📍  You know what I think is really sad about being a business owner? You can spend an entire year working harder than you've ever worked, solving problems, taking care of customers, paying employees, and trying to build something really incredible, and then you get to December and you convince yourself you didn't accomplish enough, all because you didn't hit a number you wrote down in January.

And I wonder how many of you are already doing that. Maybe your revenue wasn't what you hoped it would be. Maybe your expenses were higher than you expected. Maybe you had a few things happen this year that you never could have planned for. And now you're looking at two thousand twenty-six and you're wondering whether you actually had a good year.

Well,  I wanna talk to you about that today because I think some of you had a much better year than you're giving yourselves credit for

Welcome back to No Silver Spoons. I'm Sarah Beth Herman, and if you're new around here, I own seven companies and I've spent more than two decades working in business, building teams, managing employees, and learning what it takes to keep companies operating, and I still have plenty to learn. I have businesses that have been operating for many years, and I also have a company that is still very new.

So I'm constantly looking at business from different perspectives. With my established companies, I'm reviewing payroll, client retention, profitability, whether we're operating better than we were a year ago. And with my newest company, sometimes I'm celebrating something as simple as figuring out a better way to package an order or seeing a customer come back for a second purchase.

And honestly, I think that's been a really good reminder for me Because when you have been in business for a long time, you can get so focused on the bigger goals that you forget how much the smaller accomplishments actually really matter. So today I wanna talk about how we look back at our year and recognize what we've actually accomplished, even when everything didn't turn out the way that we expected.

And don't worry, we're still going to talk about the numbers. You know I believe in understanding your finances. But I don't want you letting a financial statement tell the entire story of your year. How did you do last week? But I don't want you letting a financial statement tell the entire story of your year.

Before we get into that, I want to check in on something from last week's episode. We talked about preparing our businesses for the holidays, and I asked you to review your cash flow, staffing, profit margins, customer coverage, and what needed to be completed before December 31st. Did you do it? Did you sit down and actually look at those things?

Maybe you discovered an expense you hadn't considered or realized you needed to adjust your holiday staffing. Or maybe you looked at everything and felt pretty good about where you stood. Either way, I hope you took the time to review it. And if you found something that needs attention, I want you to look at that as progress too, because sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is recognize a problem while you still have time to do something about it.

If you missed that episode, I want you to go back and listen to episode one forty-seven. I think it'll be helpful as we get closer to the holidays. Now, here's something I want you thinking about. Let's say your company made five hundred thousand dollars last year. This year, you're on track to finish four hundred and seventy-five thousand.

You look at that and think, "Well, that's disappointing. I worked all year and my revenue actually went down." But what if you also reduce your expenses by sixty thousand? Assuming everything else stayed the same, your operating profit would actually be thirty-five thousand better than last year. You made less revenue, but you kept more money, and I think that you should celebrate that.

We put so much attention on revenue that sometimes we forget to look at profitability. Now, the opposite can happen too. You can grow your revenue by thirty percent, but if your expenses increase even faster, your business may actually be in a worse financial position. That's why I want you to understand your numbers.

I want you to look at the revenue, your profit, your cash flow, and understand what happened throughout the year. But please don't decide your entire year was unsuccessful because one number didn't meet your expectations. Here's another thing I want you to consider. What did you spend time building this year that might not have paid off financially yet?

Maybe you hired someone and invested several months into training. Maybe you improved your onboarding process. Maybe you finally organized your business in a way that makes things easier for your employees. Or maybe you invested in equipment, software, or something else that will help you operate more efficiently next year.

Those things take time, and sometimes they cost quite a bit of money. And I know how frustrating it can be when you're spending money and you're not seeing an immediate return. But if you built something that's going to make your business stronger, then that's worth recognizing.

Of course, we still need to make sure those investments make financial sense. I don't want you calling every expense an investment just because it makes you feel better about spending money. But I do want you to understand that some improvements take time, and sometimes the year you're building the foundation isn't the year you're going to see the biggest financial return.

Think about the people who chose your business. Think about your customers. We get excited when somebody new decides to work with us. A new client signs an agreement, somebody places an order, a new patient schedules an appointment, and it's wonderful. But what about the customers who stayed? What about the person who came back and purchased from you again,

or the client who's been with your company for years. I think we sometimes overlook how meaningful that is. People have choices, and when they continue choosing your business, that says something. I still want you looking at customer retention. If you lost customers, figure out why. If somebody was unhappy, learn from it.

And if there's something your company needs to improve, address it. But don't forget to appreciate the relationships you maintained this year, because keeping the trust of your customers is an accomplishment too. And what about your employees? Did somebody on your team grow this year? Maybe you've hired someone who didn't have much experience, but now they're doing a wonderful job.

