Adjusting Your Annual Plans: Data, Customers, Information, and Intuition

by Jason Ogden | Jul 22, 2025

We’re past the halfway point of the year, and it’s time to assess your annual plans. Are they on track, or do they need to be adjusted up or down? The key questions you should be asking are: Do you alter your annual goals? What feedback do you use to do so? And how do you effectively apply it?

Data

Data is the first and most obvious answer. How are you performing year-to-date on key drivers, such as sales and financial results? These are your headline numbers and likely the most important. However, you need more than just YTD results to anticipate what the second half of the year might look like.

Make sure you’re evaluating performance across the entire organization, including operations and client results. 

Sales & Marketing: Are new products selling well, or are older products lagging? What’s the opportunity and deal volume flow like? What’s your pipeline velocity? 

Operations: Are costs increasing, and are your prices keeping pace? Do you have room for an adjustment?

The key is to evaluate across the organization and include a combination of leading indicators (predictive) and lagging indicators (past performance). This approach paints a fuller picture that either aligns with your headline numbers or indicates the potential for a different kind of second half.

Customers

Customer insights are crucial, but you need to be judicious when and how you gather them. While surveys can be valuable, let’s assume for a moment they’re not your primary option. So, how else can you get real-time market intelligence that you can act on and that might affect your plan?

Depending on your business structure, your sales or account teams could reach out to a curated list of customers likely to provide insights on matters you’re considering. This list might include long-term clients, those who purchase specific services, or customers who operate in particular industries. The point here is to be thoughtful and personal. In my experience, clients are often happy to share what’s happening in their business and market, but you have to ask.

Information

This aspect really boils down to the quality of your information diet and how consistently you consume it. I liken it to a physical diet: I’m very judicious about what, when, and how much I eat. I avoid FOMO (fear of missing out) as much as my will allows and work hard to recognize and avoid “empty calories” in terms of information.

Assuming a healthy information diet, meaning you carefully select what you listen to, read, and watch, and that you follow trends relevant to your customers, industry, and the overall economy, what kind of picture emerges? How does it align (or not) with your annual plan, your expectations for the second half, and what changes you’re going to make or what you’re going to double down on?

Intuition

Intuition is the original “OG” of business. While it may not be “vilified,” there’s a certain disposition out there to discount or under-index its importance, and yes, I’m looking at you, “data is everything” crowd. If you want to be an adaptive and responsive business, a fair amount of intuition is required.

However, intuition can’t operate in a vacuum, driven only by feelings and “vibes.” The way I think about it is this: first, make sure you’re looking at the data, talking to customers, and taking in good information. Then, use your intuition to distill what is going on and most likely to happen next.

This brings up an important point: we’re not talking about generating specific, exact predictions. Rather, identify the most likely (base case) scenario and one or two secondary scenarios. The answers to these questions should provide the insights you need to either recommit to or adjust your annual plans.