With the New Year quickly approaching, many of us are no doubt thinking about Resolutions for next year. Several of these may include:
- Dieting
- Get Rid of Credit Card Debt
- Stop Smoking (Yuk! You still smoke?!!!)
- Stick to Household Budget
- Ask for that Promotion at work (during THIS economy?! Nah!)
However, with the economy sinking into the abyss more and more each week, perhaps some newly suggested guidelines would be more realistic in achieving success, making for a productive year in the long run.
Let’s start with Business Resolutions:
Delegate –We always want to do things ourselves. We very rarely delegate any work because we just don’t trust that it will get done as efficiently or thoroughly as if we did it ourselves. This year, let’s PROMISE ourselves that we will delegate some work so that we can increase production and add new clients to our database. Delegation also helps us to balance work and home life making for a happier life.
Promote your Business – It is so easy to fall down on promoting our business because we tend to believe that a one week blog should be significant enough to tap into the areas of marketing that are important. NOPE. We all need to market our business either through a Marketing Coach or create a strong strategy that goes beyond Social Media Marketing. Too often, it is easy to assume that Google or the social media sites will do the marketing for us, but for a successful business, this is not realistic thinking. We have to push beyond the comfort zone for business success.
Take Inventory on Your Business – Let’s take a look at last year’s successes and failures and refine, rework and redefine, the do’s and don’ts in each area to help us plan better for this year. What have we learned from our mistakes? Have we done research to check out different viewpoints or ways of doing things so that we can improve our own approach? We should allow ourselves the time to do research weekly to be sure, that we can pre-empt any possible mistakes before they happen.
Networking & Business Groups – Probably the easiest thing for us to do is stay in our comfort zone when it comes to networking and we also prefer to do it online. If we don’t allow ourselves to go beyond that comfort zone and go “outside” to promote our business, we fall short of becoming known and reaching potential clients. If we plan on attending a networking group once a month, (at the very least) we will improve our business contacts by a minimum of 50%. How many clients do you think that would bring to our business?
Personal Time – If we don’t have “downtime,” we invite the creepy crawler of “burnout” into our lives. Burnout will only make our business suffer since our heart, mind, soul or energy, will not make us functional…and this could last for months, curtailing your business success. A happy home and family make for a happy work life; there is no doubt about that. So on that busy calendar we have, let’s block out one day a week for “me day” which could include going to a spa, getting our hair or nails done, going to the gym, going out to lunch with friends, or even enjoying our “alone” time with just a good book.
Set Realistic Goals – It seems that at the beginning of each year, we all jump into all these new goals which we are determined to achieve with all the energy and determination of a bull ready to charge. Our goals need to be realistic and able to achieve. If we don’t set realistic goals, we will become discouraged quickly and fall short of even trying to maintain or achieve them. Let’s make a wish list of what we would like to achieve this next year. Then, we can do some research to see how others have done it, or gather information to help us formulate that goal. Information is so vital to success, and it is right at our fingertips every day while we are sitting at our computer! Let’s allow those fingers to do the walking on the information highway to success!
Office Equipment – Take inventory of your office and get organized. Do we need new equipment or are we making do? Are our “real” files organized and easy to surf through? Is the environment helpful for our focus, or do we need to have an office at home with a closed door and a dog that needs to be in quarantine for the day, so he doesn’t want to play or distract us? Are the kids on a timetable that is conducive to working at home uninterrupted for a couple of hours? We can’t ignore the kids for work, or even ignore the work for the kids, so the key is scheduling our time and efficient tools and equipment that help maximize our limited time.
Results of Strategy – If it’s broke…fix it or drop it quickly. Let’s not waste a lot of time working on things that will not help us reach your goals. Drop it and move on. Normally, trial and errors in our business dealings are what help us move forward if we stay focused on its value, and know when to drop out.
Finally, we need to re-evaluate our goals every 6-8 weeks and readjust if we find that we have fallen off the wagon! To quote a popular song, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again!” Ok, it is an oldie, but it is still a goodie!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE AS WE MOVE FORWARD TO
NEW AVENUES OF PROSPEROUS BUSINESS VENTURES!