It’s a new decade and whether or not last year was a great one for your business or could-have-been-better, it’s important to take the time to set yourself up for success in a new decade. As all business owners know, there are never enough hours in a day, days in a week, or weeks in the year to get everything done. But, taking the right actions - now - that will improve the health of your business throughout the year into the future is an invaluable step in setting yourself up to win in 2020.

This goes beyond goal-setting, although that is key, but actually creating a plan to reach them and taking the steps necessary to achieve what you’re setting out to do that will help make your business stronger, grow faster, and ultimately, be more successful this year and beyond.

We’re diving into our recommendations for setting your business up for success in 2020 below. Want to connect with our team? Reach out!

Hire the Right Talent

Whether it’s your third hire or three hundredth, people are the most expensive part of any business plan, and making sure you have the right talent in place is critical to the success of any business. So, how do you ensure you’ve got the right people in place at the right time? First, it can be helpful to do an assessment of the resources you have, and the ones you think you need. If your business is starting out or on the smaller side, consider part-time or freelance contractors to take on roles. The “gig economy” is rapidly changing the workforce and you’d be surprised at the types of roles you can hire for on a part-time or fractional basis.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Once you’ve figured out what you need, you need to determine how you’re going to find those candidates. Most importantly, you need to carefully consider what is (and isn’t) included in the responsibilities of the job. The job description is key to finding the right talent, with the right experience and what types of candidates you’ll go after in hiring, as well as why they would want to work for your company. Once you’ve found a pool of candidates, you’ll want to come up with a process for vetting resumes, interviewing and reviewing your candidates. Because hiring decisions are so important, you’ll want to be clear about who and what you’re looking for, how you’ll measure candidates against one another, and how you’ll decide who the right candidate is. If all of this sounds overwhelming to you, it may be worthwhile to consider using a Talent Acquisition agency or service that can support you in creating job descriptions and finding and vetting candidates. If you need help, we can be a great resource!

Maintain Quality and Consistency

As business owners, we all hope to grow and scale our businesses, but it’s important (and difficult) to maintain the quality and high level of service or value you provided in the beginning. Maybe you offer a service: as you grow, you’ll need to ensure your employees offer the same level of service quality. If it’s a product, your supply chain will need to grow, which can raise a whole host of concerns about the quality of production, fulfillment, and delivery.

It’s important to remember here: you need to have a plan, and goals, for how you’re going to grow. You can’t just change production processes and expect there to be no hiccups, so ensuring your new processes offer the same guarantee of quality is key to keeping customers (and ultimately, your team) happy.

Model Your Success

Developing a financial model that summarizes the opportunity that your business represents is a critical tool in understanding your business. It details a business’s earnings and expenses and is used to calculate and illustrate the impact of a day-to-day operations and key future decisions or events. It looks at what you know now, and uses that knowledge to help you determine what will happen to your financials when... (you sell more widgets, when you hire new talent, when you change your production processes). It allows you to prospectively forecast how your business will perform, and update your actuals against your plans.

Financial Models are key to helping you make financial decisions, as well. Do you have enough resources to scale your revenue expectations, hire more talent, lease or buy a bigger office? They can also help you assess the impact that delays in delivery or product launch will have on your bottom line and on the flip side, the impact that more sales will have on profits. Every business needs this tool in their toolbox.

Project Accurate Cash Flows

“Cash Flow” means different things to different people. We hear people ask all the time about “free cash flows,” “cash flow forecasting” and “statement of cash flows,” but they rarely know the difference between these three, and they often confuse the Statement of Cash Flows with a Cash Flow Forecast. So what is a Statement of Cash Flows? It’s a financial statement that shows how changes in the balance sheet impact cash and cash equivalents, i.e. short term cash assets, or those that are liquid within 90 days, and it tells companies how they spend their money and analyzes expenses by operating, investing and financing activities. It’s one of the three key financial statements of a business, but is not nearly as useful as a Cash Flow Forecast.

Cash Flow Forecasts are used to map the timing of cash in and outflows, and especially important and helpful for forecasting the next 6 weeks or 6 months, helping you to identify gaps in funding, and to support decision-making on timing of payments to ensure you don’t run out of cash. These statements should be regularly updated and evolve over time as you assess where you need to invest to grow, shift, or focus additional resources. Connect with us to learn more about Cash Flow Forecasting, including how to create one tailored to your business.

Invest in Education

We get it: as a small business founder, a startup entrepreneur, or even a business leader, it can feel like there isn’t enough time to get your list done, let alone build new skills through continuing education or learning opportunities. But, setting aside time for personal development can be invaluable for rounding out your experience, teaching you new skills and helping you grow into a more experienced, knowledgeable and well-rounded leader. Looking for opportunities to grow? Check out local conferences (also great for networking), coworking spaces hosting lunch-and-learns or digital classes through great resources like Udemy, Skillshare and MasterClass.

Photo by Kobu Agency on Unsplash — **Photo by** **Kobu Agency** on **Unsplash**

Find Mentorship Opportunities

Not everything you know or have learned is a trade secret, and hoarding that information ultimately doesn’t make you a better or more powerful leader. Sharing knowledge with others, through mentorship, or gaining knowledge as a mentee is an incredible way to improve your business acumen, experience, and build a relationship along the way. Not to mention, it can be incredibly empowering and rewarding to share information, struggles and advice with someone else. Not sure where to start? Reconnect with old coworkers or mentors, network at local events and set up opportunities to engage with your business partners, team and community leaders. Even if the person you’re immediately connecting with isn’t your future mentor or mentee, they may have someone (or 2, 3, 4 other people) that would make a great contact for you now, or in the future.

There are so many things you can do to get ahead for the new year (and decade), we want to know, what are you doing to set yourself, and your business up for success? Reach out and let’s chat!