10 Ideas To Grow Your Biz THIS Week

This is a short week, and I've always thought of the week between Christmas and New Year's as kind of a blow-off.  Lots of people are on vacation, no one's really doing a ton of business, etc.  (Although, I have heard that the week between Christmas and New Year's is great for the car and furniture business....)

Anyhow, I'm guilty of goofing off and having snowball fights during this lag time instead of really looking for innovative ways to grow my business.  I've compiled a list of to-dos - the kind of things that you'd really like to make time for, and never really have the chance.  Well, if your business is anything like mine, you have time this week if you'll discipline yourself and commit to getting at least THREE of these done.

1) Come up with a rewards plan for your employees.  If you're a smart business owner, you know that your employees are your NUMBER ONE "public," meaning you should always keep them in mind, just as you would your customers.  Employees will make or break your company, and if they're making it, you should reward them!  (If they're breaking it, either fire them, or incentivize them to do better.)  This could be anything from an ice cream party to a monetary bonus, so set some realistic goals and follow through with some cool rewards for your people.  Truly, this will improve your overall business environment, and customers will feel the excitement and enthusiasm when they deal with your employees.

2) Improve your accounting systems.  If your business is anything like mine, towards the end of the year, a lot has fallen to the wayside, and accounting is one of those things I'm always trying to play catch up on.  Take 1-2 hours a day over the next few days and COMMIT to either creating a more organized system to keep track of your receipts, or simply to log entries into your accounting system.  If you're completely up-to-date, (congratulations, you overachiever, you!!) sit down and analyze where you lost money, and where you made money, and find a way to capitalize on your wins and overcome your losses.

3) Plan a vacation.  I'm not kidding!  As a small business owner, I know how burnt out you can feel at the end of a long day.  You won't do your business (or your family) any good if you don't take some time to recharge your batteries.  Even if you take a three-day sabbatical to the bowling alley, spend some time away, WITHOUT EMAIL AND CELL PHONE.

4) Come up with a special for the new year.  Everyone loves a good deal.  For the first month of the new year, come up with a new sale or special that you've never offered before.

5) Devise a system to get more information!!  Several years ago, businesses wanted to collect phone numbers for telemarketing lists.  Well, folks got wise and decided to stop providing that information.  This day in age, you should be looking for ways to reach your customers wherever they are.  Ask for email addresses.  Or, if you have a website, make sure you have analytics tracking how many visitors your website is seeing on a daily basis.  Also, make sure your employees are asking your customers HOW THEY HEARD ABOUT YOU.  Information is power, but you have to commit to collecting it in the first place.

6) Email marketing is cheap- try it out.  If you've tried email marketing for your business yet, you may want to give it a shot.  Online systems like iContact make it very easy to create your own email messages, send them out to your email lists and track who opens and forwards your messages.

7) Commit to trying a NEW social media marketing technique.  Maybe you've hopped on Facebook, or you've begun to blog.  But what about Twitter?  What about LinkedIn?  Have you learned about Digg and del.icio.us?  (If not, don't freak out, but take some time to Google these and learn a little more about how social media can help grow your online presence.)  If this all seems VERY foreign to you, you can certainly hire a SEO expert to do all of this for you.

8) Speaking of blogging, DO IT!  I mentioned blogging above, and since I'm such a fan, I'll mention it again.  If you don't have a blog, now's the time to create one.  Blogs allow you to create unique and original text that can and will be indexed by search engines.  The more original, relevant content that you have available on your site, the better the chances that your site will be listed higher in search engine rankings.  If you have a blog and you don't use it, shame on you!  You're wasting a golden opportunity to grow your business, PLUS, it looks really bad when people see that you haven't posted to your business blog in three months - they'll think you're lazy.  Take this time to make a list of 30 different blog topics, so when you're feeling lazy, just glance at the list and pick a topic.

9) Thank your customers.  You may have just sent out Christmas cards and/or gifts, and if so, good for you.  However, never forget how an unexpected small goodwill gesture makes YOU feel.  Take a look around your neighborhood.  Is there a locally-owned bakery or winery who might be willing to partner with you for reduced-cost gifts?  Develop such a partnership, and once a week, have your salesmen take a gift or two out to their customers.  Or, have an appreciation event at your place of business.  The idea is to let your customers know you're thinking about them- it's a lot cheaper to KEEP these customers than to try and buy new ones with advertising.

10) Make it look good.  I'm a huge fan of pretty stuff, of creative stuff, of original stuff.  So I hate nothing more than ugly marketing collateral, or "logos" that were created using one of the twenty different pre-loaded fonts in Microsoft Word.  Are you kidding me??  If you don't think your business is worth spending some time making what you put out there (be it logos, brochures, website, OR EVEN YOUR OFFICE) look good, then customers sure aren't going to think you're worth a hill of beans.

Happy New Year!  I hope you're encouraged to do something to grow your business TODAY!