5 New Year’s Resolutions Able to Change Your Business in 2018

Personal New Year’s resolutions (like quitting smoking, losing 60 lbs of weight and subscribing to a gym) are rarely fulfilled, as these are usually merely whims, not goals.

Business-related resolutions are the whole other thing. These are the planned and gradually implemented steps of the big journey. If you perceive these New Year’s resolutions for what they are, treat them seriously and stick to the plan — 2018 might be the year your business yields essentially better results and becomes much more streamlined and rewarding.

Below is the list of 5 New Year’s resolutions able to change your business in 2018, in no particular order:

• Optimize the HR routine tasks
• Streamline your cash flow and billing processes
• Grow the team and delegate more tasks
• Create your business website or improve one
• Work on your social media presence

Let’s take a closer look what these resolutions are and why they are important.

Optimizing the HR routine tasks

The main asset of any company is the team, and the businesses that treat their personnel like expendables quite often find themselves short on talent. HR is much more than keeping track of the hours worked, sick leaves, days off, approving upcoming vacations and organizing the team building events.

It is about keeping track of all the important days like B-days and anniversaries for every worker, having one-on-one meetings, finding out what bothers your employees and gently dealing with any conflicts before they grow into team-breaking rows and tantrums. Nurturing the human resources is a harsh work, yet it is a work that must be done daily.

Multiple ERP software systems are available, yet these are mostly aimed at scrutinizing the sales funnel, monitoring the inventory procurement and streamlining the customer acquisition process. HR management modules are seldom to say the least. This is why IT Svit created a HRM system of our own, which is currently in beta testing and will be released to the public soon.

This system automates a plethora of daily HR activities, freeing up time from paperwork and allowing the HR specialists concentrate on what’s really important — keeping the team spirits high. Thus said, if you did not pay much attention to your HR dept — 2018 might be a right time to begin doing it in order to reduce their routine stress and enable them to devote more time to the things that really matter.

Streamlining the cash flow and billing processes

Many startups underestimate the importance of CRM systems that centralize the process of monitoring the cash flow and billing. When the sales team members record every step and stage of the customer acquisition and all the future payments go through the appropriate customer profiles, the billing process becomes much easier.

Integrating the company’s internal cash flow like wages, premiums, insurance and 401(k) payments into a centralized system lowers the strain and allows you to monitor the financial resource allocation transparently. If you went by with email attachments and sticky notes — mayhaps 2018 is the high time to advance to the next level!

Growing the team and delegating more tasks

As the business success nowadays relies on quite a multitude of factors and requires having a plenty of skills, providing the whole lot of them is essentially impossible for one man. This is why growing the team and delegating the tasks — even certain mission-critical ones — to other team members is quite essential. Even if you were comfortable in the role of the orchestra man, 2018 might be the year to grow the team and expand to new horizons.

Creating your business website or improving the existing one

The fact that you are reading this article ensures you have the Internet connection. Does your business have one? Googling the brand became the second nature of the customers during the last decade, so every business should have something to show to their potential clients.

Is your website mobile-friendly? Do you have a blog where the news on your product or service are mixed with the highlights of the industry? Does your website have user-friendly and intuitive design, and does it provide ample information on your business? If you answered at least one of these questions negatively — this New Year’s resolution is just for you!

Working on your social media presence

This is the natural evolution of the previous paragraph. Social media are omnipresent and almost all-powerful. Good following on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Twitter and other social media is the basis for the word of mouth — the best advertising any marketer can dream of. Vice versa, if your target audience does not know about your existence, there is literally no chance of turning them into your regular customers.

The same stands for a group that was idle for some time. Once the brand stops interacting with its social media following, the people are quick to abandon the group — and the product altogether. Regular giveaways and polls, live and thrilling discussions, being always in touch with your audience and delighting them at the first possibility — this is what works in the age of information overload and 8-second-long attention spans. Diligently follow this resolution, grow your social media presence — and your business will see definite improvement soon enough!

Final thoughts on 5 New Year’s resolutions able to change your business in 2018

As you can see, none of the New Year’s resolutions listed above is a limited-time goal. All of them are rather objectives, ideals the business must adhere to, continuous tasks to engage with. However, the tree that grows long gives the best fruits, and the same must be said about business: optimizing the HR routine tasks, streamlining the cash flow and billing processes, growing the team, creating or improving your business website and working on your social media presence — these are resolutions able to change your business for good.

2018 is as good a year as any to start transforming and upgrading the way you approach business workflow, team management, brand awareness and your general attitudes. In due time you will witness the daily routine tasks automated, the team becoming more engaged and productive, new customers pouring in and the business itself becoming much more rewarding for you, not just a treadmill you run to earn money. Will you give it a try?