The holiday season is coming to an end and New Year’s Eve is just a few days away. If you haven’t already, that means it’s high time to start thinking about how to improve our businesses for 2016. Have no clue where to start for this looming new year? Here are five great New Year’s resolution ideas for small business owners seeking to grow and improve their odds in 2016.
1. Make sure your web content is the best it can be.
Your company’s website is its window on the world and you should treat it with as much care as you would the windows in a brick-and-mortar retail operation. You wouldn’t settle for errors and false promises in your store signage or advertising, so why tolerate them in your online presence? Take an objective look at your existing website to see if your content is SEO-friendly and includes calls to action. Can search engines find you? Think of your web content writing as your sales pitch to potential customers and new clients, and make it as authentic and real as possible to show them that you’re a real person with goals, commitments, and a great product or service to offer.
2. Healthy Business and Employees
As a small business owner, you’ve seen the ups and downs of this economy but for 2016, you’re going to aim to create a healthier business. That means healthier lifestyles for you and your employees and a healthier financial picture for your small business. Implement company healthy challenges, encourage your employees to get into fighting shape for the new year, and start proactively figuring out ways to attack company debts and attract new customers.
3. Lend a Helping Hand
Be a karma chameleon. Follow the “Golden Rule.” However you want to phrase it for your employees and customers, it’s time to demonstrate that you have a real commitment to helping out your community in order to bring success to your small business. Encourage employees to volunteer, sponsor a little league team, or make a substantial donation to a school or other local nonprofit. Make altruism part of your culture by doing little things for your employees. Eventually, they’ll pick up on the message and start doing little things to help their colleagues and customers in ways that count. This also brings a sense of teamwork that will be obvious to your customers as well.
4. Open New Doors
It’s easy to get comfortable in a daily routine but as a small business owner, it’s the duty of entrepreneurs to look for new worlds to conquer. So, what should you do for 2016? Expand! Find new journeys for your small business to take and have no fear in trying new things. It’s easy to stagnate and become complacent in your ways, but it’s more exciting to try new things. You’re obviously used to the unknown because your entrepreneurial nature prompted you to start a small business. Indulge that impetus and try new things in the new year.
5. Show Customer Appreciation
As one year ends and another begins, it’s a good time for small businesses to take stock of what they have accomplished. Small businesses are nothing without the relationships they’ve built
