The start of the year is a great time to set goals and plan for the year ahead. You might be accustomed to setting New Year resolutions such as losing weight, starting a new hobby, and so on. But what about your business?
Setting new year resolutions for your business will help you to stay focused on your end goals and take action to achieve them.
So, here are 10 business New Year resolutions that will help you scale your business FAST!
1. Don’t build your business around one person
Building your service or product around one person is a bad idea. If you aren’t bothered about scaling your business, go ahead, and create a product, service, or business model around a single person. However, if you want to scale your business, don’t assume that all of your potential customers are identical.
Don’t limit yourself and your business by building a product or service around one person. Instead, build those things around a target audience. Selling your product or service to one particular person does not validate your business. Don’t focus on pleasing one person. Instead, focus on selling to your broader target market and audience.
2. Charge your worth
Is there anything more infuriating than someone asking you to do something cheaper or for free? If someone asks you for a personalised service without paying you for that service, you have my permission to close the door in their face. You shouldn’t give away your valuable expertise for free. You are in business to make money, so charge your worth.
A business is not a charity. Your business is your livelihood. Never do something for someone for free if it is going to create an ROI for that person. You are in business to provide a service or product and make money. Don’t be afraid to charge your worth and remember that you are not a charity.
3. Increase your prices
Figuring out how much to charge for your services or product can be tricky. Most people under-price themselves, and to those people, I have this to say:
Increase your prices!
Don’t overthink it, just do it. Increase your prices by at least 30% and see what happens. If it doesn’t go as planned, you can always add a discount and bring the price down. But for now, there is no harm in increasing your prices because, most likely, you’re currently under-pricing yourself and your value.
4. Say no to clients
Sometimes, you have to say no to clients. I know that saying no to paying clients can be extremely difficult, but it is necessary.
Every time you say yes to someone or something, you’re saying no to something else. You give yourself the time and freedom to grasp new opportunities that you might have missed by saying no more often.
5. Create a strategy
Goals and strategies are entirely different things. Having a goal is great, but you’ll have a hard time reaching that goal without having a strategy in place to help you achieve it. You can have many goals within an overall strategy, but what is a strategy?
A strategy is a set of choices you make to navigate through obstacles and reach your long-term destination. Once you know where you want your business to be in terms of growth and progression, you must decide what steps will help you get there. A good strategy will help you solve not just one problem within your business but every problem.
A system includes a set of processes, people, technologies, and interfaces that, when put together, become a functioning system in your business. It would help if you had systems and processes in your business to succeed.
6. Hire the right people
There are three reasons to hire people:
- You hire people that can make you money
- You hire people that can save you money
- You hire people that can make you more money
Hiring people is about finding the right people who can fill in your weaknesses. If you’re terrible at something or don’t want to do it anymore, you can hire someone to fill that gap.
7. Stop comparing yourself to others
Comparing yourself to others never ends well. Instead of motivating you, it deflates your energy and makes you feel like you need more time, more experience, and more talent to be anywhere near as successful as the person you’re comparing yourself to.
If you start comparing yourself to other people, you’ll never hit your goals because you’re too focused on what others are doing. No matter what you’ve accomplished in life, you will always have something valuable to say to people. So, stop comparing yourself to others, you are enough.
8. Read more books
I highly recommend The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber. It’s the first book I recommend to business owners because it details what it means to be an entrepreneur or a small business owner. It’s the best book to start your entrepreneurial journey.
My second recommendation is Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman. This book is a great transition book when you’re ready to start placing systems and processes in your business. Another favourite of mine is Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman. This book enables you to identify who you are as a small business owner, your strengths, weaknesses, and who you need to bring in as soon as possible so that the business can run effectively and efficiently. Finally, I recommend Scaling Up by Verne Harnish, which helps you to develop a vision and strategy for your business.
9. Allow yourself some playtime within your business
Before you ask, no, I’m not suggesting you spend hours playing with Lego every day when you should be working. However, to help keep shiny object syndrome at bay, it doesn’t hurt to let yourself play with new tools that you might consider bringing into your business.
Keep in mind that the tools you choose to integrate into your business should always be valuable and actively help your business somehow. Don’t bring new tools into your business if it won’t help make your boat go faster.
10. Identify the roles you want to fill in your business
If you’re serious about growing your business, you may need some help. One of my business goals right now is to grow my YouTube channel. To do this, I know I need to fill some roles within the business to help me manage and grow my channel.
So, I took the time to identify what roles I need to eventually fill within my business. For now, I’ve shortlisted the roles down to a channel manager, an executive assistant, a video producer, video editor, content writer, social media manager, and a data analyst. It might take time for me to fill these roles but having this plan in place really helps me out, and it could be a useful exercise for you to try too. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos!
