We are now a week into the new year and I wanted to know have you stuck to your resolutions or have made any steps towards achieving your goals? Every year around this time people begin thinking about their life and reflecting on what they have done in the past. They also begin to think about what they want to do in the future. I know I have done that. I do that with my family, my marriage and myself. I reflect on what I have done and the feelings it gave me. At this point I decide if I want to do more of that. For example, my husband and I incorporated a weekly datenight into our schedule. There were times when i dropped off for a little bit, but because we really enjoyed spending that time together we figured out how to get it back. So this year we decided in addition to our datenight, we wanted to workout out together a bit more. I even thought about activites for the family. We thought about trips and outings, areas of the house that needs to be fixed and or updated and so much more. This allows us to get a running start on what needs to be accomplished this year for our household. Have you done this as yet?
Well the same needs to be done in your business. It’s time to reflect on your business activities from 2011 and decided what worked and what did not work. By doing this you can decide where to spend your time and not feel so overwhelmed by “all the things that need to be done” to run a business. To help you better understand this about your business you should have some sort of tracking method in place. You need a way of tracking your campaigns, and website activities of your visitors. I use the wonderful and free Google Analytics. It allows you to see what words people are using to get to your site, what kind of post people are spending time reading, and if you have goals set up you can track the success of your campaigns. It’s important to know what is working on your site and to make sure the bulk of your efforts are not used on the activities that are not working for you.
Now is the time to also begin thinking about how you can streamline and automate various processes in your business. By doing this you may be able to save yourself quite a bit of money this year. An example of this would be your autoresponder and shopping cart. I had a client who was paid for the email marketing system and shopping cart in 1shopping cart but was only using the shopping cart feature. So every month or so we needed to export names out of 1shopping cart into her email marketing solution that she was paying for as well. This process can be very time consuming and expensive. Not only was she paying for a feature she wasn’t using and an additional product she didn’t need, but she was also paying me the time spent to export the names and add them to her email marketing solution. By using 1shopping cart alone, she’s able to save that $20 a month she was paying to send out her newsletter, and also the not pay me for the time it takes to export those names. That time could be spent on a task that can help her increase her goals for this year.
The last thing you should do for this year is to reflect on the goals of last year, and whether or not your accomplished them. You also want to set your goals for this year as well as put procedures and actionable steps in place that will help you achieve them. To do this you are going to have to revisit (or change) the purpose of your business and of the activities that you are doing. One of my clients put up a website last year only because she knew that she needed to be online. She achieved that particular goal for 2011. But now it’s time to think about the purpose of the website. What do you want that website to do for you? In the past year I have noticed that a lot of people wanting to add a blog to their website because they are told it can help them with traffic. But what type of traffic do you want and what do you want to do with this traffic? A website or a blog doesn’t necessarily mean traffic and traffic doesn’t necessarily mean more business. It’s very important to understand the purpose of each activity and marketing strategy you use in your business and how will it help you achieve your ultimate goal.
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As an Online Business Manager, Felicia Pratt supports women entrepreneurs who run their business online. She helps them streamline, automate, and build their online presence so they can increase their visibility and provide consistency in their branding and marketing efforts. Through various entrepreneurial endeavors including Real Estate, and the travel industry, Felicia has finally found her niche empowering women by helping them manage their time effectively and creating a work-life balance that works for them.
