A New Spin on New Year’s Resolutions

It's the New Year, and that means more than just champagne and promises to lose weight. It also means that many of you are resolving to improve your small business in the next year. There's a lot of advice out there about which resolutions to make for your business and why, but we are here to help you make sure that your business's New Year's resolutions are worth making and keeping.

Don't make resolutions that are too broad and too big; you're bound to be disappointed. Beware of making promises to "improve customer service" and "make better use of social media," because those goals are impossible to measure. Instead, make small, concrete goals, like "start responding to all customer service requests within 48 hours" or "tweet 3 times a day." That way you will be able to know if you're actually making positive progress or not, and once you complete all of these improvements you can add more to your list. You can keep bettering your business all year long!

In a tough economy people are desperate to improve sales, so they want to make any quick changes they can. Be sure you're not making changes just to make changes. It's tempting to alter your logo or your website because you want to turn over a new leaf, but you might be ruining an asset you didn't even know you had. If you're not sure if an aspect of your business is working, find out before you change it.

Finally, make you and your staff accountable to these promises by posting them in a public place. One of the biggest problems with New Year's resolutions is that people feel guilty for not keeping them, so they pretend they never made any. If you ensure that everyone in your business knows what your specific goals are for the next few months, you'll be more likely to make those improvements.

Perhaps one of your resolutions will be to sign up for PowerListings with Yext! Check your Local Search Scorecard and see how PowerListings can improve your business in the next year.