It is critical for every small business owner to reflect on the past year's successes and failures. If you don't know what you did right how will you know to do it again. And, more important, if you don't know what you did wrong how will you know not to do it again.

As simple as this sounds, I can tell you as a business coach that I see entrepreneurs make the same mistakes over and over again. Why? Because they don't take the time to reflect and review and be honest with themselves. Instead, too many entrepreneurs follow the same plan because it is the only plan they have.

YOU NEED A NEW PLAN FOR 2013!

Having work with a dozen or so women entrepreneurs in 2012, I want to share lessons learned and suggest how they relate to every small business owner.

First - Marketing: Review your marketing plan for 2012. Calculate exactly what you spent on getting new clients. Please don't include your charitable expenses here. Too many women entrepreneurs believe that their generous donations belong in the marketing category. Sorry, but they don't. If you want to give your money away you have the right to do it, but don't assume that charity is marketing. I will often include it as goodwill in an exit plan but never in marketing plans.

Where did you get the best bang for your buck? Print ads in local newspapers, web ads, public relations campaigns, special events, giveaways, discounts, direct mail, signs, TV, radio? If you don't know the answer to this question. You didn't have a marketing plan in 2012 and you need to get started creating one for 2013. I bad plan is better than no plan at all. Once you have researched and discovered your best marketing practices for 2012 you are ready to build a 2013 plan. Don't keep doing the things that failed in 2012! That's the biggest mistake small business owners make fearing that by making a change they will lose old customers. Stop fearing failure and look toward success.

Two - Staffing: Performance reviews are something every small business owner must do in order to make sure the details of the business are being carefully carried out. Many of my small business owner clients tell me that they are on top of the day to day with their staff because they interact so often in a small company environment. However, this interaction is very different than a professional performance review. The more you treat your small business like a big company in the area of staffing and employee relations the better your results will be.

Go to the internet and find a good performance review document (there are many to choose from) relavant to your business. The best ones are ones that allow you to have the employee review themselves before you meet with each other. Plan a time to meet - you'll need 60 to 90  minutes of undivided attention. Make sure you have a list of duties that this employee is responsible for before you meet. If you don't know what (s)he is suppose to be doing how does (s)he know it?

The review time is also a great time to get feedback from people who have a different perspective on your business than you do and can give you honest ideas that may be the difference to success and failure for the future. When everyone on your team knows what is expected and also knows that their input is respected you'll have a more productive, successful team.

Three - Customers: In most businesses we are especially happy when we DON'T hear from our customers - why? because it means that they aren't unhappy. I ask frequently of the entrepreneurs I coach what the customer feedback has been lately and most often I hear, "no complaints must mean everything is going fine." The question you should be asking yourself is "is fine enough to keep your customers long term?" The answer, of course, is NO!

As entrepreneurs we need to spend time putting ourselves into the customer's shoes and ask ourselves is this the business I would keep coming back to if another one doing the sdame thing came along and offered me a cheaper price, better turnaround, better product/service? If you can answer that question honestly and the answer is YES - than perhaps you are listening to customer feedback. If not, it's time to start getting your customers involved in your business plans.

More and more companies are offering customer surveys to find out how customers like or dislike they way the business interacts with them. Unfortunately, most surveys will only tell you of the latest transaction and don't provide any real detail to make adequate change. Just because a customer had a bad experience with your business on one date may have more to do with their attitude on that day than on the performance of your business. This is not accurate information that you can translate into your business strategy.

I recommend, particularly with a small business, that the owner/entrepreneur take it upon themself to inquire personally with customers about their customer experience. Can you imagine getting a call for a business owner that you do business with asking you about your customer experience with the company? Most of us would be thrilled to take the time and tell people how we think they could better serve us. Obviously these calls must be done with the utmost respect for the customer's time. Depending on what type of business you operate, you may be able to request a call with a customer/client in advance. In this way, the customer is expecting your call and will be happy to give you the time necessary to complete a valuable customer survey.

We all want 2013 to be a better year for business than 2012, but that will only happen if we take the necessary steps to take what we've learned from one year and apply best practices to the next. Entrepreneurs who focus their attention to lessons learned in marketing, staffing and customer satisfaction will be the most successful in 2013.

It's time to get started as your business success depends on it.