Hallelujah! 2022 is almost over, and it’s time to focus on your New Year’s resolutions for 2023. Lockdown forced many of us to make sacrifices and changes to our everyday lives. When I think about what the next year will bring, I create a word of the year.
Limiting social interactions, turning to technology, and learning that “normal” is never guaranteed was a hard life lesson for many of us. Knowing that what was once familiar is no longer and that what you take for granted can disappear in a split second is hard for anyone to endure. Let alone the entire world all at once. However, we survived, and it’s time to stop looking back and start looking forward.
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New Year’s Resolutions; Now What?
Our next opportunity for a better year is fast approaching. After all, 2023 is right around the corner. If you are anything like me, you will be happy to push 2022 out of your mind and welcome the new. I believe that every year teaches us something new.
Whether you remember the survival of the pandemic, losing close family or friends, or a year of bliss and happiness, you likely realize that feeling is not sustainable. The highs and lows of life are important but making sure you are present and living your best life is hard. Setting priorities helps with this.
Evaluating priorities is something I could stand on a soapbox and talk about all day long. While no one wants to be forced into shifting their focus, sometimes we need to let reality soak in a tiny bit and make us look at what we think is essential. Making smart decisions about your time, goals, and priorities will help you create a meaningful long-term sustainable business.
Figuring out what tasks are actually priorities will help you manage your time most effectively. This is harder than it sounds. That is why I’ve created a workbook to help you figure this all out. Let’s get your actual business and life priorities straightened out.
Here are some ideas to help you get started on some New Years’ resolutions you can apply to your business.
Marketing – Refresh and Revive
Hopefully, you have a marketing strategy. If not, then it’s time to create one. You can’t plan for, post, and funnel people into your business if you have no idea what you are promoting. Get a plan that will serve as a roadmap to guide you through the year.
Your marketing blueprint is crucial to success. If you don’t have one or haven’t dusted it off in a while, now is the time to make it one of your New Year’s Resolutions. The start of a new year is the perfect time to refresh and revive your marketing strategy. Ensure your plan has updated financial goals, personal goals, research, and items you want to test.
Get More Organized
Have those close to your business practices give you tips or ask others in similar business structures how they handle things. Asking others will give you ideas that may spark additional processes or organizational opportunities.
There are many tools to help with workflows and keeping your business organized. From email marketing, workflow opportunities, and payment structures, it’s easy to keep doing what you’ve always done. Challenge yourself to look at these things to decide if it’s the best for your business right now.
Update your Processes
Technology is everywhere. From smartphones to smart TVs to automated houses (Yes, my house is automated), we can’t escape it. But are we using it in the best ways?
Look for things within your processes that you can automate but not complicate. The goals here should focus on making manual things automatic without adding steps or making things longer. As you dig through your daily, weekly, monthly processes, look for other ways to capitalize or shift responsibilities around to make things easier.
Focus on Customer Service
Customers matter, so how they are treated and how they perceive your service is triple important when you are a small business.
Think about your own experiences. Do good interactions stick out or the bad ones? People are more likely to remember bad or poor experiences, so your mission is to ensure they never have anything bad or poor to think about when they think about your business.
Outsourcing to Prosper
Outsourcing is often looked at with a side-eye. If just saying the word makes your mouth sour, you probably think about it too cynically or don’t want to give up control. No one can do it all, and not all outsourcing is bad.
Likely there are things you don’t love to do. While it can be super hard to trust that someone else will be dedicated and value your business as much as you do, eventually, if you want to grow, you need to hire people to help you. Outsourcing some things can be a healthy first step towards building an empire.
Find some things you don’t love doing and hire someone to help you. Your time is money; consider hiring someone to take on the less lucrative tasks that suck up time.
New Years Resolution Conclusion
Highlight the good, and focus on ensuring you replicate and make those highlights even better for the future. Setting goals is another important piece to ensuring you meet your resolutions. Every year I use Trello help me keep my resolutions and goals on track.
Trello is a free but powerful tool. I want to make getting organized and tracking your goals easy. To do that, I created a FREE Trello Template just for you! Click that link and get started on your path to organizational bliss.
