Your End-of-Year Catering Business Evaluation and What It Means for Your Team

Your end-of-year assessment is one of the most important steps you can take as a business owner to assure a successful future in the year to come. It’s hard to make realistic goals for yourself and your company if you don’t know what works and what does not work.

If you have a team, you know that your decisions have a ripple effect throughout your employees. Thus, it’s important to consider your staff and draw them into the conversation. After all, you surely want them to stick around for another year, so you need to include them in the good, the bad, and the ugly of your business evaluation.

We spoke with our event pros to get an idea of their strategies for making the most of their end-of-year assessment. Here’s what they have to say about maximizing the impact of your planning session, keeping your team and your business goals in the forefront.

Play as a team

It’s crucial that you keep an open line of communication with your staff, as well as giving them the tools they need to succeed (and help your business to succeed).

“Being transparent with your team as to what you’re trying to achieve is important,” notes Alan Berg of Wedding Business Solutions, LLC. “How do you expect them to help you achieve a goal if they don’t know what it is, and if they don’t believe in it? You all need to row in the same direction to reduce the friction points that prevent you from getting there.”

Get real with goals

The most important part of goal-setting is making sure that you aren’t spreading yourself too thin, whether that’s by setting the bar too high or focusing too much on the numbers. Increasing your overall sales by x percentage is a great aspiration and very achievable, but oftentimes that isn’t the solution for most constructive feedback that you’re receiving from clients. The smallest, short-term goals can produce the largest results.

“Planning for the race always takes longer than the race itself,” says Meryl Snow of Feastivities Events. “Start by scheduling at least a one-hour meeting — this conversation is too important for anyone to rush through. Then, set the expectations and objectives of your meeting. Work together to create realistic goals and then discuss them to ensure there is a road map to success.”

Ask the hard questions

“You cannot determine where you are going if you do not know where you have been,” states Lon Lane of Lon Lane’s Inspired Occasions. “Staff perceptions are critical. What worked well, what did not? What opportunities you capitalized on and what opportunities were missed — and why? Was money left on the table or were sales maximized? What did we learn? How will we incorporate lessons learned moving forward?”

Get out of dodge

“We do a strategic planning retreat with our executive team,” shares Anthony Lambatos of Footers Catering. “This is usually a two-day event with an overnight away from the office. It allows us to focus our energy on the business and what we want to accomplish in the coming year. By going off site, it reduces the distractions as well. Once we create our strategic plan, we break down our initiatives into measurable goals and put deadlines on them so we can evaluate our progress throughout the year.”

Prioritize growth over money

“Performance review meetings are important for your team,” reminds Adam Gooch of Common Plea Catering. “My mindset is that these were always based on monetary issues, but that’s not always correct. We want to know how we are doing and how we can make ourselves better. I read an article last month that stated that 75 percent of the workforce is accepting jobs based on how they can learn and grow professionally within the company — not the factor based on higher salary.”

The evaluation and forecasting process looks different for everyone, but it’s important to find out what works best for you and your team. Finding your rhythm at the end of the year is the key to learning and understanding your strengths and weaknesses in order to grow to new lengths in the year ahead.