business and in supporting so many other small business owners in the lead up to the new financial year and to help kick off and build momentum with clarity and confidence in a new financial year. It'll come as no surprise to many of you when I share with you that I have a process that I go through, not just in November for my yearly planning for the year after but also in June, which is the end of the financial year and it's very much a reflection to look back and see how things have gone and what works well, what needs to be tweaked, and how to realign and set myself up for success for the financial year to come, and I have this conversation this time of year with so many business owners who are reaching out to seek support, to realign their visions and to build foundations to support their new direction and where they wanna go.
[00:01:50] So I'm gonna talk you through today some of the things that I look at and some of the things I talk to clients about. Then I'm gonna share with you something that's very near and dear to my heart, and that is the essential [00:02:00] legal review that I say every business owner should be doing at least once a year.
[00:02:05] And the reason I wanna share that today is because when clients ask me, when should I do it, my answer's always either when something changes, so when something significant changes and you need to do it, or at the beginning of a calendar year or the beginning of a financial year. So that's now, so lots of people are doing this, and I wanna just step you through the key components of that essential legal review that I support clients with.
[00:02:28] So let's dive into the process that I go through in my business at the end of a financial year to set myself up for success for the new financial year. The first thing I look at is the financial metrics. No surprises there, and I suspect that everybody listening does the same thing. But I wanna have a look and see how we're tracking against the objectives and the goals that we've set, where the revenue's coming from, and I like to have my finger on the pulse in terms of expenses.
[00:02:56] So I set annual, quarterly and monthly goals, revenue goals, and profit, goals for the business and I like to keep a handle on expenses, so I need to make sure that I haven't gotten carried away and excited with a new project or new subscriptions or whatever it might be. And if I have that they're within budget and that I have an allowance for those.
[00:03:18] I don't know about you, but I find my subscriptions get away from me so quickly because I'm a joiner. So when I see something new, it's almost like I have bright and shiny syndrome and I think, oh, that's a great idea. I must have it.
[00:03:30] And I sign up to all the things and I do all the paid versions of all the things. And then like so many of us, I forget about it, it falls away. I don't use it, but I forget to cancel and therefore it's just an expense that's not adding any value to the business. So my trustee bookkeeper gives me a nudge every now and then to go in and check my subscriptions, and I'm so grateful that she does that.
[00:03:53] The end of the financial year is an excellent time for me to sit down and actually have a look and see where are these subscriptions sitting? Where are my [00:04:00] insurances sitting? What else have I decided was a great idea that I've forgotten about? Now's the time to go in and do an audit so I can clear out any expenses that are not adding value to the business, and make sure that I'm staying focused and in alignment to track towards achieving financial goals and targets that I've set for the business.
[00:04:19] So financial metrics is most certainly the place that I start and clients often reach out to me after they've been analyzing their financial metrics with their accountant, particularly around this time of year, and say things to me like, gosh, Tracy, I really need to work with you now on developing my client service agreement or my Ts and Cs because I've got all these unpaid in invoice and I'd forgotten about it, and I need a process and system in place so that this doesn't keep happening.
[00:04:44] So we have those conversations about now too. So financial metrics, a big one. Definitely the place to start. Debt reduction. the reason I've included this one on the list is because debt reduction is something that, particularly given the current economic climate, more and more clients are reaching out to ask me to review financial contracts and give a certificate, a legal certificate of advice to say that they've received advice on it because they're refinancing.
[00:05:10] So debt reduction is at the forefront of so many minds of business owners at the moment, and it's no surprise. I'm sure that'll come as no surprise to you with everything that's been happening in the economy. But this is a big one as well. And I suppose it's an extension from the financial metrics because debt reduction is important because it leads into the financial metrics, particularly in the context of interest.
[00:05:32] So this is a discussion I've been having with clients lately, just so they understand what their commitment is, what their exit strategy is, and if they're providing guarantees what that commitment is. But when we are doing our review at the end of the financial year, having a look at debt and where that's sitting and what the plan is to move forward is something that's coming up a lot.
[00:05:52] Certainly don't talk to me about the finances and the accounting side of things. You absolutely talk to your accountant about that, but I seem to be coming in on the [00:06:00] backend of those conversations now to get the legal advice when necessary for the refinances. the third point that I wanna talk about in this end of financial year or new financial year reflection process is value and pricing.
[00:06:13] I don't just mean a fee increase. I mean, let's sit back and have a look at the services that you are offering. Most of my clients are service-based business owners, so I'm focusing on services. I'm focusing on one-on-one work, low ticket offers that are available for purchase on the website, whatever it might be for your business. But taking the time to just pause and have a look and say, well, what value am I offering here? And is my pricing reflective of that? Because often through the year we tweak things as business owners and we evolve offers and we will introduce new offers, whatever it might look like, what I see that happens often is that business owners will focus on the value they're giving. They'll focus on the offerings or evolving offerings, or including new offerings, but they're not then taking time to sit down and calculate whether or not that's now profitable based on the pricing. So fee increases, I'm all for it if it coincides with the increase in value.
