Being a smart small business owner means you need to take a few pages out of the big boys’ book sometimes. While staying infinitely personal and delivering a far more quality product than bigger mass market brands is at the heart of the small business, there are a few strategies that you could put into place that will enhance this philosophy.

Here are a few things you can put into place in the coming year that we in fact insist you make your resolutions for the year forward.

1. Make Life Simpler for Customers

How do your customers do business with you? While as we said, you have an excellent product and extremely personable service, this is not enough anymore. You need to look into ways that make your customers interest in your brand move to the point of sale as smoothly as possible. You also need to ensure that your customers can always be in touch with you and receive the same level of service after they make the purchase in order that they continue to have a relationship with you. How easy is it to do business with you?

2. Forecast with your Plans

While you have a planning process than involves in-putting all your brand’s activities for the year, why not also add a new column or tab that involves forecasting what you actually want to make? Most small businesses don’t plan for a certain amount of earning and only plan for the brand. This is not good practice because if you have an expected figure to bring in then you know how to plan accordingly to make that amount a reality.

3. Create a Think Tank

Small businesses may not have the luxury of thousands of staff members and in fact only have a few dozen at best. This is no reason not to give every employee an opportunity to contribute to the future of the company with their ideas. Set out time for your whole team to gather at least once a month for an informal session involving an exchange of ideas and learn to harness the best ones into fruition.

4. Re-segment your Customers

While you may have a small market of regular customers, understanding who they are will help you understand the type of people who will want to do business with you and pitch to them based on their moods, feelings, behaviour patterns and media consumption habits.

5. Create an Employee Recognition Scheme

You may have a small team but the way to grow your business is by encouraging your team to work better and smarter. Offer the best ones training in order that they can get even better. Identify where you have weak areas in your team and encourage them by offering them better learning opportunities. Reward the best ideas that come out of your strategy sessions.

6. Diversify

Could you add a new arm to your business? For instance if you are a restaurant, could you also add a night time food delivery service? If you are a limited edition t-shirt label, could you also add shorts or caps to your line? If you are known for something specific, diversifying your business in a way that it relates to your mother brand can only increase income opportunities for you.