The new year is here and with it comes a time of reflection and growth. You are likely starting to make resolutions or goals for your personal life so why not make some for your business too? Even if your business is exceeding your expectations, there are always areas to improve whether you’re aiming for higher targets or looking to improve morale! In this blog, we’ll cover a few areas to consider when making resolutions for your business coming into the new year!
Workplace Morale
Even if your business is hitting targets and overperforming, there’s a chance you still have room for improvement when it comes to workplace morale. Improving the vibe in your workplace is incredibly important. Waiting until you have employees who are complaining about their workplace is a quick way to ensure you lose your best performers. Attune yourself to the mood in your workplace. Do you find employees having to stay too late? Are you understaffed? Are there team members who don’t pull their weight and create extra work for others? Is the physical workspace uncomfortable? These are all things you can consider when assessing your team’s morale and seeing how you can make improvements.
Setting Clear Targets
When it comes to your business, one of the best things you can do is to set clear, defined, and realistic targets. The quickest way to scare your team is to start the year off with a meeting and drop a bunch of vague targets that aren’t based on any collected data. The goals you have for your business are not necessarily the same as the targets you set. Your goals might not be achievable for five years, or possibly ever depending on your market, and setting goals that are too big can lead your team to burnout. Make sure that the targets you set are based on data you’ve collected so you know that they are achievable for your current business model and market.
Community Involvement
Getting involved in your local community is more important than you might think! Firstly, it gets your brand out there to the market you are likely targeting. Being a face in the community will make people more likely to frequent your business since they know that you are supportive of them. Even if you do not provide a product or service locally, if you have a physical office, your employees are a part of this community. Giving back to the community they are from will help build goodwill with your employees and form a stronger connection. If you are a completely online business, find ways to get involved in the communities that matter to your employees and customers. Whether it’s donating to your employees’ charity of choice or providing scholarships to areas where your manufacturers are located, finding ways to reach out to your community fosters goodwill and connection.
Explore Networking
Networking is key for many businesses and it’s likely that you aren’t doing enough of it! Networking can help you connect with a variety of people. Don’t just think of networking as a way to gain promotions. If you run a business, networking can help you find new vendors, find reliable service providers like a marketing agency, or help you find a new customer base. Networking with other professionals in your industry can help you explore new business practices that you might not have considered before. If you are already content with how your business is performing, networking is a great goal that can help you find new ways to streamline your success.
Prioritize Employees
Whether you own a small business or lead a larger organization, making time to connect with employees and prioritize their well-being is important for running a successful business. If you want employees who go above and beyond for your company, you have to go above and beyond for them. This will obviously look different for every organization. If you run a small business, you can connect with your employees on a more personal level but might not be able to offer them as much monetary compensation and bonuses. You can still show how important they are by doing things like giving them the day off on their birthday. If you run a larger organization, you can show your employees by giving them back more of what they need whether that’s through early days, extra time off, or bonuses.
Improve Your Marketing
In the digital age, if you don’t have someone dedicated to digital marketing whether it’s in-house or an agency, there is room to improve your strategy. Between maintaining your website, SEO, social media management, email marketing, running digital ads, creating graphics and deliverable materials, and lead generation, there are too many areas you need to excel at to handle on your own while trying to actually run your business. With the amount of time consumers spend online, missing out on the digital market can be severely limiting the potential success of your business. As we go into 2025, consider the importance of digital marketing and that it may be time to level up your business’s marketing strategy.
