Celebrate Small Business Wins and Getting Organized
On this episode, we discuss the importance of celebrating your small business wins.
Then we talk about planning for 2026 and offer our framework for getting organized.
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Let’s celebrating wins!
Or, rather, remind YOU - as a small or micro-business owner - that you should take time to recognize this year’s wins – big or small.
Why? Because, if you’re like us, you are probably are too busy or focused on the future to reflect on how much you’ve accomplished.
The Benefits of Celebrating
It can help boost morale
Not just for staff but for you and your spouse.
We all need to feel like we are doing good work.
It creates momentum
We’re in the often busy fourth quarter and need to be on our game; feeling good about what you do can help
It prevents burnout
Accolades and celebrations can remind you of why you do what you do and motivate you to keep working on your dream.
It strengthens the team
Celebrating together builds a strong bond with the team (or just the couple)
There are so many ways to celebrate wins.
But every employee, team and business is different. So you’ll need to find the things that work for you and your staff.
Public Accolades
This is great for people who are comfortable with recognition or group settings. Sometimes a nice gift card and thank-you note to that introvert that does an amazing job might be the better option.
Rewards/Bonuses
This doesn’t always have to be monetary. Your business might not be able to do that at this time. But could you offer time off or other perks? Can you barter with another small business – e.g. offer some free service to a restaurant in exchange for a team meal?
Professional Development
At first this might not seem like a reward. But, when Jodie worked in public television and they recognized her work in the promotions department by sending her to an amazing conference it fueled her creativity and was exactly what she needed and wanted.
Now that we have discussed celebrating wins and reflecting on the year…it’s time to talk about getting organized – why you should and how we do it.
This is particularly timely as many of us are working hard to get ready for 2026.
We’ve boiled this down to a system we’re calling PLAN.
P-L-A-N
P-L-A-N
Pull information
You can’t look ahead to 2026 without reviewing what you did this year.
What went well?
What needs tweaking?
What should you stop doing?
What opportunities did you miss that you want to take advantage of next year?
Look at the real data – sales numbers, inquiries, website visits, etc. Without the actual numbers you won’t get an accurate picture. This is not the time to trust your gut.
List your goals
JODIE: “You’ve got to know where you are going before you can create steps to get there. When I was younger, we'd have like a maze, you'd have to fill it out. I often would just start at the end where it's at the finish and work my way back because just because the nature of a puzzle, there are fewer options. Instead of starting the start, going through the maze to the end. If you start with the end in mind, it makes it much easier. You don't go off on these other tangents or these dead ends and you know what you want to accomplish. So list the big goals and then maybe you can boil it down into objectives. But you've got to have some roadmap.”
Align your resources
Now it’s time to match your resources, staff, time and energy to achieving those goals.
Do you need to buy new equipment, software, hardware, etc.?
Do you have enough people and are the right people in the right place?
Do you have the knowledge you need? Do you or your team need additional training?
Necessary Steps
Time to put some actual detail into you strategic plan for 2026. You need to include steps you will take, milestones you want to reach and when you will review progress.
For example, if on your list of things you want to accomplish you put “update website” using that alone as a line-item on the plan makes it seem like a one-step task. When in actuality you probably have multiple steps you need to take. So you’ll want to list those, provide due dates, etc.
What gets listed gets done. If you keep things to big picture you won’t build in the infrastructure or time needed to do them.
We’ve got lots more insight about all kinds of couplepreneur stuff on our blog, so check it out!
