Five Ways to Improve Your New Year Business Plans

2020 is right around the corner and for most small businesses the holidays are not only a time to reflect on the past year but to begin planning for the upcoming one. Sometimes as business owners, putting plans in place for an entire year with unknowns can seem overwhelming. Here are five tips to help you get started with your 2020 plans from the "What Works" business podcast by Tara McMullin and in the meantime, visit www.mythiclanding.com to see how one of our vast services can help your business succeed in the new year!

1. Double Down on Your Positioning

"Positioning is where your business sits in the market.  It’s the stories that your customers tell about your business.  It’s the message that you put out.  It’s how you do what you do differently.  It’s the price you set, it’s the packages or offers that you make, it’s how you show up in the market, and all those things come together to give you your positioning.  In other words, where you sit in the market.'

'Now, if you’re tempted to start something new, to add to your offerings, expand your audience, take a step back.  Does what you’re creating reinforce your brand?  The story it tells about your customers, the value you have to offer, or does it dilute your focus?"

2. Get Support From Diverse Sources

"So the first thing is that people seek out mastermind partners who are kind of going at the same pace they are, which might be slow to non-existent, and so the first way that you can get the most out of a mastermind is to actually…'

'Seek out people who are moving at a faster pace than you. 

You want the people that you’re masterminding with, as a business owner, to actually push you, to challenge you, to inspire you to get a little more uncomfortable, to do things a little more outside of your comfort zone, and really use that to propel your business forward." 

3. Know Your Top Priority At Any Given Time

"Now, one of the biggest benefits of planning ahead, whether it’s for the month, the quarter, or the year, is that it becomes easier to spot your top priorities.' 

'These priorities will show themselves as specific goals.  So if you look, at your next year’s plans or your next quarter’s plans, you’ll see some specific goals, hopefully, that you’ve set for yourself.  The more specific, the easier it will be to know what’s important for you and your team to be focused on."

4. Separate Your Marketing Plans From Your Sales Plans

"If you’re overlapping building awareness with converting sales, you’re probably not building as much awareness as you’d like to be doing, and you’re probably converting sales less than you would like to be doing, and no small business owner wants to be in that situation." 

5. Make a Plan to Step Back While Letting Your Business Grow

"Now, a lot of people are going to put delegation and team-building on their new year business plans, but it’s not enough to just hire people to ease your workload.  As my friend, Peter Lang, from the Uhuru Network marketing agency, told me in regards to myself and my own business, you have to offload responsibility, too.'

'This is where so many small business owners go wrong, myself included, from time to time."  (To read on further and get more detail on each of these tips visit: http://taragentile.com/new-year-business-plans/)