Maybe you have an employee who's become more confident or a manager who's finally learning how to lead their department effectively. Those are things worth celebrating. I know how much time goes into developing employees. You have to train them, answer questions, provide feedback, and sometimes have conversations that aren't particularly comfortable, and you don't always see the benefit immediately.

But when you look back and realize that somebody is better at their job because you invested time into helping them, I think that's really cool. And if your team is stronger today than it was in January, that is an incredible accomplishment for your company Now, what didn't work? I don't want us pretending everything went beautifully this year.

I'm sure you had something that didn't go according to plan. Maybe you tried a marketing campaign that didn't produce much. Maybe you hired someone who wasn't a good fit. Or maybe you introduced a process that sounded wonderful in a meeting, but turned out to be a complete headache once everybody started using it.

I have certainly experienced that. But here's what I wanna know. What did you learn? Did you figure out what went wrong? Did you make an adjustment? And are you better prepared because of that experience? Because I think there's a big difference between making a mistake and continuing to make the same mistake because you don't want to acknowledge it.

I would much rather learn something this year and make a change than carry that same problem into twenty twenty-seven. And I hope you're looking at your challenges that way too. I think we forget to ask ourselves this. How was your life this year? Did you get to spend time with your family?

Did you take a vacation? Did you attend to the things that were important to you? Were you able to step away from your business occasionally? Or did you realize that something about the way you're operating needs to change? I think business owners can get so caught up in growing their companies, they forget why they started them.

Maybe you wanted more flexibility. Maybe you wanted to provide for your family. Maybe you wanted to build something that gave you more control over your time. And I think those goals deserve to be part of how you measure success. I understand that some seasons of business require a tremendous amount of work.

I'm experiencing that with my newest company right now. But I also know that I don't want to build a business or businesses that require every minute of my life forever. And I hope you're thinking about that too. Maybe one of your biggest accomplishments this year was finally taking a vacation, or having more time with your family, or learning how to set better boundaries.

And I think that counts too. There's two quotes that I wanna leave you with today. And the first is this. Don't let one disappointing number convince you that an entire year of progress didn't count. I think that's important because we can be incredibly hard on ourselves. We set a goal, we don't reach it, and we sometimes forget everything else we accomplished along the way because of that one goal we didn't reach.

The second quote I wanna leave you with is, A good year in business isn't always the year you made the most money. Sometimes it's the year you finally learned how to build a better business. And I love that because I think it's something every entrepreneur eventually experiences. There are years when you grow really fast.

There are years when you spend more time improving systems, developing employees, or figuring out what needs to change. And then there are years when you learn some pretty expensive lessons. But those experiences can all help you become a better business owner Your assignment this week. Before the year ends, we've got literally eight weeks left.

I want you to take 30 minutes and make two lists. On the first list, write down what your numbers are telling you. Your revenue, your profit, your expenses, your cash flow, your customer retention. Look at those numbers honestly. If something needs improvement, I want you to acknowledge it right then and there.

But then I want you to make a second list. And on this one, I want you to write down what the numbers don't tell you. Did you improve a process? Help an employee grow? Keep an important client or customer or patient? Learn something valuable? Did you accomplish something personally that you're proud of? I want you to take your time with this because I have a feeling that once you start writing, you're going to remember things you hadn't thought about in months.

And you might discover that you accomplished a whole lot more than you realized. I want to leave you with one last thought.  If 2026 didn't turn out exactly the way that you hoped, I hope you'll give yourself a little credit for what you did accomplish. Maybe you didn't reach every goal and you had to change directions and you had to make some mistakes.

Or maybe you spent a lot of time working through challenges that nobody outside your business even knows about. But you are still here. You're learning and you have an opportunity to use what this year taught you to build something better. And I think that's worth feeling really good about. So as we get closer to the holidays, I want you to take some time to appreciate your employees.

Thank the people who supported you and recognize the progress you have made. You can be proud of your year and still have things that you want to improve. And I think that's a wonderful place to be as a business owner. Next week, we're going to talk about what you might want to leave behind before we enter 2027.

The expenses, processes, habits, and commitments that may no longer be helping you. I think it will be a really useful conversation as we prepare for the new year. We are being very intentional with every episode we release as we close out 2026. So take the time to listen to each one.

Let them fill your mind with ideas for what you want 2027 to look like. And thank you for spending time with me today. I appreciate you being here. I'm Sarah Beth Herman, and this is  📍 No Silver Spoons. I'll catch you on the next episode.