[00:07:14] That's my point here, and sitting down to crunch the numbers to work out well, how much is it actually costing to deliver this value? Where's my pricing sitting to have a look then to see whether or not this is, Profitable or commercially viable is an exercise that's really important to do.
[00:07:30] If this is something that you are a little unsure about or you're not quite sure where to start, my best advice to you is to talk to your excellent bookkeeper or your accountant to make sure you're getting the support you need to fully understand where you are sitting financially and look at it through a commercial lens to make sure it's commercially viable.
[00:07:48] So value and pricing, now is definitely an excellent time to have a look at that.
[00:07:53] The next two are more holistic and reflective, and I love these two and I do this often. In fact, I'll do this at the [00:08:00] end of each quarter in my business. One. What worked well during the last financial year? And two, what didn't work well during the last financial year? As I say, I do this quarterly, but once you've got the full spectrum of 12 months data, you can actually have a look and say, well, gosh, I thought that new offering was going to be really excellent in terms of bringing in new clients and profitability.
[00:08:21] But guess what? It didn't. It didn't take off. It wasn't a hit like you thought it would be but actually you can then look back on the data. It will tell you where the real gold was, and it might sometimes surprise you ' cause it may not be what you thought it would be.
[00:08:37] So in the context of what worked well, identify that so that we know where to focus for the next year. That's what I do every year, my business, and as I say, I do it each quarter. What has worked really well? Where do I need to focus more? And then on the flip side, what didn't work well so I can take my focus away from there and focus more energy and attention to what did work well.
[00:08:59] You can do it at any particular time, of course, but whilst we're sitting and taking a holistic look at the business for the last year, and we've got the financial data behind us, this really is an excellent time to have a look at the financial metrics. What are they telling me?
[00:09:15] Are we hitting the targets? Are the expenses blowing out? What do I need to refine? Where do I need to focus to set myself up for success for the year ahead? Debt reduction, something that's coming across my desk a lot, so I wanted to mention it. Interest expenses, refinance options, value and pricing. Take a look at the offerings.
[00:09:37] Is your pricing consistent with the value that you are offering? Is it commercially viable and what's worked well and what didn't work well? They are all really significant questions that you can sit and ask yourself, and when you've got a year's worth of financial data to help make informed decisions, it can be really powerful.
[00:09:54] As I say now is a time where clients are reaching out to me, new clients to say, now's the time I need [00:10:00] to dive in and invest on developing new tailored contracts for my business. Because we've now identified this as a pain point, and often it's around scope creep, so there's no provisioning contracts to charge for additional work outside of scope or unpaid invoices.
[00:10:16] I kept working, now I'm in the hole for this much money. So all of that can be avoided, and it's a great conversation to have, and this time of year is ripe for those conversations. if you're a longtime listener, you will know that I'm a big fan of an annual legal review. I have a checklist on my website. You can download your copy for free, and it's called the Essential Legal Checklist for Small Businesses. I developed this years ago, targeted specifically for service-based business owners to know where to look when they're reviewing their legals, and it came off the back of question after question after question from new clients.
[00:10:52] Where do I start? I dunno where to start. Tracy, where do I start? It's an excellent question. So there is a checklist for it. The essential legal checklist. You can grab your copy, the links in the show notes. But what I always say to clients when they ask me, when should I do my legal review?
[00:11:07] I always say either when something's changed and you need to, so new offerings, new business structure, something like that. Or at the beginning of a new calendar year or a new financial year. And the idea is you work through the checklist so that you can easily identify where you need to be focusing on your business right now.
[00:11:27] And if you're reading through the checklist and there are things that don't apply fantastic. You don't need to focus on that. But the idea is by the time you get to the end of the checklist, you will have either ticked all the boxes so you know that everything's in ship shape, peace of mind, pop it away in the bottom drawer, don't need to get it out again for another year.
[00:11:43] Or you'll have highlighted some things that need attention or at least need a conversation with your accountant or your business lawyer so you know whether or not that's an area you need to focus. I'm gonna take you through the key components of the checklist.
[00:11:57] So if you're driving, this will be really [00:12:00] helpful. If you're not driving, jump over to the website and grab your copy of the list now so you can work it through yourself. But the first place we start, no surprises here, is the agreement that the business has with the clients. So whether it's a design agreement, a coaching agreement, business service terms and conditions, whatever you like to call it, it is the agreement you have in place with your clients. The question to ask when you're doing the annual review is, does this still reflect the way that I work? Is my pricing still accurate? Are the inclusion still accurate?
[00:12:30] Have I had any pain points come up over the past 12 months that I really want to deal with in my agreements so that I can easily navigate those if they keep happening? Or is there something I need to change in my process to make sure that those pain points don't keep happening? But they're the sort of questions that you ask yourself, and they're the sort of discussions that I have with clients.
[00:12:52] So whether I'm drafting these documents from scratch for a new client for the first time, or whether I'm diving in and doing an annual review or a minor update for clients because things have changed, they're the sorts of things we look at. The next is your website. What's happening on your website? Has it changed?
