New Year's Resolutions for Your Business

The New Year means a fresh approach to yourself and your business. Like personal resolutions, the New Year is the perfect time to tinker with your daily work routine or set new goals for your business. Our staff have some ideas to help make 2014 your best year yet:

  * Get involved in new and social media. Try to be active once a day. Then organize your media accounts with Hootsuite or TweetDeck.

  * Research which countries have signed Free Trade Agreements with the U.S.

  * Start or re-start a blog. Try to post every week. (Clearly this is one of our resolutions.)

  * Sell one additional product in the next couple months. Choose one that expands your target market. For example: if you run a burger truck, consider adding fish or veggie burgers to the menu.

  * Review your business plan and insurance policies to mitigate risk.

  * Attend one networking event each month: conferences, workshops, informational breakfasts or luncheons. Here's a Pittsburgh Business Times calendar to help you start planning. And here's our own list of upcoming events at the SBDC. This is also a good reason to re-vamp your business cards.

As you probably know from past January self-improvement efforts: pick manageable resolutions. Don't bite off more than you can chew during your busy workday. Check out some advice on how to keep your business' resolutions.

Best of luck turning your New Year's resolutions into long-lasting habits!