The weekly glance
Fifteen minutes, the same day every week, with the page in front of you. Read each row. Ask: am I still running the channels I named? Am I still pushing the offer I named? Have any of the milestones moved? Make small notes on the page itself - cross out a number, write a new one, circle the channel that's not getting done. Then close the page until next Monday.
The quarterly rewrite
One hour, the same week every quarter. Take the marked-up page from the last 12 weeks and start a fresh page. Don't copy across blindly. Each row earns its place again. The customer might be the same. The offer might have shifted. A channel might have come off because it never produced. A milestone might have changed because the business changed.
The four review questions
- 1. What did the milestones say happened?
- 2. Which channel actually carried the quarter?
- 3. Where did the conversion path leak?
- 4. What are we leaving off the next page on purpose?
Question four is the most important and the most often skipped. Strategy is as much about what you stop doing as what you start. If nothing comes off the page in the rewrite, the next quarter is just the last one with extra weight.
Tweak versus redraw
Most quarters the page should be a tweak - same customer, same offer, refined channels, sharper milestones. Once or twice a year it should be a redraw - new customer, new offer, the position rewritten. Redraws happen for real reasons: a new product line, a meaningful change in the market, a deliberate move into a different segment. They should not happen because the owner got bored on a Sunday.
Keeping the page alive between reviews
Three small habits that keep the page from drifting. Read it aloud to one trusted person at the end of each month. Cross things out on the page itself rather than rewriting it cleanly between quarters. Keep last quarter's page in a drawer so the comparison at the next quarterly review is real. The page is meant to be lived in, not protected.
What to do this week
Put the weekly 15 minutes in your diary as a recurring appointment. Put the first quarterly review one hour, 90 days out. Write the date on the review row of the page. The system is now real.
The recurring principle this chapter sits on is review results and improve the system. The template is the system the review touches. The next eBook, Finding Your Best Customer, takes the customer row at the top of the page and slows it down across a whole eBook.
