2021 is finally here (thank goodness). With New Year's Day behind us, your mind has most likely wandered toward the topic of your New Year resolutions. And while you are making resolutions for yourself, it’s equally important to make resolutions for your business as well.
Just as humans should continually grow, develop and morph into better people, businesses should do the same.
So what will your business’s New Year resolution be?
The easy answer would be to increase sales, attract more clients, or take over the world. But I challenge you to choose a resolution that is less obvious and more impactful.
This resolution should not only affect your business, but also your employees, yourself and the people who interact with your business (customers included).
Here are three resolutions your business SHOULD be making for 2019
Embrace Failure
This is a tough one.
Failure is typically seen as something undesirable, shameful and something to be avoided at all costs.
This belief is what holds people and businesses back. It keeps them hiding in the shadows of safety instead of taking chances, and ultimately moving forward. However, this is a twisted view of failure, and it’s time to change that — starting with yourself and your business.
Failure should be embraced in the workplace. Why? Because without failure, you’ll never move forward, you’ll never discover new ways of doing things, you’ll never push the boundaries that need to be pushed, and you’ll never learn important lessons that bring wisdom and insight.
When failure is truly embraced, your employees will stop taking failure personally as a strike against their name, but rather see it as a badge of honor that reads, “I failed! But at least I tried. And now I know how to do it better next time.”
So how do you cultivate a fail-forward culture at your company? Easy — you start at the top.
If the leadership isn’t afraid of failure, and they embrace the failure of their staff, then the overall fear of failure will begin to subside.
Become a Human-Centered Business
Your customers are human; your employees are human; heck, you are human! Yet your entire business is centered around products, services, and money.
It’s time to make a shift and become a human-centered business. That means knowing and caring what your customers want, what they need, and most importantly, how they feel. Then and only then can you successfully identify how your product and/or service improves their lives.
Becoming a human-centered business also means making a point to value human interaction by making yourself ready and available whenever your end user needs you, whether that’s on social media messenger, a chatbot at 2 A.M., or a phone call. And when these interactions occur, they need to be seamless, helpful, and informative.
Become An Excellent Communicator
Poor communication is likely costing you customers and creating turmoil within your staff. Both can be HUGE issues for a businesses. Taking the necessary steps to become a strong communicator on both fronts should be a top priority for 2019.
At ROI Online, we follow the StoryBrand framework, which has exponentially improved how we communicate with our clients as well with each other. If you truly want to better communicate your brand’s message with your customers or your business’s mission with your team, StoryBrand can help you achieve those goals.
Another idea is to encourage your staff to take personality tests like the DiSC Personality Assessment. This will help you understand your staff better, what makes each person tick, how they like to be communicated with, what they value, what frustrates them and where they excel.
The first step to communicating clearly with your team is understanding the different communication styles and which category each of your employees fall.
In addition to the three resolutions above, you still want to increase sales and grow your business. And there's no better way to do it than with Steve Brown's best-selling book, The Golden Toilet. From storytelling marketing and smart automation to saving time and generating more leads, this book will help you future-proof your business for 2021 and beyond!
