With the start of 2020, it’s a perfect time to sit back, relax, and set some goals for your business. Resolutions aren’t just for your personal life. You should be setting goals for your business, too. People and businesses are the two things that should consistently grow – but proper growth doesn’t happen without a plan. Here are three resolutions you can make for the health of your business this year.

Refresh Your Business Plan

Every business should have a solid one, three and ten-year plan. You must review your plan year-on-year to see how you’re performing. January is the perfect time to assess your business plan, make changes, adjust what hasn’t been working, and improve on what has.
Business plans can often get shoved to the background in favor of those all-important meetings with clients and stakeholders, the reams of paperwork you’re required to submit, and the busyness of daily activities. Assessing and updating your business plan is one of the best things you can do to keep your business on track and growing. Look specifically at measurable such as:
  • Your Client List: Did it grow or decrease? Why?
  • Your Production: Is our production process getting better or worst, including our communication process?  Why?
  • Your Sales:  What was our total volume versus last? What was our prospect to sale conversion rate this year versus last?  Why?
  • Your year-on-year expense vs. profit: Are you in the red or green? Why?
Evaluating questions such as these will help you catch problems quickly and right the ship if you notice a downward trend. Start the year off right – assess the status of your company.

Become Increasingly Social

There are three things you should focus on in this category for your business in 2020: SEO, blogging, and social media.
First, improve your SEO rankings. This will take some time and might require hiring outside help, but it’s more than worth it when you can start ranting on page one of Google for your business niche. Increasing your SEO ranking will drive more business your way and improve the health of your company.
Second, write a blog. Blogging is far from outdated and is growing as a method for business owners to interact with customers. Sharing subject knowledge is seen by customers as an added value to your services. They’ll start to turn to you for not only your products/services, but your helpful hints, advice, and how-to’s, as well.
Finally, connect everything you do to social media. Post new products, funny moments about your life, new blog posts you’ve written, and anything and everything you think customers might enjoy. We live in the most socially connected age of our planet’s history. Clients and customers alike enjoy seeing the face behind a product and are more than happy to interact with a founder over their vacation to Disney World or their brand-new product or model home.
Increase your interaction with clients by replying to comments and responding to tweets and posts. You may not get to everyone, but even responding to a few people each day will start a trend toward increased customer engagement.

Refresh Your Marketing

While you’re busy evaluating your business plan, take a good long look at your current marketing strategy, and refresh these areas: website, promotion, and awareness.
Website. Decide if you need a reboot. Is your website lacking enough traffic? Does it look old and outdated? Does it need to be overhauled? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, the beginning of a new year is the perfect time to refresh your website. Remember, your webpage is often the first impression you make on potential clients and customers. Make it a good one.
Promotion. If you aren’t promoting your business through advertising, social media, or another method of getting your name out there, you’ll need to rethink your strategy. Your products aren’t going to sell themselves. If you believe in your company, and the ability to deliver a much superior product and experience than others, promote it.
Brand Awareness. Your “brand” is how you are known as a business or company. Do you have an image that sticks with people? If you asked someone about your brand, would they be able to identify your core values or how you “operate”?  If the answer to these questions is no, you’ll want to rethink how you come across and start improving brand awareness.