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Another business plan alternative: your calendar

By Becky McCray

Reader Carrie Bodeman at As Good As New sent this alternative to traditional business planning. You might like it too. –Becky 

Sometimes you have to look back to see forward.

July calendar pageWe keep a daily log of all activity so I can look back several years at a glance.  We print out a blank calendar and each day fill in our gross sales, discounts, how many customers were in that day, weather and anything else that might affect that days sales.  I highlight days that we put a promotion on (mailer, facebook promo, email etc)  I total each week and month and also total all Mondays, Tues etc to see how we compare year to year.  I calculate total sales by customers and see our average sale for the week/month.  It makes you look at a customer different when you see that person walking in the door is worth $40 or whatever! 

It’s amazing how accurate it is in forecasting sales.  I staple all Jan calendars together, Feb calendars together etc. from each year. If I see a week that has been historically slow, I try to figure out why and fix it! We’ve been lucky to have consistently higher sales each year in the 9 years we’ve been open!

Start a Calendar today!!!!

Thanks, Carrie! 

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
  • Downtown is your town’s core: How to make your case - February 22, 2021
  • Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
  • In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
  • Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
  • How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
  • The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
  • Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
  • Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
  • Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
  • Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020

July 2, 2012 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, organization, planning

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Comments

  1. Jon Smith says

    July 2, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    I use my Outlook calendar to sort my information personally — it can just hold much more data than my real life calendar!

  2. Becky McCray says

    July 2, 2012 at 10:36 pm

    Jon, that’s another option. In order to get the benefit of comparing different time periods, you would need to print them out, too.

  3. Kevin Cullis says

    July 3, 2012 at 1:49 am

    Great idea, the idea works on a Mac’s iCal doing the printout as well.

  4. ToniG says

    July 6, 2012 at 1:03 am

    That’s a brilliant idea. Thank you for sharing that.

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