Why most quarterly reviews are useless I have sat through dozens of quarterly reviews with people running their own thing. Most follow the same pattern: look at revenue, compare it to last quarter, mention a few wins, note a few things that did not go to plan, and move on. Nothing changes. The same problems appear again three months later. The issue is not the review itself. The issue is that most people avoid the questions that actually matter. The ones that make you uncomfortable. The ones where the honest answer might mean admitting you have been wrong about something for six months. I have started using a different approach with people I work with through ALIRA. Instead of reviewing what happened, we start with questions designed to surface what is actually broken. Not what feels broken. What is. Question one: What am I still doing that I should have delegated six months ago? This one stings. Because the answer is usually obvious once you ask it. I worked with someone last year who was still personally handling customer support emails. Forty-three hours a month. She knew it was not the best use of her time. She had known for almost a year. But she kept doing it because she told herself nobody else would do it as well. That is usually the story. Not that delegation is impossible, but that we have convinced ourselves it is. Write down the three things you spend the most time on each week. Then ask yourself: could someone earning half my effective hourly rate do this adequately? If yes, you have your answer. Question two: Which customer segment am I serving out of habit, not strategy? This one matters more than most people think. Businesses drift. You start serving one type of customer, then you pick up a few outliers, and before you know it you are running three businesses in one. Each with different needs, different margins, different support requirements. I see this constantly. Someone will tell me their business is not profitable enough. Then we look at their customer base and find that 30% of their clients generate 70% of their headaches and only 15% of their revenue. They keep serving those clients because they have always served them. Look at your last quarter. Which customers or customer types consumed the most of your time relative to what they paid? Be honest. Then ask yourself whether you would actively pursue those customers today, knowing what you know now. Question three: What decision am I avoiding because I do not want to have the conversation? This is the one people skip most often. There is usually something. A team member who is not performing. A supplier relationship that has gone stale. A pricing structure that no longer makes sense. A partnership that is not delivering. You know what it is. You have probably known for a while. But the conversation feels hard, so you keep putting it off. I had this exact situation with a client last month. He knew he needed to end a partnership that was costing him £2,400 a month in effective value lost. He had known for five months. The conversation took twenty minutes. He described it afterwards as "anticlimactic". Most of the conversations we avoid are like that. The anticipation is worse than the reality. Question four: Where am I spending money because I started spending it, not because it still makes sense? Subscriptions accumulate. Retainers continue. Marketing channels keep running. I ask everyone I work with to do a spending audit at least once a quarter. Not a full financial review. Just a simple question: for every recurring cost, what would happen if I stopped paying it tomorrow? Some things are obviously essential. Others are not. You would be surprised how many people are paying for tools they do not use, services they have outgrown, or marketing that stopped working eighteen months ago. One person I worked with found £1,100 per month in subscriptions and services she had forgotten about. That is £13,200 a year. It took her ninety minutes to identify and cancel them. Question five: Am I building something I still want to run in three years? This is the big one. People change. Businesses evolve. Sometimes the thing you started building is not the thing you want anymore. I am not saying you should quit. I am saying you should check in with yourself honestly. Because if you are building something you no longer want, everything becomes harder. Motivation drops. Decisions get delayed. You start coasting. With the rail industry heading toward more public ownership and various sectors facing pressure to adapt, there is a lot of change in the air right now. It is worth asking whether your current direction still makes sense given where things are heading. Not just for the market. For you. How to actually answer these questions The trick is not to answer them in your head. Write the answers down. Be specific. I use a simple framework: for each question, write your honest answer, then write what you are going to do about it, then write when you will do it. If you cannot commit to a date, you are not serious about it. The alira.london SWOT Analysis tool can help structure this if you want something more systematic. But honestly, a blank document works fine. The format matters less than the honesty. What to do this week Block ninety minutes on your calendar before Friday. No phone, no email, no interruptions. Go through each of the five questions above. Write your answers by hand or in a document. For any answer that reveals something you need to change, write down the specific next action and put it in your calendar with a date. If you find yourself stuck on question three, the one about conversations you are avoiding, commit to having that conversation within fourteen days. Put it in writing. Tell someone else you are going to do it. Accountability helps.