So many people start the month of January with a fresh focus for the year. They know what they want to do, what they want to achieve and how they plan on making it happen. New Year’s resolutions are great for setting goals but are yours extending into the essential areas of your life? You’ve acknowledged that you need to drop a few pounds, schedule more date nights with your partner, but what about your career or your business, if you’re self-employed? So many people like the idea of working for themselves, but taking that leap of faith can be quite scary. How do you ensure your concept and vision for your business will even work? While I can’t share the all-inclusive secrets to success (if there is such a thing!) what I can do is offer you some tips to help you get your business on its way, standing out from the crowd.

Your business has you, no one else does

Want to know what your most significant, unique selling point of your business is? It’s you. No other business out there has you or your ideas, your motivation and ambition. Therefore, use this to your advantage and be the face and voice of your business. People buy from people, fact. That is why face to face sales will still always be a necessity in many cases. However, if you are running an online business, you can still use your skills to your advantage. Informative and interactive websites and face to face technology will allow you to speak directly to your potential customer or client.

Make sure you are up to date with the latest tech

It is vital to ensure that you are up to speed with the latest tech advances that will help your business run impeccably and smoothly throughout the year. Whether it’s the latest financial technology mobile app platform to offering different methods of payment such as Apple Pay or Android software, stay current. Having these advances are to your advantage, as not only do they make the customer experience more comfortable, but you also have the records to keep things like your accounting orderly and up to date.

Use social media to your advantage

Social media should become your biggest ally and friend when it comes to running an at home business. It is one of the easiest ways of communicating your business efforts and your information directly to your customers and followers. Doing things differently could be to your advantage, as you can use social media to give your business a face and a voice. It comes back to that same analogy of people buying from people. You will now see more small business owners are using features like Facebook live or Instagram stories to give insight into their lives and who they are as people. It’s a unique selling feature that could work in your favor.

Be the expert in your local community

Finally, what you have is your local community to your advantage, and this is where you can choose to be the expert in your business and niche locally. People want to support small and local businesses, and this could be a great area to focus on in the new year.

12 new chapters. 365 new pages. Go for it!

*Collaborative post