The New Year has always been a time for people to make changes – and that’s true for small businesses too! As a small business owner, use the new year to make the changes and updates you’ve been meaning to make to your small business. Here are some ideas of ways you can prepare your business for the new year.

 

Review Your Year

 

Take the time to look back on 2023. What goals did you set that you did meet, which ones did you not meet? This will help you be realistic about the new year and the types of goals you make. Looking back at your finances can help you recognize patterns in your revenue streams – allow you to better prepare for dips during specific seasons or months. If you have employees then this is also a good time to check in with them and see how they are feeling or performing.

 

Goal Setting

 

What do you want to accomplish in 2024? And think deeper than “I want to make more money”. When creating goals it is important that they are: tangible (something that you can reasonably accomplish next year), trackable (are you able to track your progress to the goal), and have a time frame (are you going to accomplish your goal in the first quarter, or is it a year long goal).

 

Create A Plan

 

Now that you’ve looked over your analytics and have created goals, it’s time to actually create a game plan. As small business owners, we absolutely get that creating a full blown marketing plan is probably not something you have time to do. That’s okay. Create a simpler plan that you can reference throughout the new year, but that is still flexible. This plan should include: marketing initiatives, budget, the time frame in which you want to complete all of this, and how you are going to review your performance. 

 

Celebrate Yourself

 

Lastly, take a second to give yourself credit! Being a small business owner is difficult, and you’re doing it. Even if you didn’t meet all your goals for 2023 – you put up an effort. Reassess, get back out there, and kill it in 2024.

 

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Feel free to share your thoughts with me, I can be reached at vivian@theseasonedmarketer.com!

 

Looking for more free marketing tips and content specifically for small business owners? Check out our podcast, S.O.B. Marketing Podcast. Every Wednesday we discuss a new topic to help small business owners take on marketing on their own. Listen to our episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube! Have a topic you want us to discuss? Email us at Help@TheSeasonedMarketer.com!

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