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10 New Year’s Resolutions for Small Business Owners<\/h2>\n10 New Year’s Resolutions for Small Business Owners<\/h2>\nCongratulations! Your business has made it through another year intact. When you\u2019re a small business owner, that\u2019s no small feat.<\/p>\n
But even if last year was your best yet (and especially if it wasn\u2019t), you know there\u2019s always room to be better. The end of a year is a good time both to celebrate your successes so far, and to look for ways to improve upon what you did last year.<\/p>\n
To make the most out of the year to come for your business, commit some time at the beginning of the year to working on resolutions that will make your business better.<\/p>\n
Here are ten New Year\u2019s resolutions to consider in 2018.<\/p>\n
Every small business must be guided by a business plan. If you\u2019ve been at this for a while already, then you know how important that is. But how often do you go back to revisit your plan and make sure that it\u2019s up to date and you\u2019re sticking to it?<\/p>\n The beginning of a new year is a good time to pull up the most recent version of your business plan<\/a> to see if your earlier goals and planning are still in line with what you want for the year to come. Chances are, you\u2019ll want to make some changes based on new trends or technology and on your analysis of results from last year.<\/p>\n Your business plan doesn\u2019t have to be set in stone, but simply the practice of sitting down to review and update it will help you go into the next year with a more clear and defined idea of what your priorities are and how to best to achieve your goals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A strong team of employees is hard to overestimate. While bringing new employees onto the team can be expensive, if they help your business run better and achieve more success into the year to come, then it\u2019s important to take the plunge and build out your ranks. Take time to talk to your current employees and really analyze where your needs are. If you determine new hires are needed, get to work putting together some job ads and starting your search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Employees are one of the most important parts of small business success; your customers are the other. Your business won\u2019t get anywhere without people buying your products. It\u2019s important not just that you have customers (obviously), but that you work to understand who they are, why they buy from you, and what their experience with your business is.<\/p>\n To do that, you have to listen to them. Send out customer surveys<\/a> to get their input. \u00a0Encourage feedback on every purchase and customer service interaction and make sure you follow through on reviewing it and doing something with it. Commit in the coming year to making customer feedback and outreach a priority and put specific plans in place to make it happen. Your business will only get stronger and more successful for putting customer experience first.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Do price testing<\/a> to get a feel for how your customers respond to different pricing levels and configurations. Changing your pricing always involves a little risk, but if you determine it\u2019s the right choice after testing and careful consideration, it could mean higher profits in the year to come.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Small businesses depend on a wide range of software products to make various business tasks easier and more effective. While software itself is never a full solution how you and your employees use it will always make a big difference the right tech products can make your business more efficient and enable you to tackle new initiatives.<\/p>\n As you head into the New Year, review your current tech products to confirm whether or not they\u2019re working well for your needs now. If they are, you may not need to change or replace any of what you\u2019re using now, but if your employees find the software you have now hard to use or feel there\u2019s missing functionality they really need, then it\u2019s time to look at your other options.<\/p>\n In addition to figuring out which of your current software products should stay and which should go, look into the tech options available for functions you haven\u2019t tried yet. Maybe you\u2019ve been thinking about starting to use marketing automation<\/a> or customer personalization, but haven\u2019t taken the plunge to invest in the tools you need to start. Don\u2019t rush into any business tech decisions, but do start to identify your needs and interests moving forward, and start researching the best options for meeting them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have one yet, use the beginning of the New Year to create a customer review policy<\/a> for your customer service team to follow. Commit to reading every review and responding. Good reviews should receive a 'thank you'\u009d message, while bad reviews should receive an attempt to fix whatever the reviewer\u2019s unhappy about. There will be cases where there\u2019s not much you can do to fix the problem in a bad review, but assess each case and do what you can.<\/p>\n Beyond responding in the moment though, make a plan for doing something with the information the reviews provide. Good reviews tell you what you\u2019re doing right and help you reward your employees for a job well done, and even bad reviews have value in teaching you how to improve. \u00a0If you find trends in the feedback people give, turn those into action items to make your business better in the year to come.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019ve already talked about updating your business plan, but don\u2019t forget to revisit your marketing plan as well. Every year brings new marketing trends and channels for businesses to consider, so you should always take time to consider which marketing tactics you want to employ in the coming year.<\/p>\n Look to your marketing analytics to determine which of your current campaigns and tactics are providing the best results. \u00a0You\u2019ll likely want to change up your current marketing mix based on what\u2019s working the best for you now. But also consider if it\u2019s time to branch into new online marketing tactics<\/a>. If you feel like you\u2019re lagging in SEO results, it might be time to start a content marketing program. Or if your content isn\u2019t being seen enough, it might be time to look into guest posting or native advertising. The beginning of the New Year is a good time to get adventurous and think about trying something new.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t had a website redesign in a while, take some time now to do a thorough review of your website. Test out how it works both on desktop on mobile. Do user testing<\/a> to make sure it\u2019s intuitive for your customers. Look for issues like broken links or images that no longer show up.<\/p>\n It can be easy after a while to think you can let your website run on autopilot, but the longer you go without doing proper maintenance to make sure it\u2019s working as it should, the more little issues will accrue that cause your visitors to have a negative experience. Make a good, thorough website review one of your New Year\u2019s resolutions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019re not talking about hiring intimidating security guards here. Your customers trust you with their personal financial information; making sure you do everything in your power to keep that information safe is a big responsibility that you owe them. Every year, hackers are getting more sophisticated and we get more news about big data breaches that put consumers at risk and damage business reputations.<\/p>\n![\"Creating](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Creating-a-blog.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n1. Review and update your business plan.<\/h2>\n
2. Consider your staffing needs for the New Year.<\/h2>\n
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The people who work for you are one of the most important parts of small business success. But you don\u2019t want to get complacent and assume the few good people you\u2019ve hired already are all you need. \u00a0If any of your current staff are overwhelmed, it\u2019s probably time to hire more employees to help spread the work around. And if you\u2019ve decided to tackle new initiatives, you\u2019ll need to look for people with the skill sets required to take the new projects on.<\/p>\n3. Check in with your customers.<\/h2>\n
4. Revisit your pricing.<\/h2>\n
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Pricing isn\u2019t something that you should set once and be done with. Every so often, you should revisit what you\u2019re charging now and consider if you should raise or lower your prices. If your brand has gotten stronger in the last year and your sales have increased steadily, you may be able to easily bump your prices up without losing sales. On the other hand, if a cheaper competitor entered the market and is taking a lot of your old customers, then bringing your pricing down may be warranted.<\/p>\n5. Look into new software solutions.<\/h2>\n
6. Create a customer review policy.<\/h2>\n
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Customer reviews can make or break small businesses. With so many places online where customers can check reviews before making a decision to buy, your online reputation is largely dependent on what the customers who feel like reporting back on their experience have to say about you. That means it\u2019s crucial that you pay attention to the reviews your customers leave and care about what they have to say.<\/p>\n7. Improve your marketing plan.<\/h2>\n
8. Do a website review.<\/h2>\n
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Whether you run an ecommerce business or have a physical shop that your website helps promote, your website is the main way people will interact with your business online. You\u2019ve got to keep it up to date and working well.<\/p>\n9. Beef up your security.<\/h2>\n