With the New Year comes a whole new set of plans for every entrepreneur and business owner. Whether they hit the ground running as soon as the clock strikes us into 2013, or they take a few days to plan out their next few months, the lure of this fresh canvas is having the freedom to create a whole new set of plans for your business. All business owners and entrepreneurs will have plans for what they will be doing in the beginning of this New Year. The plans could be long-term and change the company for years to come, or they could be short-term and have impact for only a few days. No matter what the plans are, each and every one of us will have a plan for the year to come.
Rescue a CEO and CEO Blog Nation asked entrepreneurs what their plans for the New Year are.
Selling my services on a recurring basis
Most of my clients fall in the range of sole proprietor – under 20 employees. I build websites for them in WordPress, then teach them how to make site updates and work with them on Social Media and Content Marketing Strategies. I have built my success on educating clients, being very transparent in my business and sharing all “secrets” (you will find a couple of hundred How To's on my blog). I think this is valuable, both to me and the clients, and will continue this practice. On the other hand, as a freelancer, I haven't done a great job of building a recurring revenue stream. My goal for 2013 is to do a better job of selling my services on a recurring basis, which I actually think will serve my clients better, as I think that once the curtain is thrown back on the process they become overwhelmed by the work involved.
Thanks to Eileen Lonergan
Increasing the pace of created content
I'm planning to increase the pace at which I create content for my customers and marketing efforts. I would like to write 1,000 words a day to provide value and connect with people. I have always tried to create new content, but I think that this focus will dramatically improve my results and my velocity. The best part is that it delivers for my audience as well. The things I will keep from this year are increased focus on email marketing and testing new ideas.
Thanks to Robert Graham, Customer Retention Pro
Growing revenue
2013 will be year of growth for our business. Some things will remain the same, and some things will be tweaked. Our overall goal is to grow revenue 25-50% over 2012 numbers, and to achieve a minimum of four of our best sales months ever. Some aspects that will remain the same are 1) we will continue to speak at a minimum of 1 realtor/mortgage lender event per week; 2) continue to read leadership/personal growth/sales books at a rate of 2-3 per month; 3) continue to find ways to increase profit. Some additional focus projects we will be adding this year are 1) we will teach a class about follow up systems and strategies to add value to our clients and prospects businesses; 2) we will incorporate more social media as part of our overall business strategy and 3) we will focus on adding 5 new clients per week while maintaining current client relationships to the best of our abilities.
Thanks to Katie Heaney, Cutco Closing Gifts – Hedgehog Group
Our business becoming synonymous with internet marketing
Part of our 2013 business plan is to have our name become synonymous with internet marketing, both locally and within the Manufacturing/B2B industry. We are developing a branding campaign, gaining strength socially, networking, applying for awards and garnering publicity for ourselves. Simultaneously we will be building our internal company culture and we'll be showcasing what an awesome place this is to work; continuing to attract and retain the best talent. Personally, I know our team is our greatest resource and the healthier they are, the greater the potential for happiness and productivity. In January, we are starting the TopSpot Wellness Program, working with a wellness center to create healthy challenges and activities for the coming year. I am leading our team, helping them achieve their fitness goals.
Thanks to David Underwood, TopSpot Internet Marketing
Utilizing new technologies
We will look to utilize technological advances in various platforms in the marketing of our clients to NFL teams. We will also utilize various social media platforms in brand development for our clients. Our tenacious, single-minded, integrity-based approach in advocating for our clients will continue to be the foundation for our success and growth.
Thanks to Eugene T. Lee, Esq., ETL Associates, Inc
Create instantly effective advertising solutions
In 2013 we will continue to see advertisers mass migration to advertising that can effectively go beyond the 30-second commercial – to replace a monologue with a dialogue. At BrightLine we want to create instantly effective advertising solutions that reach maximum impact and engagement. This allows consumers to seamlessly engage with their favorite brands wherever, whenever, and however they like. That's what we call In-TelevisionTM – our data driven methodology to help brands achieve a true connection with viewers, with consistent, measurable, predictable results. It's my prediction that these new trends and behaviors will prove more and more pivotal to all major advertisers' future success. It's time to get engaged with your consumers, the quiet shift is turning torrent. Take a cue from the 200-plus brands who chose to lead in 2012. Look to 2013 as the year to adopt best-in-class ways to shift your marketing spend to embrace seamless cross channel TV engagement as the tunnel to the future.
