New Year’s Resolutions for Business Owners

January 9, 2023 | Written by Jerry Nicklow

Why is it important to have New Year’s resolutions for business owners?

The start of the New Year is a great opportunity for business owners to reflect on their accomplishments from the previous year and set goals for the year ahead. It’s also an ideal time to make New Year’s resolutions that can help you reach your professional objectives. Having a plan or set of resolutions will provide you with focus, direction and motivation to stay on track throughout the year.

5 New Year’s resolutions for business owners

1. Invest in professional development:

Business owners should focus on investing in their own professional development. By taking courses, attending seminars, and reading related material,  you can continually sharpen your skills and stay up to date on the latest industry trends. Doing this helps you stay competitive, identify new opportunities, and better serve your customers.

2. Improve operations:

Efficient operations are key to running a successful business. Business owners should strive to streamline processes, reduce costs, and increase profitability by implementing new technologies and processes that enable you to work smarter instead of harder. Deploying enterprise resource planning software or other tools tailored to your company’s needs is an effective way to do this.

Investing in technology can be a game changer in the improvement of your operations and efficiency.  But please make sure you are getting the most out of any existing technologies before investing in new technologies. Sometimes we are too quick to buy the newest and greatest technology.  I have found myself buying a new technology only to find out that one of my other systems that I already had could achieve the same results as the new technology.

3. Develop a comprehensive marketing strategy:

Developing a comprehensive marketing strategy is an essential part of growing any business. By targeting the right audience with the right message through various channels (online, social, print, radio), you can maximize the effectiveness of your market presence and get maximum returns for your marketing dollars. It’s also important to develop a plan for measuring success so that you can track progress over time and adjust your strategies as needed.

Marketing objectives to consider for 2023:

• Website redesign: If your website has not been updated in the past 4 years, it may be time to update.  Website standards are changing quickly, so a website that is 4 years old, may already be out dated.  If your website is not up to the current standards, it could hurt your visibility on Google and other search engines.  Have your site assessed to make sure it is performing up to today’s standards. SEO is very important in today’s marketing, so keeping your website site fresh is vital to it’s success.
• Social Media Strategy: If you have a social media presence, having a set strategy for 2023 can be a key to your success.  If you have not done so already, take the time to put together a social media content calendar.  This will ensure that you are posting about relevant items throughout the year.  Trying to “wing it” may seem like it works at first, but you probably will find yourself not posting on a consistent basis by winging it.
• Networking: Make it a priority to get out and meet people this year.  Set a goal to go to one more networking or community event each month.  People do busines with people they like and trust and there is no better way to do this than meeting people face to face.

4. Build relationships with customers: 

Customer relations are critical in any type of business – small or large – as customer loyalty is often heavily influenced by how well businesses interact with them. To make sure customers come back again and again, you must focus on providing excellent customer service as well as incentives, like discounts or loyalty programs that reward them for repeat purchases or referrals. Additionally, staying in touch with customers via email newsletters or social media campaigns can further build relationships between you and your clients over time.

Ways to deepen client relationships:

I like to say there are 3 C’s to a successful relationship marketing plan.  They are Consistent Comprehensible Communication.

• Send a monthly newsletter: Being consistent with sending out a monthly newsletter is a key to the success of the strategy.  So pick a day of the month to send out your newsletter, like the first or second Tuesday of each month.  You can send out the newsletter electronically via email or in a paper form via the regular mail.  Either way is fine, but be consistent. Make the newsletter easy to read and don’t make it all about selling your product or service. If it becomes too salesy, people will unsubscribe from the email campaign or just throw away your paper newsletter as they receive it.
• Send out a birthday message: Birthdays are important to most people.  So send out a birthday message.  This can also be done via email or regular mail.  Also, for you larger clients, pick up the phone and give them a call on their birthday.  That extra personal touch can go a long way.
• Send hand written cards: If you find out that something significant has happened to one of your clients, send them a hand written note or card.  You would be surprised how impactful a hand written note can be to people these days.  There are many reasons to send a hand written note, such as: Having a baby, Buying a house, Taking the dream vacation, get well, sympathy, etc.  So find a reason to send out a hand written card to your clients.  The results will surprise you.
• Holiday Cards: Don’t just think about the main holidays to send cards, like Christmas.  Send them a thank you card for Thanksgiving, or a we love our clients card for Valentines day.  Sometimes the off cycle holiday cards get more attention because you are not one of a hundred cards that they receive.  You may be one of one or one of five….
• A Sincere Thank You: Reach out to your clients out of the blue just to say thank you.  You can send a note and/or pick up the phone.  But a simple thank you will go a long way.

5. Create a budget & stick to it:

This may be one of the most important of the New Year’s Resolutions for Business Owners.   Whether it is creating an income statement, forecasting future expenses, or detailing current expenditures from month-to-month-business owners need to budget accordingly in order to keep their finances under control during the year ahead. With proper budgeting strategies like tracking expenses regularly using accounting software, you make sure all potential expenses have been accounted for when making decisions about finances throughout the year ahead

Knowing your financings is crucial to your business success.  Having a budget will help you succeed.  Part of your budget should also include putting money aside during the good times so you can survive the bad times or slower times.

I have seen too many businesses flourish during  the good timed and go out of business as soon as things start to slow down.  Design your budget so you can ride out the slower times and really kill it during the great times.

In Conclusion, New Year’s Resolutions for Business Owners Can Be A Key To Success

As we enter into 2023, now is a great time for business owners to assess where they are at and determine what changes need to be made this upcoming year. From launching a new website or social media campaign, committing more resources towards marketing activities or developing new strategies for customer engagement – there are many avenues by which businesses can explore improved performance with wide-reaching impacts on success metrics such as customer reach, revenue generation and market share growth over the long term.