Here are some tips to help make 2020 your best year yet.
2020 is here. It’s a new year, the beginning of a new decade, and there is no better opportunity to have a fresh start.
Say goodbye to the same old New Year’s resolutions, like the usual vow to eat healthier or exercise more. Let’s start the new decade with a fresh perspective, and focus on the growth of you and your business.
Here are seven tips to help make 2020 your best year yet!
1. Reflect on the past year & set realistic goals
Reflection is a powerful tool that can lead to increased productivity and better business performance. As a business owner, ask yourself questions like:
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- What have I been most proud of this year? How did I achieve this?
- What challenges have I overcome? How did I overcome these?
- What was the biggest lesson I learnt this year?
Using the valuable insights from your reflection, set realistic goals for 2020. Learn about SMART goals and how to implement them into your business plan.
2. Plan your finances ahead of time
Take time to analyse the cash flow from the past year and use this information to help make predictions for the new year. Having these predictions can help you become aware of the periods where money might become tight, so you can plan for it in advance and avoid any issues.
3. Define and understand your target audience
Understanding your target audience helps to narrow your focus and craft messages that will appeal to your customers. It helps bring you closer to what your customers are looking for and like about your business.
To define and understand your target audience, it is important to gather as much data as you can about your customers. This includes everything from in-store conversations to online surveys and social media engagement. Use this information to identify your customer’s needs and preferences, and make sure your business is doing everything to satisfy these needs and preferences.
4. Focus on building your brand
Make it a priority this year to put time and effort into growing your brand. As a starting point, it is important to establish a consistent brand identity. This includes ensuring the elements that make your brand unique, such as your logo, color scheme, and tone of voice is the same across all online and offline presences.
5. Modernising your online presence
Once your brand identity is consistent, you can focus on modernising your business’s online presence. Everyone talks about the power of social media, but for a business owner this is very real and important. Invest time into creating a strong social media presence that has a consistent aesthetic, which means using consistent photos, fonts, colours. On these channels, post quality content that your followers will want to engage with, and don’t forget to be present in the comment sections and reply to direct messages.
Another important element to your online presence is your website. Update the design of your website to make it clean (white space is your friend), make it mobile friendly and ensure the navigation is simple and easy. This will assist you in reaching your marketing goals and retaining your audience.
To drive traffic to your newly updated website, consider starting a blog and taking the time to write quality content. This will help improve your business’s SEO ranking so your website becomes more visible.
6. Learn to ask for help and get used to delegating
While it is impossible to add more hours into a day, it is possible to control how you spend those hours. As a small business owner, it is common to wear many hats and complete the jobs of many people. However, this approach could be negatively impact the growth of your business. The ‘many hats’ approach can be extremely time consuming and may delay normal business processes such as sending orders out slower, or having support calls going unanswered.
To help redirect your focus from just running your business to growing it, learn how to and get used to delegating tasks. Reflect and think about the tasks that you have to complete yourself, and identify tasks that could be completed by another employee. Delegating tasks to your employees allows for skills development, increases responsibility and improves motivation.
7. Don’t forget about time for yourself
Dedicating time to let yourself breathe and recharge is not selfish. In fact, it can offer huge benefits to your personal and business growth. It can help you see things more clearly and make better business decisions. If you are finding it hard to make time for yourself, consider this time as a meeting with yourself. Make an effort to regularly schedule these meetings, and try not to cancel.
Make 2020 your best year yet!