Steps to Take for a Successful Year Ahead

Looking at your business plan at the start of a new year can put you on track for a strong 12 months ahead. Maybe your business is finally stabilizing after the ups and downs of the last two years or you’re just looking to revisit the strategies you currently have in place. Here are five steps you can follow to help you get started.

Step 1. Act as a new start-up

Imagine if you could start again. What parts of your business would you change to build a new, stronger business on the foundations of the old one? What would you do differently and how would the business look?

You may want to:

• Eliminate unprofitable product or service lines
• Introduce new products or services that are experiencing growth
• Evaluate parts of the business that are no longer profitable
• Consider the expertise mix of employees
• Invest in new research and development

Determine if you can expand your products or services by adding something new or different or a new approach to sell to customers with a trial offer, a free sample, a special price or extra service. If you can establish one or more new opportunities in an identifiable target market, can you pivot some or all of your business to meet that demand?

Step 2. Employ low-cost marketing techniques

Bootstrap the way you promote your business by finding inexpensive ways to get your business in front of customers. Work back through your promotional tactics and identify what worked the best, list them from the cheapest to the most expensive, then start from the top. You may find the methods that cost very little are the best, such as:

• Contacting likely customers directly
• Increasing your presence on social media
• Using email campaigns to your existing contact list
• Building word-of-mouth by asking customers to refer you to others
• Using virtual meeting invites to target customers outside your normal business area of operations

Many of the best small business marketing ideas take time rather than money, which in a crisis you probably have more of.

Step 3. Sell more to existing customers

It should be easier to sell to your existing customers as you should already know them and have a relationship. Ask if there’s anything they need and offer them an incentive (from discounts to pre-payment deals to advance notice of new releases).

Other tactics to sell more to existing customers include:

• Using accounting software to identify and contact inactive customers
• Analyzing customer buying behavior to offer complementary products and services
• Run product demos

Triple check costs and pricing to ensure you’re making money from each sale. Extra revenue to existing customers that has low margin, cost overruns, extra waste or product returns isn’t going to help long term. Your sales strategy needs to concentrate on the best products and best customers, so focus on the 20% that generate 80% of your sales to increase the chance they’ll respond.

Step 4. Find new customers

If sales to your existing customers decline and you can’t quickly switch what you do as a business, focus on adding new customers.

• Sell online by adding an online store to your website
• Use third party marketplaces like Amazon or specialist industry sites
• Promote on social media to attract buyers
• Form strategic alliances with complementary businesses
• Prospect in the next city, state, etc.

Chances are new customers will look a lot like your existing customers. Profile who your ideal prospects are (order in volume, pay on time, repeat orders, etc.) and then research where they are and the best methods to get in front of them.

Step 5. Find new business models

To get through the coming months and to keep the cash coming in, consider adjusting your business model to uncover new opportunities. For example:

• Sell online if you don’t already
• Target growth segments such as government, military, education, health etc.
• Set up a specialized hub to help buyers and sellers do business
• If you have helpful or interesting content, make money with services like Google AdSense
• Sub-contract to other businesses for short-term contracts
• Sell your expertise by the hour online

If you do decide to trade out of your current predicament, make it a collaborative effort by including your staff, advisers, friends and family to develop your plan of action and seek professional advice if decisions will impact your financial well-being.

Summary

In the next 12 months, a lot can change. Be as proactive as you can by taking time to decide where best to place your time and money, then implement your customer, product, service or business model as fast as you can to find out what works and what doesn’t.