Take at least 4 hours per month to look at your business from a macro standpoint.

Whether you are a business owner, or an employee, many people get so hung up on managing the day-to-day. They never take time to step back and look at their business from a 50,000-foot level. Step back and look at it as if you were an investor, or a management consultant hired to improve your bottom line. Look at financials. Forecast the future. Know your numbers and key performance indicators (KPIs). Look at how you spend your time and ask yourself if that is the best use for company profits.

It can be valuable to regularly connect with a mastermind group or a group of people in a similar position as you. I personally schedule one day per month to review my financials and to do some planning and analysis. I use this time to evaluate and to adjust my plans to maximize effectiveness. I review results compared to previous goals. I then adjust future goals and plans accordingly.

If your profit margins are not where they need to be, look at what you can do to correct that. And most importantly, don’t kid yourself. If your numbers look bad, you need to do something different to fix the problem. Don’t think that doing more of the same thing or ignoring the problem is somehow going to make it go away.

Make this part of your monthly routine and watch your success grow.