On January 1st, people around the world will be setting themselves goals for the new year. You've probably thought of a resolution yourself - maybe you're going to give up chocolate and sweets, or learn a new skill - but have you thought of creating one or two for your business?
Setting year-long goals can be very helpful, especially if they are measurable and attainable. However, with something as large as a business it is usually not a good idea to set big, vague goals. Now is the time to get specific! Look at each aspect of your company and think: "How can I improve it?"
One thing we can definitely advise you about is what resolutions you can make regarding conferences. Set yourself one or two of these goals to make sure you make the most of every conference you go to in 2015!
Double the number of business cards you hand out/come home with
One of the big problems with new year's resolutions is that they are difficult to measure, so you never know whether or not you're succeeding. For example, you might want to be better at networking. But how can you tell if you're managing this?
Business cards are a good metric. Keep track of how many you give out at your first conference of 2015 and aim to double that by the end of the year. Or you could switch this around, and aim to collect twice as many from other conference attendees. Either way, you will end up making more contacts.
Run one new training session a month
This is a good way to ensure you are constantly learning and developing, as well as passing on that knowledge to your team. Aim to run a completely new session once a month, or more if this is your current workload.
Of course, you will need to develop these new skills and improve your business knowledge in order to do this, which is where conferences come in handy. Visiting a conference every one or two months will give you plenty of new business techniques and concepts that you can use to improve your company through the training sessions you run.
Speak at a conference
If you're going to be attending regular conferences, it might be worth seeing if there is anything you can give back by hosting your own session. This is a great thing to work towards, as it will help cement the idea of your company as an authority in its sector as well as being great experience for you.
Again, this is one that might need customising if you already speak regularly at conferences. Aim for a high target number if this is the case, such as three to five more than you presented at last year.
Set up a conference calendar
Finally, you could always just aim to attend a certain number of conferences. Again, this number should be higher than last year's total. Encourage yourself to go along to as many as possible, and set up a calendar so you know exactly which ones you are aiming to go along to. That way, you know if you've failed!
