5 Minute Friday: The CEO’s Guide to Smarter Planning (Part 1: Month in Review)

Hey, welcome to the series of Five Minute Fridays, all about planning. How to plan, how to get more done with your planner, and how to use the right checklists and numbers to track so that planning is actually moving.

The needle in your business.

For three series, we're going to dig deep into getting more done and being the CEO that your business deserves, not just a hustling entrepreneur. So let's get into it.

Hey, guys, welcome to Five Minute Friday. And I wanted to do a series all about using your planner, or whether it's retail planner or your own planner, just to set yourself up for success in the new year. And some of my favorite strategies when it comes to using a planner. So I want to start with the Boutique Boss Planner, the retail Planner, specifically, that we sell here at the Boutique Hub. And my favorite part, it's my favorite thing that we've put inside of this planner. Whether you use this tool or you use a notebook to track the things I'm about to tell you about, I think this is the one most important thing that you start using right away inside of the planner, and that is the month in review feature. So I am a huge believer that in order to plan forward and plan for what's going to come in the month or the quarter ahead, we first.

Have to look back and say, okay.

Well, what does history tell me? What did I learn from what performed last month, but also this month, last year? And we can only do that by taking really good notes on what we saw, what actions we took, what worked, what didn't work, and then what were the outside influences that were really impacting us. You know, things like the weather, things like, you know, a really huge moment in the world around us. You know, it was a tragedy that maybe impacted our sales. Maybe you learned a hard lesson and it was a J month, and you thought it was going to be J month. So you didn't order any new inventory. You just tried to sit on and sell what you already had because you told yourself it was going to be slow. Or maybe you planned for a big event, you ordered tons of extra inventory, and for whatever reason, it was a flop. And so inventory was over and above what you needed it to be in. Sales were less than stellar. There's a lot of things that can go into impacting our months, but we have to make sure that we have a strategy to keep track of all of it. So when I look at our planner, what we've set aside for you is really three different sections to plan and track the review for what worked and what didn't this month? So you're prepared to look back when the time comes. So on page one in your month in review, it's actually the numbers and the analytics of your sales, your sales by sales channel and your sales by date. So you can talk about what worked or just kind of look at your numbers in terms of what worked and why they worked. You could leave a note on, okay, I had an event or I had a promotion, or there was a boutique crawl in my town, right? So, and that impacted sales on that specific day. And then the bottom of that sheet where you're actually tracking all the numbers, we're reviewing, what was your payroll spent this month in order to achieve the goal? What were your highest and lowest performing sales staff and why? What was your beginning of month inventory and your end of month inventory? Because I think it's really important for you guys to see on a regular basis. Here was my sales, but here's the amount of inventory it took to achieve these sales because customers love fresh inventory. So how much is too much, how much is not enough? Tracking the number is what's going to get you there. It also asks on the bottom, what is my inventory on order for the next three months? Because I know if I'm planning to have a big month, you know, coming up this quarter and I don't have enough inventory on order right now, but.

A lot of the inventory I do have is aged.

I'm going to have a huge issue. I'm going to need to run some markdowns, but I'm going to need to get some new stuff in as fast as I can. So tracking it in one convenient place is super helpful to see. Now if you don't like manually writing this down every single day. I've seen some retail print out sales reports and just staple them to this page. Either way, I want to make sure the data is in this book and so everything is all in one place. And then you can take the numbers from this month in review. And we have a year to date review at the very beginning of the planner and you just take that total sales number and put it on that month. So then month to date you're also tracking because only a track number grows what numbers are actually moving.

It's here, it's time. Are you ready to start planning 2025? Well, you might have your own day planner, you might have a Google calendar, but let me tell you, I love planning with the official Boutique Boss Planner. The Boutique Boss Planner is a day planner that we created here at The Boutique Hub several years ago created by boutique owners for boutique owners. And it's more than a day planner. Inside of the Boutique Boss Planner is not only your opportunity to operate with a normal day planner with your hours and your time blocks, but it's also a boutique owner's go to resource. Inside there's inventory tracking, social media tracking, monthly reminders and to do lists. All kinds of information on how to host a month in review to really track what worked and what didn't in your business this month. But also a planning sheet on how to get ready for the next month in your business even if you're going to market, even if you're getting ready for social media content, there's tools, tips and ideas and checklists to keep you on track and organized all year long inside of the Boutique Boss Planner. So check out the link in the show notes for access to the 2025 Boutique Boss Planner or visit BoutiqueBossStore.com all.

Right, the second page that I think is important when it comes to the month in review is really some of these open ended questions that we're going to ask you. Things like what was your most profitable vendor? What was the trend report? What were customers buying? What were customers looking for and not buying? What were customers requesting more of? Right? So kind of some open ended questions when it comes to brands and trends and products. What did you spend on advertising this month? What was your biggest ROI promotion? What was your biggest soft ROI promotion? What happened in your community or the weather that affected sales and what are some supplies needed? Plus we have a little debt pay down calculator at the bottom. So every month if you're working on paying down debt, you can celebrate as that number decreases. And then finally the last part of the month in review is all directly related to the goals that you set out in the beginning of the planner. So what was your sales goal versus daily sales goal? What was your maintained markup this month? How many website visits did you get? So measuring traffic, how many new customers did you acquire this month? What were key things coming from social media comments? What was my social follower growth? How did I achieve my personal goals this month? And then there's some space for some open ended reflection on your goals as well. So again, no matter whether you're using this planner and we have all of this done for you or you're using.

Your very own planner, right?

Remember that in order to have successful months in the future, you have to have adequate notes on the months that have gone before you. So sit down, do a month in review. Do it with your manager and your team. If you have a team, get on the same page about what's working and what's not so that you can iterate and plan differently going forward. So hopefully that was helpful. I've got lots more planning notes you guys to give you when it comes to setting your year up for success. So grab the Retail Planner if you haven't already. I will see you next week here on the podcast.

That's it for five Minute Friday you guys. I hope you found some quick, actionable.

Steps you can put into play in.

Your business right away. As always, if you're not yet a member of the Boutique Hub, I would love to personally invite you to join us. It's where all of the daily conversations happen.

The up to date what is working.

Now in the industry conversations, the latest trainings, trend reports, discounts, resources and of course access to thousands of wholesale brands.

That you also know and love.

So please take a minute, follow the link in the show notes and we would love to invite you to join us inside of the Boutique Hub.