The new year is here, and along with it comes an influx of new goals, resolutions and intentions. To achieve growth in the year ahead, there are a few crucial things small businesses can do in January to set themselves up for success.
To find out more, we asked a group of Forbes Business Council members what they believe is the most important thing a small business should do during the start of the new year. Read on for their advice on the business tasks you should aim to accomplish as soon as possible.
1. Pay Attention To What’s Trending
The small business space is always changing, but if you take time to research and implement new trends you’ll be ahead of the curve this year and beyond. By doing this, you can grow sales, serve better and operate effectively. – Abigail Aboitiz, Advanced Remote Monitoring / ARM LLC
2. Define What Success Looks Like
I like to meet with the management team to discuss and agree on goals and objectives and define what success looks like during the year. What key performance indicators must the team accomplish to move the needle throughout the year? Who is responsible and owns the tasks, and when will these tasks be completed? Ultimately, there needs to be objective measures for determining success. – David Crean, Objective Capital Partners, LLC
3. Focus On Today’s Challenges
Focus on the current product and build. Businesses often prepare for where their business will be in the future instead of making sure it gets there. Stay away from long-lead press, marketing strategies, contracts and leases for office space for when you grow. Outgrowing things is preferred to not meeting expectations. Focus on today’s challenges and hire only for the needs you have now. – Rachael McCrary, BUTTON Wallet
4. Seek Ways To Optimize Your Operations
With the end of the previous year fresh on your mind, look at the beginning of the year as a great opportunity to get more organized and create better systems to optimize operations. Where could you revamp tech? Where could you be investing or saving more? Do you need to clarify the company’s vision or mission? Start at the end to seek new solutions and organize your way to a better business. – Sara Abbas, Ev0lver, Inc
5. Set A Roadmap Of Goals
During the first few weeks, it’s imperative for small businesses to set concrete goals for the upcoming year. Establish deadlines and ensure they’re measurable, specific and attainable given the company’s success in the previous year. By setting these goals and aligning your intentions with them, you will have a roadmap of instructions to inform every business decision for the upcoming year. – Susan Levine, Career Group Companies
6. Reconcile Your Cash Accounts
Reconcile cash! By the end of day one of the new year, we should have closed and reconciled all of our bank accounts so we can move on to booking our accrual entries. I’d recommend performing weekly reconciliations so the work on day one is minimal. – Mike Whitmire, FloQast
7. Find Referral Partners
Reach out to those people in your industry or those that touch your industry and build a relationship. Find out from them their pain points and see if what you offer can help solve those problems. Refer business to them without expecting anything in return. You have to build trust with them that you’ll be around for the long run. Consistently reach out to check-in to ensure you are top of mind. – Ken Goodwin, Pacific Preferred Insurance Brokers
8. Define Your Impact Initiatives
At the beginning of the year it is always critical to get the team focused on what the brand will be known for as having the greatest impact on social and environmental justice at the end of the year. By doing so, the company will drive its campaign and messaging accordingly, and give purpose to employees using its products and services to make this happen. – Shamini Dhana, Dhana Inc.
9. Set Concrete Goals With Metrics
Focus is critical to success. At the start of the year I set a goal for the company’s business base, staff members and financial health. Each goal uses metrics so that we can confirm success on Dec. 31. Last year, my company won $75 million in new business—almost three times our goal—and provided profit sharing to staff. And we have achieved the 50% revenue increase goal set for 2019. – Victoria Bondoc, Gemini Industries
10. Set Big Goals And Communicate The ‘Why’
Set big goals for your company and clearly communicate what they are and why they are important and achievable. They should be excited about where you’re leading them and believe the destination is possible. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Craig J. Lewis, Gig Wage
11. Assess Your Efficiency And Improve Where Needed
The first of the year is a great time to assess where things ran super-smoothly in the year prior, as well as where they might need work. Are there any tasks or functions that can be eliminated completely, for better efficiency among your team? The more task-efficient your team is, the fewer headaches there will be for you. – Jeff J Hunter, BrandedMedia.io
12. Set Up Your Infrastructure For Growth
The scarcest resource for a small business is time. Focusing on infrastructure and scaling smart by making day-to-day operations as efficient as possible sets the business up for success. The difference between a 6- and 7-figure business and its 8-figure counterparts is that the 8-figure business has better systems in place so they can focus on growth instead of only delivering value. – Kevin Zhang, Kreator eCommerce
13. Get Everyone On The Same Page
Start the current year with a “state of the nation” address to your employees. Make sure everyone is aligned on the brand values, the business goals and objectives that have been set. The more that everyone in the business understands what you do and why you do it, they will take greater value in their role to achieving it, and feel they are an integral part of the company’s success. – Brian Chew, OC Wills & Trust Attorneys
