After a tumultuous past year, many business owners are more than ready for a new year—and new opportunities.

 

We asked business owners what their top business goals are for 2021 and how they plan to achieve them. Here’s how they responded:

 

Automate and outsource

I started my branding and website design business in 2020, and it has been growing every month. My goal for 2021 is to streamline my processes and automate as much as I can in order to spend less time doing the blah stuff and more time doing the “yay!” stuff. For example, I hate writing up contracts and proposals, tracking payments, tracking questionnaires, and tracking finances. I love talking with clients, collaborating on projects, designing brands and websites, talking strategy—that’s what lights me up. So for 2021, I’m doing more of my favorite things.

—Denise Cardo, founder and owner, Digital Palm Creative, Vero Beach, Florida

 

Grow new service

Our company has been doing accounting and taxes for nearly eight years. Over the last few years, we’ve worked on standardizing a “virtual CFO” package for small businesses that can’t afford a full-time CFO. We are passionate about this and ready to take it to the next level. So for 2021, our top goal is to get four more clients using our firm as a virtual CFO. We plan to promote this service through a new blog and newsletter we’ve launched, as well as by hosting webinars on topics that are of interest to small business owners.

—Jacob I. Oberlander, owner and principal, Oberlander & Co., Monsey, New York

 

Expand into new markets

My top business goal is to open new offices in San Diego and Los Angeles for my underground utility locator business. I want to do this not just because of the big opportunities I see in our industry for those markets, but I also want to hire good people needing a job after all the 2020 craziness. I plan to do this by either taking out an SBA loan or raising capital from local investors.

—Chris Post, president, 2M Locating, Sacramento, California

 

Evaluate and streamline processes

I run a real estate title company. My top goal for 2021 is to take a step back and update each and every process and system for all of our departments. We will be going into very fine details for each department to map out every single step of our processes. We will determine where there is room for improvement, cost cutting, better efficiency, more accuracy, fewer steps, and where we can establish better rules and processes. We will focus on fine-tuning every process so that we can reduce stress and the chance for mistakes and inefficiency.

—Tali Raphaely, president, Armour Title Company, Miami

 

Use social media to drive sales

As an ecommerce site, we constantly try to find new ways to attract customers to our website in order to increase sales. In 2021, we would like to post more items on Pinterest and other social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube in order to entice new customers to our site.

—Bill Joseph, CEO, Frontier Blades, Hughesville, Maryland

 

Reduce business’ reliance on me

My top goal is to essentially remove myself from the business. I want to reach a point where my team is filled with “A players,” and they don’t need me to be involved at any capacity. This way, I can spend all my time building an unbelievable culture and finding new, innovative ideas to further the value we provide customers. When I think about going from working 100-hour weeks to eventually removing myself from the business, it brings tears to my eyes.

—Brian Robben, CEO, Robben Media, Cincinnati

 

 

What’s your top business goal for 2021? Share yours in the comments section below.

 

 

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