Where are you with your resolutions?

01/18/07
Ian M. Berkowitz

   It is a little bit more than two weeks into the New Year; that means that you are 18 days into your resolutions. Three more days and it will o cially become a habit because- statisti cally if you can do something for 21 days straight you have the greatest chance of it becoming habitual after the 21st day. My last few articles have focused on what you should do to get a jump on the New Year and put various positive actions in motion to grow, improve or expand your business. Those of you who put the priority on expanding your business might be sitting in my government contracting seminar today in Boca Raton nding out the who, what, when, where and why of government contracting. For the lucky participant-s, con gratulations is in order because by the end of the day today you will have eaten well, learned an immense amount of in-forma tion on government contracting and will be well on your way to being a successful government contractor.

   What about the rest of you? Have you started makin-g a dif ference? Have you put something in motion and more importantly are you starting to see the fruits of your labor begin to bear fruit? If you couldn’t make the- semi nar today than don’t worry, there will be another one in February but don’t blink away the month of January to improve yo-ur busi ness because it is your best time for change.

   I often see an interestin- g phe nomenon happen to my clients from November to February. They review their performance for the rst three quarters -in the begin ning of November. After their review, they begin to make some last minute changes to nish the year with a bang. Then before the winter holidays kick in they begin to plan a ne-w and excit ing New Year initiative. January 2nd rolls around and they start to execute on their initiative. Then a strange thing happens. They get caught up in the day to day operations, lose focus on their new initiative because the results are not coming fast enough and before they know it they are back to business as usual. If you are a healthy and pro table business, business as usual is not a bad thing. However, if you stick to your new commitments then you might tap into a new and easier way to expand your business and grow your revenue.

   One of the easiest and most widely noted New -Year’s resolu tions for business owners is to reconnect with old clients and customers and develop new ones. Sometimes y-ou can eas ily forget the people who are not part of your day to day activities. However, just reconnecting with those who you know, but have not spoken to in a while, might be the quickest and most e ective use of your time to develop new business.

   You can do many di erent things to e ectuate- this resolu tion. Take out your- list of pros pects from last year who you could not bring in the door and let them know that they are on your mind to do business with this year. Call those past clients that have not reached out to you in a while and let them know you are ready for their business once again and would be willing to o er them a discount to make them active and steady. You can also start to go to that monthly breakfast or networking chamber of commerce meeting you slowly crossed o our schedule last year because you felt it did not give you its bang for the buck. Right now is the time to not lose sight of the meaning of those resolutions and put them back in motion. If you can get them back on track then the rewards will not be far behind.

Click Here For Original Article

Ian M. Berkowitz is a former attorney/advi - sor with the United States Small Business Administration in Washington D.C. During his tenure with the Federal Government he speci - cally worked in the areas of disaster relief for homeowners and businesses and government contracting. He is currently a p- racticing busi ness and real estate attorney in Boca Raton. In addition to his law degree, Ian also holds a Masters Degree in Government from The John Hopkins University.