2023 is officially here! Everyone has personal goals for the start of the new year, but have you thought about goals for your business? thought about goals for your business?

When you establish and set new goals, it influences the behavior of not only your employees but your customers. Having new goals, and being consistent in achieving them is what makes your business successful!

There is no better time than now to reflect on and analyze your business. Now is the time to establish goals, and brainstorm ways to improve. These S.M.A.R.T. goals can be a way to help your business grow. This can also help you adopt a clear focus, and direction that you want your business to take.

To help you analyze, one tool that can be used would be a S.W.O.T. analysis. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats are all categories that your business can reflect on.

However, there should be a second T added to the end of that acronym, which would stand for trends. Trends, are so important to this analysis, this is what helps keep your business not only relevant but up to date. Using these tools, and establishing goals for the coming year, will help improve your business in many ways.

Read on to see 5 New Year's resolutions your business should adopt this year!

Refresh Your Marketing Plan

The start of the year is here! It's time to revive and reinvent your current marketing plan! Sometimes, this area of your business can be neglected, because let's face it, it might not be a part of the day-to-day operations. There are so many changes in marketing trends, it can be hard to keep up.

Based on your business, this could look very different for you. This could be anything from social media to event planning, email marketing, and the list goes on. What area is your marketing plan lacking? How can your business marketing improve? What fun ways can you change your marketing? Where can I get new marketing ideas from?

There are so many ways you can change up your marketing plan and new trendy ways that you can bring awareness to your brand. This could involve your online presence, promotional events, and promotional products. Spending time each quarter or even each week to plan, research, or create different marketing tactics, and adding them to your business marketing plan can help your business in more ways than one.

Outsource Services or Products Outside of Your Field!

Sometimes being a small business owner, you're used to wearing many different hats. However, that can be very draining and time-consuming. This service could be anything from hiring an event planner, or marketing consultant, or outsourcing materials or promotional products. If a product or service isn't something you can easily accomplish, outsourcing should be the way to go.

Focusing your energy on the day to days of your business, and not the bigger picture tedious tasks that you aren't used to doing are the perfect thing to outsource for. This will ensure that you stay focused. It is also okay for you to ask for help, especially on a product or service you aren't capable of doing.

Improve Your Customer Service.

What does customer service look like for your industry? Is this quicker email replies, or over-the-phone communication? In a predominantly digital world, having that personal touch, and problem-solving skills are still what makes your business great.

When you're analyzing your customer service, you can take several steps to hear the opinions of the people who matter the most... your loyal clients. Creating surveys, or asking for testimonials is a great way to either improve your customer service or display why it makes your organization great.

Customer service goes beyond solving the problem of the customer or even making everything easy for them. Building a customer-focused team culture, should be a business's top priority. Adopting this concept into your goals would help drastically improve the performance of your customer service skills.

Making customer service a top priority for the new year has so many benefits, but the most important aspect is that it inspires customer loyalty! Everyone has that one point of contact at their go-to place that they love seeing, or speaking to. Most of this comes from personal touches they add during their communication with every customer, whether that be over the phone, or in person.

Improve the Company Culture.

Over the past year, have you noticed a decline in morale, or perhaps a boost? Company culture is crucial to not only the productivity and functionality of your business but the environment.

When you're analyzing your business, you should be diving into attitudes, company beliefs, team events, benefits, and more.

There are many different ways to create a positive company culture, like setting goals, rewarding good work, encouraging bonding, or even a daily meeting where collaboration and communication are highlights of the meeting.

Another great way is to hold a team bonding event. This is where you can get to know your coworkers and build more of a personal connection rather than a professional one. And...why not post about it, Let your customers know about your team, who they are, what role they play in the organization, and what makes them a valuable part of your business. This shows to both your customers and employees that you value your workers!

Boost your Digital Presence!

The digital world is constantly changing, improving, and innovating. There are so many digital aspects that your business can be utilizing, but it can be hard to know where to start. Understanding, and using these tools effectively takes research.

Boosting your digital presence would be more than just understanding and using social media, this would be understanding google ad words, or being subscribed to blogs, having a newsletter, or even writing an effective email.

Using these tools could not only educate you about the digital world but also inspire you to apply some of these aspects to your business. These tools like blogs, or newsletters can help inspire you to create content or stay on top of trends. Using these tools will make your content and online presence effective!

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