f you jump straight to planning 2027 without assessing 2026 first, you’re building next year’s goals on guesses instead of data…and guesses don’t grow businesses the way clarity does.

So, before you write a single goal for 2027, sit down and actually look at what happened this year.

Every owner has a gut feeling about how the year went. Some are walking around thinking it was a rough year when the numbers say otherwise, while others are convinced it was great when their margins tell a different story. Feelings are useful, but they’re not a substitute for the actual numbers in front of you.

To really know where you stand, it’s important to pull your actual data, which includes:

• Revenue by month, compared to last year
• Occupancy rates for boarding
• Enrollment numbers for daycare
• Average revenue per client
• Client retention (how many clients stayed and how many left)
• Where your leads actually came from

You don’t need a fancy dashboard to do this, either. A spreadsheet and an hour of focused time will get you there. What matters is that you stop relying on vibes and start relying on facts.

Once you have the numbers, ask yourself what caused them. Every resort owner tried new things this year: a new ad campaign, a new package, a new hire or a new piece of software. Some of it worked, and some of it didn’t. Most owners never go back and connect the dots between what they tried and what actually happened with revenue.

This is where the real learning lives. If a promotion doubled your bookings for two weeks, that’s not luck—that’s a pattern you can repeat. If you spent months on a project that never moved the numbers, that’s information too. It tells you where your time and money are better spent in 2027.

Your business is only as strong as the people running it day to day. Before you set new goals, look honestly at your team. Who grew this year? Who’s ready for more responsibility? Where are you still doing work yourself that should be delegated?

A lot of people set aggressive growth goals without asking whether their current team can actually support that growth. If you’re planning to add services or increase capacity in 2027, your people plan needs to come before your revenue plan. Growth without the right team behind it just creates burnout.

Once you’ve done the real assessment, setting goals for 2027 gets a lot easier and a lot more specific. Skip vague objectives like “grow the business” or “improve marketing;” those can feel good to write but are impossible to act on.

Instead, get specific with goals, such as:

• Increase average daycare enrollment by a set number of dogs per month
• Raise client retention by a specific percentage
• Add one new revenue stream, like memberships or enrichment packages
• Reduce turnover by improving onboarding and training

Every goal should have a number attached and a way to check on it monthly—not just in December 2027 when it’s too late to adjust.

This might be the most important part. In the middle of assessing what went wrong and what needs fixing, take a real moment to acknowledge what you built this year. You kept animals safe, you kept your team employed and you served families who trust you with something they love. That matters, and it deserves to be named before you move on to the next set of goals.

The new year is going to ask a lot of you. It always does. But you’ll walk into it a lot stronger if you take the time now to actually understand the year you just finished, instead of rushing past it toward the next one. Look back with honesty and a side of gratitude—that’s how you build a resort that keeps getting stronger, year after year.

Fern is the founder of Overdog Digital, a digital marketing & consulting agency that helps dog daycare and boarding facilities attract, convert, and keep more customers by creating winning marketing campaigns and providing the business guidance to build momentum and spark long-term growth. Fern also has programs to train daycare staff, is a dog behavior consultant, and has a dog training business in New Jersey. He is the author of eight books and a popular speaker at national conferences and private events. To join The Dog Daycare Business Think Tank or ask a question, go to: www.facebook.com/groups/dogdaycarethinktank