If I asked your employees, would every single one of them say that they know the rhythm that drives your business?
Better yet, would all of their answers match?
Or does your business sometimes stumble over its own feet?
A business rhythm is probably one of the last things you hear about when you’re trying to grow your business. You either stumble onto it on your own or you get lucky and someone tells you about it.
Today I’m going to lay out for you the proven 30-Day Business Rhythm that will grow your success. I’m going to show you which actions should be taking at 5 day intervals in your business so that you can grow it.
This business rhythm covers: leadership, accountability, goals (company and individual), personal touch, forecasting, making adjustments, and results.
By the end of this article you’ll be convinced that your monthly calendar ought to have events set up on it every five days.
Believe me. You’re going to love this plan!
Does your company flow with a successful business rhythm?
Like marching bands, businesses have a rhythm that makes sure everyone’s on the same page doing what they need to do.
When you watch a marching band it’s a beautiful thing to see everyone in step moving as one. There’s a flow to the music. There’s a flow to their step. Each step that each member of the band takes is perfectly timed and everyone knows exactly where they’re supposed to be.
Put all of that together in one fluid movement and that’s what makes that marching band look so fabulous. And when you see someone step out of time or you hear them miss a note in the music it’s incredibly obvious. Even casual observers notice. You’ll see people in the audience wince when somebody misses a note or they see someone step out of line.
People love to watch marching bands like Grambling’s or The Best Damn Band in the Land because they flow. They look soooo good.
A well-run business is no different. It enjoys the same appreciation.
If fact it’s the secret to what makes the business run so smooth. A business rhythm is what lets some business owners take vacations while others hardly take an afternoon off.
A business rhythm lets everyone on the team know what’s next;
When it’s going to happen;
What they need to do;
And why they’re doing it.
People love to know what’s next. The people who work for you love to know that they know what’s on your mind, what’s next in their day, and what you’re expecting next.
Your team likes to know that they’re doing the right things at the right time.
This 30-day rhythm helps make sure that they’re able to do that. There are six major items that you need to make sure happen on specific days in your business every month in order to hit your growth goals.
They’re the same every month. They’re never any different regardless of which month or quarter you’re in. These 6 things have to happen every month.
Let’s jump in.
The 5th of the Month
On the 5th of the month, the morning of the 5th you should be reviewing all of the forecasts for the current and the next two months.
Pay the most attention to the current month and take note of whether or not the future months are building like they should.
These forecasts should be on your desk or in your email for you to review. You need to know that the sales that you expect to happen in that month are indeed going to happen.
The reason that you want this the morning of the 5th is because this gives you time to make adjustments, go out and maybe pull some sales forward, maybe push a little harder. It gives you the opportunity to tell Operations to be ready for whatever production is coming based on sales so that you can deliver successfully.
You’re better off trying to make small tweaks early in the game than you are trying to make big changes late in the game.
You want to know that you’re going to hit your revenue number. Think of all the times you’ve missed a number late or didn’t realize that something big was going to hit when it did. Wouldn’t it have been easier to handle if you’d sat down and taken a moment to think about it earlier in the game.
Doing this will allow you to manage your finances better, make adjustments to operations, and spend where you need to on marketing. Forecasting is perhaps one of the best skills you can learn to develop as a business owner.
The 10th of the Month
Five days later – the morning of the 10th.
This is the day you should have all of the closed financials for the prior month on your desk for you to review.
How did the month go? What are you looking for?
Anything unexpected;
Anything fabulous;
Anything you need to celebrate with your team;
Messages you need to send out regarding thank you’s to your team – that sort of thing. Anyone you want to specifically call out for a good job.
What adjustments need to be made in the current month based on last month?
You’ve got to look at every month’s financials by the tenth day. The reason for that is if you allow a whole month to go by then you’ve just lost at least 20 days where you could have taken action on a cost that was out of control.
Or maybe you signed a new client and there’s new client steps that need to be taken but you’ve unfortunately let 20 days – 3 weeks – roll by without properly starting things up. Maybe you could have saved some money and heartache by taking action as a result of the financial performance that you had in the prior month, but you let 3 weeks go by instead.
That’s why you need to look at your closed financials every month on the morning of the 10th.
The 15th of the Month
This is where you go back and you check; how’s the month going?
Is the forecast that you saw on your desk on the 5th actually coming to fruition? You have half a month left – how are you doing?
Any production problems?
Any sales or marketing problems?
Anything that’s going to hold up revenue, that’s what you’re looking for and at.
You want to make sure that you’re on target. And not just for sales, but for profit margin. This is where you make your mid-month adjustment to make sure that you’re going to hit your numbers.
The 20th of the Month
Welcome to the 20th. You’re two-thirds done. This is where you get back to individual goals.
Not everything is about what’s happening at the company level. You should be checking in with your individual team players.