[00:13:10] Have you now got a freebie download or a lead magnet? Do you now have a podcast? Are you now sharing blogs or do you have a course or a program? Those types of questions are really important to ask in the context of your website documents because your website terms and conditions need to be tailored to accommodate what you're doing on the website.
[00:13:31] So if you've added things on that needs to be reflected in your website terms and conditions to make sure you're protected, now's the time to have a look at those to see if they need to be updated. Something that's very topical in relation to change and potential change at the moment is privacy. So you will have heard me say before if you're a longtime listener, that the three core documents a service-based business owner needs are the agreement with the clients, the website terms and conditions, and the privacy policy.
[00:13:59] [00:14:00] Privacy is significant. It's becoming more and more important and the reason I talk about this here is because the privacy legislation in Australia is undergoing some significant changes. And for small business owners, one of the most significant changes will be the removal of exemptions for small business owners.
[00:14:19] So where once small business owners didn't need to comply with certain things under the Privacy Act, they soon will. So be aware that this may apply to you. If you are one of my clients, if we've done your privacy policy, you do not need to worry because we already have you compliant knowing those changes are coming.
[00:14:37] If you don't have a privacy policy, now's the time to reach out and have a conversation to understand what your obligations are and what these changes are going to mean for you. So when you're doing your review, your annual legal review, take a look at your privacy policy and ask yourself, is this.
[00:14:53] Comprehensive and compliant now, or was this something that I did a few years ago or I grabbed a template back then or, or something like that,in which case, chances are it's going to need to be updated. So that's the third point to be looking at when we are looking at our annual legal review. We've done our client agreement, we've done our website, Ts and Cs. We need to look at our privacy policy. That's the third.
[00:15:14] What I often say to clients is, if you don't have a team and you don't use contractors, if you have those three core documents in place, you are good to go from a legal perspective. You are set. Now though, we start looking at other variables depending on what you're doing in your business.
[00:15:31] So as part of the review employees, do I have a team? Are my employment agreements up to date? Are they current? Are they compliant? Be aware of the increase in the minimum wage that took effect on one July. Make sure you're checking the awards and that you're compliant and you're aware of any changes that might apply to your business.
[00:15:52] So employee agreements. Then contractor agreements. Do you engage contractors in your business? Do you have a properly [00:16:00] drafted contractor agreement in place with your contractors? That's the next focus point.
[00:16:05] Once we work through the three core documents that I recommend for every service-based small business owner who has a website. Then we start talking about the team and we have a look to make sure there's compliance, to make sure the business is really clear on the distinction between employees and contractors to make sure the business is not exposed to a situation where you've engaged a contractor, but actually the law is likely to deem them an employee.
[00:16:30] So diving into understand the nuances and intricacies around how the team is structured and making sure we have the right framework in place and the right documents to support the team is the next focus. And from there it just depends, and this is all set out in the list, but things like a commercial lease, what to do if you are a business who has a commercial lease for premises, for a warehouse.
[00:16:55] Then we go further down and have a look at things like A process in place for making sure that invoices don't go unpaid and things don't fall through the cracks. Have a look at insurance. Speak to your broker. Make sure your insurance coverage is still adequate for what you're doing in your business now.
[00:17:11] So they're the core things that you'll find in the essential legal checklist. And as I say, you can dive over to the website and grab your free copy. The link is in the show notes. Now is a most excellent time to be working through that checklist just to run your eye over all the things to give you as a business owner peace of mind, that you haven't missed everything, and that everything you need is in order and you're good to go.
[00:17:34] Then it's a big tick, pop it away and pull it out again next year. I really hope you've enjoyed this episode. I hope that you've found it really practical and that there are things in here that you can go in action right now that will add value to the business and ideally reduce your risk 'cause that's what I'm all about
[00:17:51] As you know, at the end of each episode in this season, I'm answering two questions that have come across my desk recently. the first question that I've received recently is, can [00:18:00] you make my documents shorter?
[00:18:02] And in this context, it was a new client reaching out to ask me whether I could achieve really short documents for their client service agreement. First of all, short is subjective. So what I think is short you might not think is short. Second, there are no prizes for having the shortest set of terms and conditions.
[00:18:20] My goodness, I hand on heart wanna say to you, please don't focus on the length. Focus on the substance. Focus on the client user experience when they're reading them. Because you don't want to send a message with your T's and C's that you are unprofessional, that you don't know what you're doing or that you don't care.
[00:18:36] And in my humble opinion, having a two or three page set of T's and C's does exactly that, it's a red flag. You're either unprofessional, you don't know what you're doing or you don't care. So you wanna stay away from that, but have the conversation. Understand what needs to go into your T's and C's and then understand the best way to do it, provided they're tailored, they're on brand and they're in plain English, you'll be good to go. So that's the answer to that question. And the second question, and I get this a lot, is where do I start if I don't have any legal documents? Well, based on what we've just talked about, you know the answer to that.
[00:19:10] The core three documents for all service-based business owners who have a website, the agreement with your client, your website, Ts and Cs, and your privacy policy. I hope that's helpful. I hope you've loved it. I've loved recording this for you. I love this time of year. I hope you do too. Thank you as always for joining me.
[00:19:26] I'll catch you next time.
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