Growing a business isn’t easy at any time, and after the challenges of last year, it may feel even more daunting. Even though much of the world is still in lockdown, the near-term future looks really bright for both large and small business owners. Exciting opportunities await for those businesses that are prepared with a business plan! Here are 5 things that most success business owners do that you can do right now to assure your team comes out swinging in 2021.
1. Set Specific Goals
Get your team on the same page at the beginning of each year with a business plan. A kickoff meeting is the best way to establish expectations, generate energy, show market research, identify your target market, review you company’s mission and achieve success through informed decisions.
To give yourself and your team the best chance of success in 2021, takes time to review the previous year, evaluate how your business changed, reassess your efforts, think about your marketing strategy, and determine how you can better serve your clients given the expected 2021 environment.
Once you’ve defined your goals and developed a great business model, lay out a detailed roadmap for achieving them. Make sure you consider how external forces, such as office reopenings or further lockdowns, could affect your business so that you can quickly pivot.
2. Organize
Give your business structure by replacing your patchwork of software and paper-based processes with one flexible operating system for your entire workforce. We happen to like the product or service Asana, Airtable, and Zoho.
Bringing your goals, plans, tasks, files, and more together in one shared space allows for better collaboration. Organize your workflows so everyone has a clear view of goals, what to do and how to get it done over the long run
With flexible and scalable software, you can operate more efficiently and with greater transparency. By understanding major initiatives, marketing channels, and dependent assingments, workers can help streamline processes and clear bottlenecks. Here’s an example of how Thumbprint helped AdventHealth organize their physician directory process.
3. Automate
Organizing your workflows then empowers you to automate them. Automation allows the right people to work on the meaningful items they actually enjoy and use their skill set to do great things, which in turn will help you run a successful business.
According to Michael Georgiou at Imaginovation, “Businesses that have automated workflows for repetitive and manual assignments have successfully increased employee productivity by 12% to 15%. By minimizing administrative duties, your employees have more time to focus on developing the business. Plus, an automated workplace can lead to higher quality work and greater career satisfaction.
When different types of projects become too logistically complicated, consider outsourcing them. On the balance, you’ll probably save your business time and money. Even more important, outsourcing may offer the most practical path to scale your profitable business.
4. Engage
Now that you have more than enough time to lead and grow your business focus on how to better engage your audiences and existing clients. In 2021, buyers will be expecting personalized experiences to be tailored to their needs According to Liliana Petrova at Customer Think, “Post-COVID, 59% of consumers care more about customer experience when they decide what company to support or buy from. In other words, customer loyalty and experience will drive purchasing decisions in 2021.”
Whether it is through live chat, virtual experiences, or augmented reality, every remote engagement or interaction that your target audience has with your business is an opportunity to make an impression and build a relationship.
An important consideration is customer parity. You’ll want to ensure WFH, offsite employees, and customers all have the same chance for engagement. This fun augmented reality minigame created for Commvault proved an excellent method for the company to engage prospects when tradeshows were not possible.
5. Measure
Many businesses do a poor job of tracking performance drivers and therefore find it difficult to make critical moves during challenging periods. It’s important you assign a clearly rationalized metric to each business goal during your goal-setting session. The data required for those metrics should be easily calculated and reported.
Successful business owners will attempt to navigate new waters. How effectively and quickly a company can evaluate their initiatives and then take action – either to pivot or invest more – is going to make or break companies. With proper analytics and data visibility, you can make the right moves.