CHOOSE YOUR NEW YEAR GOAL WISELY …………..OR FAIL TO ACHIEVE IT!

There is an exhilaration to starting a new year in business, a chance to start fresh, to make new resolutions, to open up your business and your life to change. It’s the time, everyone is doing it!

We vow to work smarter not harder, we will be fitter, we will get new customers, and we will motivate ourselves and our staff. The big questions to ask is come March how many of us will still be doing everything in the same way and feeling guilty about quietly dropping all those New Year goals.

It seems to me that we love the challenge, the newness, the planning but we fall away soon after. The challenge is to get through the first 28 days. We all know that it takes 28 days to change or form a habit but knowing it and incorporating its magic power into your life and business are completely different. So the choice of New Year goal is crucial.

1 What If I ignored the prevailing thought that we are all going to hell in a hand basket and started something new?

Other people’s failures are not necessarily going to be yours. You will do things in your own way. I find it’s refreshing to make your own mistakes.

 2 Which is more important; Growth of the size of my business or growth of business activity?

Where will I put my emphasis this year? Is more or less staff really the key question? Focus on the right growth.

3 Is working harder going to grow my business?

What if I worked in a new way? Doing the same things rarely solves old problems.

4 What if I created a service or product that I really wanted to use? 

What if I used my own experiences to guide me? If I need it, chances are others will too.  How many times have you seen someone create a business around something you already thought of?

5 Do I know what I stand for?

 Do I know what I really believe in? Where would I draw the line? Do I stand for ethical business, joyous customers, and top class ingredients only? Customers know what you really stand for even when you try to tell them something else. They have a way of seeing the unvarnished truth.

6 What if less really was more?

 What if I could turn fewer resources into a trigger for greater creativity? I find necessity really is the mother of all inventions. Who knew how creative I could be when I had to?

7 What are the core long term offering of my business?

What will be around when all the new trends have passed through?  When I find it how will I build the business to concentrate on offering it to customers?  Customers stick with you if you really stand for something, fads come and go.

8 Why am I doing this?

 You need to know your real passion? Your business will soar if you are really passionate about it, not just the money it could make. Innovation rarely comes from bored people.

9 How much time do I spend worrying about the competition?

Am I paralyzing my own creativity by using what they do as my guiding star? If I had worried about the competition I would never have started the SHOES programmes for women entrepreneurs.

10 Am I planning to lose a percentage of my customers this year?

 Believe me not all customers are worth having. You will be amazed at what you find when you apply the 80/20 rule to your customers. Find the 20 percent who give you 80 percent of your business. Reward the loyal ones.

11 Who is responsible for building the company this year?

 If you can name one person you are in trouble. It’s everyone’s job, every hour, every day. Have I geared everyone up to be the best marketer/salesperson/communicator they can be? Remember it’s the small things that can sink you, details, details, details.

USE THESE QUESTIONS TO STIMULATE YOU TO NEW GOALS.

Veronica also has a new radio show, which has just started and is aimed at women in business.

It’s called the Stiletto Effect and is on Dublin City FM on Mondays at 3.30 on 103.2FM.