2020 was a crazy year we all know this… 2021 is now here and we must move onwards and upwards! Here at MaxMyProfit, we’re all about helping you build the business that you imagined. Coming up we have a list of 7 New Year’s resolutions to help you grow an amazing business in 2021. So, grab a pen, pad and cup of coffee and get ready!
1. Planning
The first thing you need to kick 2021 off with is plenty of planning. Knowing what 2021 is going to look like will help you and your team more than just about anything that you can do in your business. Planning can be quite a difficult thing to get your head around for many, but realistically all you have to do is set some goals and KPIs. KPIs can help you gauge whether or not you’re on track and can be as simple as sales figures, number of quotes, how many customers you’re going to get or how many products you’re going to sell.
As the old saying goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” It’s important that you set some goals, have some KPIs and then put a plan in place. One thing to remember when it comes to planning is to try not to bite of more than you can chew. You have to make sure that your plan is realistic and achievable because it’s very easy to overestimate what you can do in a short space of time. We recommend that you think 5-10 years out and then break it down into the next 12 months. If you can get through your plans for the next 12 months of 2021 then you’re well on track to achieving business success.
2. Money Management
Our next New Year’s resolution is all about money management and mastering the money foundations of your business. As you run your business in 2021 you want to make sure that you’re on top of your cash flow and profitability, areas that you’ve set budgets for and how much money you’re going to make in a year. Too many people go through the year with tunnel vision, without thinking, “what am I doing?” And “how much money have I got to spend?” It is really important that you set a goal for how much profit you are going to make in a year, or you may find yourself disappointed with the outcome at the end of the year.
You also want to have some sort of methodology for measuring your cashflow! Let’s imagine you’re driving along in your car and your dashboard stops working, your speedo is broken, your fuel gauge has no reading. What are you going to do? You’ll most likely pull over and try to get it fixed ASAP. The reason for this is because you’re going to be uncomfortable driving the car, there is an aura of uncertainty that comes along with it, “what if I run out of fuel? What if I’m speeding? How would I know? “You don’t need this kind of uncertainty in your business and a cashflow forecast will help ensure that you know how much money you have in the bank at any given time.
It also goes without saying that you need to understand how to read your profit and loss statements. You need to understand what the numbers mean, how much it roughly costs to run your business and what your breakeven point is.
3. Stay Focused
New Year’s resolution number 3 is to stay focused. It can be very easy to get distracted, especially when you’re in a work environment. Use things like your calendar to block out time to do certain tasks, so you know that you’ve set time aside. Use management software such as Trello or Assata, it could be in the form of a simple to-do list, something that helps you to track your tasks. There are more specific tools such as Toggle which shows you how long it takes you to do each task. It is important that you stay focused on what it is that you are doing. Having said that, if you have a plan put together in the first place then you should have a brave idea of how you should be doing, and if you start to go off track, you’ll know about it!
Here at MaxMyProfit, we’re big fans of 90-day planning. What you can do is set your 90-day plan, and really focus on what it is you want to do within that 90-day period. If you get any more ideas or brainwaves, do not just jump on them, stick to your plan and put them into an ideas board. We can bet that when you look at some of your ideas at the end of the quarter, you’ll wonder what you were thinking when you wrote them down!
4. Test And Measure Your Marketing
Make sure that you test and measure your marketing! As you know from the previous points you cant test what you don’t measure. You should test and measure everything! You want to know how many leads you’re getting in, how many referrals you’re getting, how your profit margins are looking, you want to get really good feel for what’s going on.
One good tip we have is to measure your acquisition per lead and conversion. In marketing, you will want to know exactly what you spent per lead for that particular strategy. How much did you pay per sale? This is all very simple maths to work out. What about your acquisition cost per lead? Simply take your advertising spend and divide it by the number of leads you have generated. You can measure your acquisition cost per generated lead, this allows you to see how much it costs you to get a quality lead. The final figure that we defiantly recommend you to measure is your acquisition cost per sale, which is the number of customers you have, divided by your total marketing spend.
There are a several other areas that you want to measure as well, such as your average spend, your customers’ average spends and the lifetime value of your customer. But you most definitely want to be measuring your conversion rates. What percentage of leads do you convert to a customer? How many days does it take to get from a quote to where you really want to go?
If you didn’t do this in 2020 then 2021 is your chance to set that as a New Year’s resolution. If you’re measuring everything in your business then you’ll be able to improve all those areas without wondering if what you have done has had any effect.
5. Work ON Your Business Not IN Your Business
To do this, you need to get very good at delegating and outsourcing your tasks. There are so many tasks that you can outsource to a virtual assistant. There’s no reason for you to be stuck doing all the work by yourself. We suggest that in 2021. One of the things that you should do is to set time aside in your diary for you to work on your business rather than in your business.
Why is this key? If you’re not working on the business, then no one is and nothing is going to improve. If you want things to improve, then someone is going to have to take the time to work at it. Don’t feel guilty about it, you might need to remove yourself from the environment that you’re currently in. You could take yourself to a café or a restaurant, or maybe you need to take a break from the everyday stress of running a business in order to do some planning. For you to work on the business it is vital that you learn to delegate some of the workload. You’ll have to learn how to systemize yourself and your tasks and give them to others to do!
6. Learn
Resolution number 6 is to learn more. If you want to earn more, you have to put that L plate on and learn more! In this day and age, it is so simple to gain access to new information. You have Youtube, online courses to enrol in, and of course, you can Google just about anything! There are so many free resources out there for you to take advantage of. If you want to take it to the next level there is an abundance of resources that you can pay for. There are websites like youtome.com where you have a stack of resources to choose from or websites like audible.com for audiobooks. We can’t forget about podcasts either! Podcasts provide some of the best free education on the planet.
One of the best ways to learn is through doing, so don’t be afraid to try new things, the only type of failure is the failure to participate! If you aren’t trying anything new, then you are failing yourself. If you’re doing something and it’s not working, it’s okay, you’re just learning what not to do! Make sure to allocate time in your diary every day to try and learn something new. If you can do that then you’ll come out on top in 2021.
7. Get Yourself A Business Coach
Now… we might be a bit biased on this one because we are a business coaching company with a great team of people that help our clients get results every day of the week. But… we can’t stress the importance of a business coach. Coaching is not just for sportspeople; coaching is for anybody that wants to be stretched and pushed to take themselves to the next level. It’s all about growing yourself personally so you can grow your business. you or someone that you know may have had a bad experience with a business coach in the past, but you can’t paint every coach with the one brush! There’s bad football coaches and bad cricket coaches out there too. You have to pick the right business coach for you and you also have to be ready for business coaching and you never know, 2021 could be the year for you. If you want success in 2021, you should get someone you is going to help you by mentoring you and showing you how to improve.
Thank you for reading, Here at MaxMyProfit we hope you enjoyed this article and can implement these strategies into your 2021 plans for more success and a happy year of business!
About the Author
Ben Fewtrell is a sought-after Business Coach, Keynote Speaker and trainer who has featured in Virgin’s Inflight Magazine and Entertainment Portal, SKY Business and “Secrets of Top Business Builders Exposed”. He is also the host of the popular Business Brain Food Podcast where he interviews leading experts on anything and everything business.
