Monthly Business Review: Agenda and Checklist

The Short Answer

What Numbers Should I Check Every Month?

Every system you build starts to fade the week you build it. The decision rules get lost. The bill list goes stale. The scoreboard stops getting marks. Then the old fires come back, and it feels like nothing ever worked. It did work. Nobody kept it working.

For Managers

What Should Be on a Monthly Business Review Agenda?

Keep the same agenda every month. Boring is the point.

1. 1

   Open the business file

   Update every page that changed. Date it.

2. 2

   Check this month's plan step

   Did it happen? If not, why, and what is next month's step?

3. 3

   Update the scorecards

   Which jobs left money behind, and which marketing brought paying customers.

4. 4

   Line up cash in against bills out

   Add the money you expect to come in beside your 90-day bill list. That is the start of a simple cash forecast.

5. 5

   Pick one fix for next month

   One. Not five.

Twice a year, use the same hour for bigger checks: a price review, a readiness test before any expansion, and the free fire or foundation self-check.

Worked Example

What Does a 30-Day Rhythm Look Like in a Real Business?

Here is the rhythm card for a small roofing company:

Now count the cost. Ten minutes a day for about 22 working days is 220 minutes. Four weekly meetings of 30 minutes is 120 minutes. One monthly hour is 60 minutes. Total: 220 + 120 + 60 = 400 minutes, about 6 hours and 40 minutes a month. Compare that to the days lost when one sliding system turns back into a fire.

The four weekly numbers for this roofer: jobs finished, callbacks, leads in, and the free-to-spend number from the Monday money check.

For Business Students

What Is a Monthly Performance Review Process?

A monthly performance review is a fixed cycle of measuring a few key numbers, comparing them to the plan, and choosing one correction. It is the "check" and "act" half of a plan, do, check, act loop, the same idea behind continuous improvement.

A monthly review catches the slow leaks that fast growth hides, a common problem for busy shops from Lakeland to Clearwater. See how Dr. Paul runs it with growing Tampa Bay businesses.

Research backs the rhythm. In a University College London study, a new daily behavior took a median of 66 days to become automatic, and missing a single day had little effect. A meta-analysis of 138 studies found that monitoring progress toward a goal improved the odds of reaching it, especially when progress was written down or shared.

Sources: Lally et al., European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010. Harkin et al., Psychological Bulletin, 2016.

The Kentucky SBDC, run through the University of Kentucky, offers free coaching and help building financial projections. Pair that with Kentucky business plan help from Dr. Paul to set targets worth reviewing every month.

For Managers

How Do I Run a Weekly Team Meeting That Supports the Monthly Review?

The weekly thirty minutes is often yours to run. Keep it short, start on time, ask the same three questions every week, and bring the four numbers on one page. For meeting basics, see how to run an effective meeting.

Agree on limits with the owner. You can adjust daily routines and the operating page. Spending and pricing follow the limits you agreed on, and anything over a limit goes to the owner right away. Changes to the plan itself wait for the monthly hour.

Next Step

Why Do My Business Fixes Keep Sliding Back?

Because nothing on the calendar keeps them alive. Put the weekly thirty minutes on the calendar at your slowest hour and invite the crew. Start the daily ten minutes tomorrow. Book the first monthly hour and bring the file.

Then find the fire that slid back on the list of the 14 most common small business problems. Terms like the 30-Day Rhythm and Weekly Money Check are defined in the glossary.

Questions

What Else Do Owners Ask About Monthly Reviews?