With 2016 now upon us, many people will have either considered or implemented a New Year resolution for themselves. The sad news is, the majority break their resolution(s) after just 10 days! So why bother… well, what about resolutions for business?

Pretty much every year I blog something about that if you fail to plan you better plan to fail.

If you do nothing else proactive this year for your business, write a realistic marketing plan.

It doesn’t need to be a massive, unusable document – it’s a guide that will tell you what you are going to do for the next 12 months, and should contain sections on:

Goals
Your Products/Services
Customers (New & Existing)
The Competition
SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
USPs (Unique Selling Points)
Pricing & Positioning
Marketing Activities
Measurements & Checks

There are plenty of free online resources to help you create your plan, or alternatively if that sounds too much hard work, hire someone to do the work for you!