Happy New Year! I'm sure I'm not alone in taking some time to reflect on business over the past year and plan for the next. But simply thinking about the coming year isn't quite enough, right? Entrepreneurs are doers. So, here are three actionable steps that you can take toward growth for your brand today.
1. Update ALL THE THINGS. Make sure that the following list is up-to-date. Outdated websites, socials, etc. make your brand look like a thing of the past.
Copywrite date at the bottom of your website.
Check all offerings, and make sure the published prices are current and any promoted sales aren't outdated.
Check everyone's published headshots. As a general rule, they shouldn't be more than three years old.
Update social media bios, links, and cover photos. Double-check that the links you have posted are working.
2. Take a look a the customers who bought from you this year. Do they match your current ICA (Ideal Customer Avatar)?
If the answer is yes, this is good news! You know who to speak to in advertisements and online. Dig further into what this customer might want from you. What supporting services/products can you provide to this person? For example, I sell brand photography for websites and social media. Which means that everyone I'm shooting for needs websites and social help. Because I had already learned website design as part of training to create photography for them, offering websites was an easy transition. Now I even sell them together as a package!
If the answer is no, let's work to get identify why. Is this a new type of customer that is attracted to you? Is this new type of customer a type that is good for business? Do you want to speak to this customer more or less in the year ahead? When I launched Lindsey Oaks Personal Branding, I found that in the first year I was attracting a very different type of customer than the one I expected. But, the type of customer was really good for me, so, I leaned into it. I learned more about this customer and began writing directly to them in my website copy, social media, and blog. This practice doubled my business in the following year!
3. Clean house. What didn't sell this year? What service/product took a huge amount of time and energy for a tiny payoff? Just because it's selling, doesn't mean it's worth your time.
When I started this business, no job was too small. I would custom-make very small photography packages for people or design a one-off brochure. That was fine at the time. But as I grew, I had to decide how to spend my time.
Designing a brochure as a stand-alone service takes a lot of my time for a small payout, BUT designing a brochure as part of a larger marketing package is easy because I've already designed all the parts that will be reused on the website/social/print adverts. So I no longer offer design for one thing. It all comes as a package. What do you need to drop as a service/product to grow?
Cheers to another year in business! What else are you doing to prepare for the upcoming year? I can't wait to hear about it. Happy New Year, everyone!
-Lindsey