It’s almost here again. Another Christmas and another new year. Whilst, for many of us exhausted by the endeavours of the past year, it’s a time to re-energise and let our hair down (what hair we have left!). It’s also a perfect time to look ahead. In fact, it’s THE time to look ahead. Whether your financial year runs from 1 Jan or some other start date, 1 January is a new beginning. It’s a time when lots of your customers are thinking about new ventures and new activity to grow their business. As a consequence, it’s therefore an important time for every business. And, it’s important to hit the ground running.
So, check out our 5 Essential Businesses Tasks to Complete before the New Year Starts and make the forthcoming year your best year yet!
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Set Business Objectives for the New Year
Did you set objectives for this past year? How were your results? It is often said that it’s hard to hit a target you can’t see. And, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that setting clear objectives is a vital step towards achieving success. So, put your planning hat on and start assessing what your business objectives are for the coming year. It isn’t just about numbers. It may be that you want to penetrate new markets. Or, you want to grow web traffic by a certain amount. Or it could be to successfully launch a new product. Whatever the goals are, make sure they’re SMART (specific. Measurable, achievable, realistic and time based).
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Scope out Financial Targets
I said above that it isn’t only about the numbers. But targets are important and having defined turnover and profit goals is imperative. And, don’t forget to break them down so that not only can you measure them and deal with them in bite sized chunks, but it will also galvanise your team to reach the targets where they’re within their business area. There’s nothing worse than saying ‘everyone is responsible for growth’. The reality is that no-one will take ownership unless each person is clear about what they have to contribute.
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Define the Road map for Success
It’s all well and good defining goals and targets. But what specific actions are required to get to the end? And when does each of the building blocks need to be in place? Successful businesses are built of solid foundations. So, define the tasks and allocate responsibility for those. If the objectives are big, chances are that the tasks required may also be big. So, don’t leave everything to the last minute and make sure that the blocks are ready to be put in place from January.
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Assess Organic Growth versus New Business Growth?
I once worked with a company that aspired to 20% growth in 2013. I asked them to put on a flipchart the various sectors in which they worked and what growth they were expecting from each segment. Somewhat surprisingly, they listed each of their 6 or 7 sectors and put +20% by each. I asked whether each sector was primed equally for growth. One of them was military and the government had announced cuts. Likewise, other public sector target areas were on the list. I also questioned the market share and strength in each market and how relevant their products were for each sector. Finally, I asked about competition in each. As part of the planning process, take a look at your target markets and your current customer base and consider where growth is going to come from. What areas of our business are prime for growth and which customers can give you more business in the year ahead?
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Work out where you add value
This is particularly relevant in our marketplace. Lead generation used to be about advertising, sending direct mail and making phone calls. Then, along came the internet, email marketing and social media and everything changed. For example, whilst b2b telemarketing can still produce effective results, there are all manner of other supporting activities that lend weight to the lead generation efforts. Increasingly, our own leads also come from Google through regular content marketing and social media lead generation. Seeing this success for our business, we now offer these as services to our clients in support of their new business requirements. In this way, we add value to our customers and recognise that the needs and expectations of clients and the marketplace are changing.
Check out our other blogs on business planning
If you’d like to know how GSA Business Development can help generate growth for your business via telemarketing or you’d like to book one of our new business development and marketing strategy workshops, contact us now on 0330 335 1380 or use the form on this site.
