5 Things to Do for Your Business Before 2021

We haven't had many opportunities to catch our breath this year, and now it's time to plan for a new one. If you're finally getting a little break from your day-to-day routines, you might feel overwhelmed by all the things you feel like you should be doing for your business. So what should your priorities be? Here's our year-end checklist for entrepreneurs.‍

1. Recharge Yourself

With everything on your mind, you don't feel like you can take a break. But you absolutely need to. If you are burned out, you're not going to bring creativity, inspiration or innovation to your work. Check in with yourself about what you really need right now. It might be self-care like sleep, exercise, meditation or time in nature. Or some good, deep conversations with the people who energize you. Or something that refreshes your thinking, like a book or course. Or some combination of all of those things! The important thing is just filling your tank, whatever that looks like for you.

2. Make Some Space

If you want your business or life to look different in 2021, make some space for the new stuff you want to usher in. Energy can only go where there is space. So making change is often about removing things from your life and setting energetic boundaries. Every time I have removed something from my life that is holding me back — whether it was clutter or an actual person — more of what I wanted started to flow. The universe needs to know you are ready and willing to make space for the things you desire. So what are the things you can stop doing in order to have more of what you want?

3. Check in With Where You Are 

After replenishing your energy and freeing up some space in your life, it's a great time to take a look at what's working for you, and what isn't, in your business. The break you took will give you a fresh perspective on how things are going. A few key questions to ask:

• How do you feel about your business? Do you feel the same sense of inspiration and possibility as when you started? Or have you lost some enthusiasm?
• How are you spending your time in your business? Is your focus still on the work that you do best and that you love doing? Or have other tasks crowded your most important work off your plate?
• How do your clients make you feel? Do the people you work with leave you feeling energized or depleted?
• What else is working — or not working — in your business?
• How did your business change this year? Lots of businesses had to make dramatic shifts in 2020. What changes did this year bring for you? For example, maybe you had to add or eliminate some offerings, or change how you deliver them.
• How did you change this year? 2020 led many of us to rethink what we care about and what we truly want to accomplish in this world. Did your values evolve any this year? And does your business still reflect your values?
  

4. Recalibrate Your Business

Answering those questions just gave you a lot of valuable information to help you set the path for your business in 2021. Now it's time to think about how to turn those insights into actions. Make a list of the steps you want to start taking based on your answers. Your list might include things like this:

• Work with a coach or take a course to remove blocks, limiting beliefs or low-energy thinking patterns.
• Delegate or outsource more so that you can focus on the work you love doing.
• Start developing new offerings that will attract the clients you really want and allow you to live your values.
• Look at whether your website and other marketing materials reflect the changes in your business this year.
• Get clear on how your business can truly start supporting the life you want to live and the person you want to be. What needs to be removed or added? 
  

5. Refresh or Uplevel Your Brand

You can also take everything you learned about your business during our review exercise and use it to update and enhance your brand. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the shift to doing business online, which means that it's more important than ever to have a website, social channels and other digital marketing materials that convey your uniqueness and professionalism.

Refreshing your brand can help you reach many of the goals you identified. Refining both your visual and written voice will call in the clients you really want. Creating a clear website and other materials (like a tool that explains your packages and pricing) will allow you to spend less time on sales and more time doing the work you are best at. And simply going through the branding process can renew your own energy around your business.

Is a branding project on your to-do list for 2021? Our free guide "Your Unstoppable Brand" will guide you through what you need, what to do first and how to choose a partner to help you. And if you're already feeling a sense of alignment with DesignGood, we'd love to talk with you about how we can help you build the business, brand and life you want. To learn more, schedule a chat with me now.