101 New Years Business Resolutions
It’s the time of year where everyone wants to make their resolutions to lose weight, quit smoking or some other stop some other random bad habit they have. Why don’t more people make resolutions for their business in the new year? Some might call them goals, I even wrote a post about great goals in 2008 but I am referring to resolutions in this article.
A resolution is, by definition:
1: the act or process of resolving: as a: the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones b: the act of answering : solving c: the act of determining d: the passing of a voice part from a dissonant to a consonant tone or the progression of a chord from dissonance to consonance
Below are 101 New Years Business Resolutions you can adopt for your business to ensure that you make the most out of your business in 2008. Why are they resolutions and not goals? All 101 resolutions in this list will solve a problem in your business (lack of money, lack of time, lack of promotion, ect).
- Increase revenue by 10% each month
- Create 1 guerrilla marketing campaign each month
- Follow up with clients once per month
- Network with other companies in my niche
- Network with companies that compliment my niche (ie: web design / web hosting)
- Give 5 free consultations
- Create 1 viral marketing campaign each month
- Build testimonials list for future clients to read
- Create out-of-the-box ideas/designs for business cards
- Appear larger on a smaller budget
- Start saving pennies for a full year and spend the money on your business
- Decrease hours worked each day while increasing profits
- Attend at least 5 seminars or expo’s related to your niche
- Adjust pricing for your products
- Build a new product to add in to your current package
- Add a new service to your current list of services you offer clients
- Create 6 new contests as a marketing strategy
- Register your company name
- Write a book or guide for people in your niche
- Donate at least 10% of your profits each month to charity
- Get your company featured in local newspapers
- Get your company featured on the local news television shows
- Start a fusion marketing group (more on fusion marketing in a future article)
- Create a subscriber/mailing list of 10,000 people by December 2008
- Bloggers: Get 1,000 new RSS Subscribers each month
- Add a sales team to sell for you
- Hold 1-2 demonstrations for your service/product
- Generate more word-of-mouth advertising
- Bloggers: Guest Post on 2 blogs each month
- Get your website to the top 5 results for a new keyword each month
- Create a form of passive income
- Double your client list
- Find one extra client each month (ie: Jan – 6 clients, Feb – 7 clients, March – 8 clients)
- Invest 10% of profits to growing your business
- Invest 10% of profits for new equipment
- Cut advertising costs by 25%
- Go Green!
- Bloggers: Become one of the top 100 make money online blogs
- Bloggers: Get your blog featured on 5 of the top 100 make money online blogs
- Be more friendly to the “not-so-nice” clients; even when it hurts your pride.
- Become more reliable
- Take as many risks as possible without letting yourself say no; even if you think its a crazy idea!
- Think outside the box with advertising
- Study your competition and find their weaknesses; capitalize on them
- Have each of your friends generate 1 sale for you
- Promote your product in 5 different states
- Open a store for your product/service 1 other state
- Benefit from local resources
- Bloggers: Update your blog design at least once this year
- Read 1 business related book each month
- Participate in at least 2-3 discussions on message boards each month
- Check emails less and close IM’s when working online
- Reorganize your office space
- Increase the response rate in your customer service team (or yourself)
- Track the time you work better. (we recommend: slim timer)
- Trust your gut feeling more
- Bloggers: Mind map blog ideas for every day in 2008 (365 ideas won’t be hard with this method)
- Sponsor an event in your community to clean up parks or recreation centers
- Enter local business awards
- Enter blogging awards
- Enter web design awards or submit to CSS Galleries
- Take a vacation (even if you sit at home for a week not working, it’s still good for business because if you don’t, you’ll burn out).
- Hire 5 college students for various jobs (sales, customer service, cleaning, ect)
- Invest money in each month to a new business you see becoming highly successful
- Create all new promotional material (business cards, flyers, posters, bumper stickers, ect)
- Spend more time with family and less time working on the weekends
- Bloggers: Start 1 new blog every three months to build your network
- Bloggers: Add different forms of revenue to your blogs
- Allow affiliates to promote your products and services
- Bloggers: Add 1 article daily, Monday-Friday and have auto posts setup for Saturday-Sunday.
- Buy larger office space due to your company growing too big for the current office
- Set up your own business expo for local businesses
- Build website dedicated to your local business entrepreneurs (ie: yourstateentrepreneurs.com)
- Be more consistent with daily work habits
- Convert at least 10% of all cold-calls into sales each month
- Increase website traffic by 10% each month
- Increase pageviews for your website by 2 pages (1 page view per person – 3 page views per person)
- Increase the time users spend on your website by 2 minutes
- Find 10 unique ways to sell your product or affiliate sale in less then 2 minutes on your website
- Double your search engine traffic every 3 months
- If you haven’t already; submit a press release
- Build or outsource 1 link bait survey/article each month
- Get your entire staff (even if it is only yourself) healthier because healthier workers are happier and easier to be around
- Earn enough money in 2008 that you can take an entire year off and travel
- Build your passive income enough so in 2009 you can travel and still make money
- Diversify your income streams on and offline
- Bloggers: Aim at making $500.00 per month from Private Ad sales
- Study the power of social media marketing and create 4 campaigns to run in 2008 on social media sites
- Subscribe to 5 magazines that relate to your niche and study successful businesses inside them
- Dare to be different; find what your niche is missing and fill in the gap
- Find 5 ways to brand your company (or yourself if you freelance or bootstrap your own business)
- Offer holiday sales for the major three holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years)
- Hire a PR team to give you an added boost of exposure
- Bloggers: Hire front-page digg pushers to get your articles to the front page of digg.
- Create a trend. John Chow and Shoemoney had their blogs redesigned and now EVERYONE wants the three box look.
- Give 10% earnings for one month to a children’s college fund. Someone in your family, or a random child at a local school
- De-clutter your entire business inside and out
- Downsize your staff if profits aren’t as great as they should be
- If downsizing your staff isn’t an option, then find 10 ways to downsize your expenses
- Re-negotiate with all affiliate companies you promote for better rates
- RETIRE! Hey, if it’s that time in your life, sell the business off and spend the rest of your life doing nothing
14 Comments
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[...] You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I recently published an article here: 101 New Years Business Resolutions and would love if you could take a minute to digg or stumble it for me. It’s a great article [...]
Great post! There are definitely some items on here that are on my list. Guest posting is probably on the top.
Hello Jen,
Thanks for the comment. I’m glad you like the list.
If theres anything you’d like me to blog about specifically, please let me know and I’ll work it into a future post for you.
Mike
[...] 101 New Years Business Resolutions from Bootstrapping Blog Mike Smith gives one hundred and one business resolutions that you can adopt for your business. I must say, it’s a really huge and impressive list. There are tips for bloggers too, so be sure to check it out. You don’t want to miss this post! [...]
great post. i just trying to start my own business and feel so luck find such this posting
Hi yudika thanks for commenting on the article. I’m glad you liked it.
If you have questions for me on anything business related, feel free to leave a comment or click the contact page at the top and send me an email.
great list, I am sure I will be attempting several of those with my own business.
Hi,
thanks for visiting the site. I am glad you like the list.
Mike Smith
What an amazing post! This gave me so many ideas… One certainly should be bold to put some things into practice (such as aiming at getting 1,000 new subscribers each month). Anyway your list is a must-read.
I’ve already bookmarked it at del.icio.us and now I’m going to stumble it.
Hello Karen,
I’m glad you enjoyed the list. Thanks for stumbling it and adding it at del.icio.us
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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