Thanks to Jacqueline Corbelli, BrightLine
Renewing our focus
An essential skill for every leader is that of self-evaluation. While we may let it slip away from us during the year, the start of 2013 affords us the chance to reflect on our organization's progress toward our goal and also to question whether those goals have shifted or changed. As a startup that has spent most of 2012 perfecting and aligning a clear marketing strategy around our services, 2013 is all about a renewed focus. A focus that moves away from trying to perfect everything, and aims at investing training in our staff and most importantly selling. While it is important to ensure that your services and systems are sound, it is also important to not lose focus on moving forward and driving revenue. The reality is your product or service will never be perfect. In the new year our team will focus on committing to aggressively pursuing new clients and expanding brand awareness, while spending less time analyzing and attempting to perfect every aspect of our service offering. Our continued focus is always aimed at listening to our clients at every stage of their experience with our services to ensure that the service experience is consistent with our organization's mission.
Thanks to Sam Caucci, Principal Sales Huddle Group, Inc.
Exploring and embracing new business strategies
My plan for the new year is to continue to grow my business by exploring and embracing new opportunities for business strategy, market development, personal and professional branding and emotional connectivity with customers. I am excited about new markets and new ways of doing business which represent the innovation that we have a chance to embrace in this country and on a global level as the old business paradigms shift.. Since the launch of my business this year, I have learned about the power of social networking as well as the use of webinar technology to promote my brand and educate my clients in a much bigger and broader way. I am so excited about all of this new information and I want to share it with my clients and prospective clients to support them in their own business growth and market development. I truly believe that 2013 is going to be the year of innovation for my business, and I can’t wait!
Thanks to Liz Updike, LIZ Enterprises
Beginning new and exciting projects
I have exciting plans for the new year as a entrepreneur. “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great”― Zig Ziglar. This year I will begin two new projects in 2013, a weekly newsletter that will publish every Friday and four tele-seminars. My hope is that individuals, organizations, and companies promote the newsletter as a valuable resource for their audiences and the seminars give people the tools, techniques and actionable steps to succeed in their marketing. Remaining the same this year will be my shipping attitude and instinct to produce, to create solutions and ship them out the door.
Thanks to Patrick McFadden, McFadden Coaching LLC.
Relying more on ourselves
For our company next year, we will be carrying out a lot more of our operations ourselves without relying on the aid of managerial or creative prowess overseas. This way, we can save a lot of money, especially on things we can systematize, such as database updates, report generation, and even content creation. Software development, however, we will do a lot more of that overseas, like in India and the Philippines. Natively, we will work on graphic design, marketing management, public and media relations ourselves since those functions require more hands-on approaches. Thus it would be better for people with more expertise to handle those duties and most are from here in the U.S.
Thanks to Ian Aronovich, GovernmentAuctions
Involving new specialists to help us
In 2013, we will be doing everything virtually the same way as we have been; except we will be involving auctioneers in helping us gather auction data. In January, we plan to launch an auctioneer network that will allow auctioneers of government-seized and surplus property to post their auctions and items on our site (both manual and bulk data upload options will be available). We will also give them a ton of value-added tools to get substantially more visibility for their auctions.
Thanks to Michael Pesochinsky, GovernmentBargains
Achieve each of our milestones in the coming year
As we look forward to 2013, we plan to: 1) Improve our data capabilities – our data is the biggest asset we have. We are creating granular analytics to help our customers make better investment decisions. 2) Establish a foothold into different verticals outside of real estate which has been our sweet spot – our data services can add clarity to many industries including insurance, lenders and builders. We are continuing to find new ways to showcase our reach to these industries. 3) Increase access for our customers – we are working hard to make it easier for our customers to access our data more efficiently. We are improving the customer experience with a greater understanding of all of the products we have available and how they work. This begins with the launch of our completely overhauled website in early 2013. 4) Growth – Empower real estate investing with confidence and do our part to help enable the recovery of the U.S. Housing Market.
Thanks to Jamie Moyle, RealtyTrac
Contributing more to society and making use of Pinterest
Pinterest, Pinterest and MORE Pinterest. I really believe that Pinterest is the great untapped market for 2013. It's reported that it's 80% female users but male users are growing as well. I plan to put my pinterest presence into super drive in 2013. And of course the MOST IMPORTANT focus for myself and my business is on ….CONTRIBUTION! How I can contribute to more and more people and inspire them.
Thanks to Benson Simmonds, Master Your Audition