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BLITZ YOUR BUSINESS IN 2020 Get ahead in the new year with these plans in place
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love the first week back at work after the Christmas break. It feels like a clean slate and is a great opportunity to put a few things in place that will set you up for the new year. Here are a few things I do in our trade business the first week back: Plan the year – I actually start this by doing anything that was left unfinished at the end of last year like clearing out our emails, responding to quote inquiries or following up unpaid invoices. This new year I plan to send Happy New Year cards to our clients. I read a great tip somewhere last year that sending a Happy New Year card is a great way of keeping you front of mind once the haze of Christmas has been and gone. The start of the year is also a good time to advise clients of any price increases that may be taking effect. I like to do a personal budget and write down a list of goals we want to achieve. We also get all our equipment cleaned and serviced and ready to start our first job of the year. Get in touch with quotes not converted – Towards the end of the year we seem to do a lot of quotes for people who want to get an idea of pricing so they can budget it for the new year. A lot of our work actually comes from quotes we have done the previous year, so following these up is a priority for us. Schedule social media posts – While my mind is
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fresh, I like to schedule a good month’s worth of social media posts, so I don’t have to worry about it for a while. I do a mix of before and after pictures of jobs, progress photos of jobs, tips on looking after various plants (we are landscapers), the team in action while working on site, and funny memes that I think our audience might relate to. I use a scheduling app for this called Later. Update the website – The new year is a good time to update your business website. I upload photos of jobs completed in the previous year and post a new blog. I also like to get a few blogs written ready in advance to post in the year when things get too busy to write them. Reassess systems/processes – We like to assess all our systems and processes. We look at what worked in the previous year and what could be improved this year. Having strong systems and processes in place definitely takes some of the stress of running a business away. I have had enough of swimming in receipts and invoices, so we want to go paperless in our business. We will be implementing some new software to enable us to do this and I couldn’t be more excited to see the back of paperwork. I hope these tips will assist in setting you up for a great new year and that 2020 is one of the best years for you yet.