New Year's Resolutions

Looking forward to 2012

The New Year is always a good time to take stock and make some good old fashioned resolutions. Most of us have roughly the same New Year’s resolutions: lose weight, get in touch with friends more often and but what about your business?

Here are some suggestions from the team at Enterprise:

Learn how to delegate and do more of it

There are so many things to do when you’re running a small business and sometime we think it’s easier to do them all ourselves – WRONG; make 2012 the year you learn how to delegate and manage your time more efficiently to make time for you.

Promote your business regularly and consistently

Too often the job of promoting your business slips to the bottom of the to-do list in the midst of actually running your business. If you want to attract new customers, you have to make promotion a priority. Make a New Year’s resolution to create a marketing plan and then use it. Our Business Gateway team deliver Marketing courses that will help you create a realistic marketing plan designed to improve your marketing efforts and ultimately lead to more sales.

Give something back to your community

At Enterprise this is something we are passionate about, we believe that being an entrepreneur is more than running your own business, it’s about working with others to improve the economic prospects of your community. There are all kinds of organizations out there that are making a difference in your community, make 2012 the year that you get involved, it could be by working with a local youth project, mentoring young business people or donating regularly to local charities.

Join a new business organization or networking group

There is nothing like talking to other business poepl for sparking new ideas, refining old ones and making contacts. Make an effort to become part of a group, get involved with online discussions and see your business reap the benefits.

Set realistic goals

Make them achievable rather than unrealistic pipe dreams that are so far out of reach that they only lead to frustration.

Don't make do; get a new one

Is there a piece of office equipment that’s so old it’s more hassle than it’s worth to use, are you putting off moving out of the spare bedroom into a “proper” office or are you reluctant to take on that member of staff that will ighten your work load? Make new year the year that you don’t just make do make it the year to DO IT.

Remember that the Business Gateway website is available with lots of useful hints and tips to get you thinking about growing or starting your business in 2012.

Enterprise Business Centres have an exiciting offer for new leases taken out in January.

And the Projects team will be back with more events following the incredibly successful "Making it Happen" conference.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.