You’ve heard people say “trust the process”. This is that idea in motion. When you’ve built up the individual goals on your team in a way that they collectively deliver the company result you can trust the process.
A good leader is going to check in with their team to see how they’re doing on their individual goals.
You should be getting with your team every team every month. Walking around and talking to people:
How are they doing on their goals?
Where do they want to be?
Who’s close?
Who needs a little extra help?
Who knows they’re going to hit it?
Who’s having resource problems?
Specifically check in with people and keep a running mental tally. This gives you the chance to high-five people who were struggling last month but who are going to do well this month. It is a powerful tool when you’re high-fiving someone at their desk and you’re doing it real-time as opposed to after-the-fact.
When you have people that are going to beat the goal it becomes a game because you can ask them how far they can go, how much more can they get done? Can they set a personal best? Those are always fun!
You’re driving the importance of the goal while also cheering people on and helping those who need it.
You’re checking in with everyone – how’s it going? And this is a great time for them to speak up and let you know that a process isn’t working well or a piece of equipment isn’t working well. They can tell you specifically and point out what’s keeping them from their goal.
You’re not waiting for them to come to you. You’re going to them to get them the resources they need to get it done.
The 25th of the Month
We have two things happening on the 25th.
The 25th is first where you kick off your month-end push.
You’ll have anywhere from 3 to 5 business days left in the month so this is where, no holds barred, how close are we? What’s the best we can do? And then make it happen.
It is soooo painful to come very close to hitting a goal and then missing it. But had you known you were going to miss it 3 or 4 days ago you would’ve done something to hit the goal.
This is your last check where you’re asking, “What do I need to do to make sure that the team hits the company goals and individuals hit their individual goals?”
This is your final check-in. This is your “hey, who’s close? Who’s gonna hit it, and who’s gonna miss it?”
Even the folks who are going to miss their goal; you don’t want them in a huge hole where they have to make up too much of the goal the following month or months.
This is all about how to do we get that month-end push that guarantees us as much of our team and individual goals as we possibly can?
The second piece of what happens on the 25th is this:
With 5 days to go it’s time to start thinking about next month while also closing out the current month.
Anybody who’s going to hit their goal – actually everybody – needs to be setting up how they’re going to hit their goal in the following month.
This is when you’re asking, “What do we need to do to line up and make sure that we’re going to hit next month?”
So there’s to things to think about on the 25th:
- Close out the current month with solid performance, and
- Set up next month.
Party like it’s the 30th – 1st!
Last day of the month, first day of the next month;
As you’re moving through the day and closing out the month, as people are hitting their goals, you need to celebrate.
Someone hits a sales goal – celebrate. Some hits a quality goal – celebrate. Someone hits a project goal – celebrate.
This is the moment, the day, where everyone celebrates and cheers each other on.
On the 10th next month you can celebrate again. And the reason you want to be celebrating these numbers both at the end of the month and the day they closed out is that it’s important to celebrate as closely as possible to when the success happened.
Celebrating January’s success at the end of March kinda feels like “eh… it’s not that important.” Maybe you need to be bringing in ice cream and cake on the first day of the month because of all of the people who hit their goals.
The whole month
You’ll notice that we touched on every aspect of your business.
This is the business rhythm that you don’t hear a lot of leaders talk about. This program helps you make sure that your team’s focus is always where it needs to be.
Obviously goals are an integral part of this rhythm. The really great thing about this business rhythm is that it helps you from a leadership perspective as well. One of the difficulties that companies have with goals is that they take a “set it and forget it” mentality. Then they wonder why the business isn’t moving as fast as it can, or should.
In this program you’re not just handing out goals at the beginning of the year and then rehashing them at the end of the year during employee reviews. You’re actually down in the trenches checking on progress and getting your team the resources they need. Your team is going to love you for that!
You can read more about employee goal setting here.
When it comes to planning and execution there is definite accountability. “I don’t know” disappears because you’re constantly checking in on the numbers and actions people are taking; from forecast to execution to results.
Yet a plan like this would fall flat on its face without one more thing: Balance.
Balance – no doubt you noticed that there’s a lot of goal and number driven activity in this business rhythm. You also noticed that there were a lot of “personal touch” actions (thank you’s, celebration, help with struggles). This rhythm has both the hard numbers stuff and the human touch stuff as well.
Because of the personal touch you put on paying attention to your team’s goals they feel like you give a darn about how they’re doing. When you check in on their roadblocks, celebrate their wins, get them resources, or help them plan, that all shows you truly care.
One of the secrets to building a great business is that when you show an interest in your team, they show an interest in your business. If you implement only the numbers side of this program and skip checking in on everyone’s individual goals on the 20th; if you skip the celebration piece; you won’t maximize your results. In fact, you may go backwards.
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