small business 2014 new year's resolutions
DESCRIPTION
New Year’s Resolutions are not just for setting personal weight loss goals. According to new survey data from Constant Contact, 53 percent of small businesses make New Year’s resolutions every year and 23 percent make them every few years. As for their success rate in keeping their business resolutions: one third (33 percent) say they are successful in keeping them, while 65 percent say they are sometimes successful in keeping them. More than half (53 percent) say keeping business-related resolutions is easier than keeping than personal New Year’s resolutions, while 27 percent say it is harder. “I think most of us can relate to the treadmill gathering dust in the basement, or the long-abandoned pledge to stop procrastinating, so it’s easy to see why the majority of people surveyed think business-related New Year’s resolutions are easier to keep than personal ones,” said Christopher M. Litster, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Constant Contact. “Business resolutions can be easier to measure, as can the rewards if you stick to them, so I think staying focused on them can feel a bit easier.”TRANSCRIPT
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53%
23% 21%
3%
Yes Not every year but every few years
No Other
Do you make New Year's resolutions for your business?
2
65%
33%
2%
Sometimes Yes No
Are you successful at keeping your business New Year's resolutions?
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• “Ask for more help” • “Invest in staff training” • “Network more” • “Be more organized” • “Send regular newsletters” • “Add another product line” • “Better response time to customer requests” • “Create a new website” • “Blog more frequently” • “Find out what personally motivates my staff” • “Create a marketing plan” • “Drop what isn’t working and move forward”
When asked what resolution they kept in the past that helped their business, replies included:
4
53%
27%
20%
Business resolutions are easier to keep
Business resolutions are harder to keep
I don't make personal New Year's resolutions
Are your business New Year’s resolutions harder or easier to keep than personal resolutions?
5
26%
18%
16%
10% 10%
8%
6% 5%
1%
Growing annual revenue
Running my business more
efficiently
Getting more customers/clients
Trying different marketing tactics
Creating better planning
Providing a better customer/client
experience
Achieving a better work-life balance
Other Being a better boss
What are your business resolutions mostly related to?
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• “Work-life balance” • “To network with my local business community more often” • “Focus on customer referrals” • “Revamp my website and provide a mobile app for my customers” • “Take the necessary time to allow creative thinking in major development projects” • "Contact customers more often" • “To dig deep and learn how we can better serve our existing customers and clients” • “To streamline social media and outreach marketing, and to capture campaign results to analyze what works best” • "To increase social media presence on all levels by 15%“ • “Put more resources into the most profitable projects”
Share your top business New Year’s resolution:
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About the survey This Constant Contact-sponsored survey was administered in November of 2013 to 1,305 small business participants in the Constant Contact Small Biz Council – a research panel of US small businesses recruited from the Constant Contact customer base. This survey is part of an ongoing series about the state of small businesses and the ways they connect with, and grow, their audiences.
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