45 Small Biz Resolutions For 2018 — Experts Weigh In

The end of the year is near and it is time for a fresh start. Do you want to tackle some of the items on your to-do list for your small business next year and need help figuring out your New Year’s resolutions? We spoke with 45 experts that shared their aspiring goals and dreams for 2018!

1. “1st resolution: Going to get my book published and get in the hands of every 18-25 year-old. It’s called The Recruiting Bible. A very motivating booklet. I was 21 years old when I stumbled upon recruiting. It has been the best most lucrative career. I know a lot of young people are lost with what they should do and extra lost on how to find a career that pays back their student loans sooner than later. The book is in its last editing stages which should only take a week or two more. Then off to the press. I will be contacting every and all colleges. Big and small. I want to make sure we’re in the book stores and at career fairs. I want to then hold conferences and motivational talks. Our industry is growing, we’re so needed. Yet, recruiters getting into the industry aren’t trained and it’s becoming a disaster. 2nd resolution-Make sure every one of my employees makes $100k or more. This year it was very close but this coming year it’s happening! While a couple of them will hit $200k+. We are starting to get more and more high-profile clients. I’m getting more current clients to write me and my colleagues recommendations. Therefore, resulting in more referrals. We are also doing a training session each week. One person presents to the team something they want to know more about. We will be attending more meetup groups to socialize with the engineering community. We definitely lack in that area. Started to pick it up this year but this coming year we’ll go to at least one a month.” — Brianna Rooney, Founder, Techees

2. “My first resolution is to engage more with my staff. As a small business owner, it can sometimes be very easy to go for weeks without communicating effectively with staff. Ideally, I’d like to commit one day per week to sit down with my team. I’d also like to arrange one-on-one sessions with each member of staff, perhaps once a month, so that I can discuss things at a micro level. I think it’s very important that you keep on top of what your team is doing at a holistic level, but also, to make sure that you know exactly what each person is doing day to day. I also place a lot of value in ensuring my employees are happy, so it’s important to also ask them how the feel, what they are enjoying, and perhaps, what frustrates them, so you can look at possible changes to improve the situation. My second resolution is to be more structured in how I go about my week. Owning your own business can be incredibly stressful, and it doesn’t help that I am a perfectionist and somewhat of a control freak. I involve myself in every aspect of the business and usually, project manage all parts of development with respect to our website, processes & procedures, Sales/Marketing etc. I love what I do, and I wouldn’t chance anything, but I do feel like I can do more, if I were to streamline my roles, to make the work more fluid and efficient. I find myself constantly being pulled from one area to another, which makes completing tasks very difficult. A good way to deal with this, is to assign certain days in the week to specific tasks, as you’ll find that when you focus all your attention to one specific thing (without distraction) you’ll get a lot more done.” — Simeon Howard, Director, Your City Office

3. “One of my main business goals for 2018 is to get better at LinkedIn. As a freelance marketing writer, I really have no excuse for not making the most of what LinkedIn has to offer. I have a profile, sure, and I check in once a week and try to schedule posts now and again, but I have no strategy. I know how important LinkedIn is for B2B marketing and I’ve heard many success stories from other freelancers who’ve used it to meet new clients. To make LinkedIn work for me, I’ll enhance my profile first, and then set out a content plan and posting schedule for the first quarter. My initial goal is to secure three new clients via LinkedIn by the end of March 2018. Wish me luck!” — Sophie Livingston, Writer, Kickstart Content

4. “There are many small things that businesses can do to improve the bottom line in E-commerce. However, these small changes can often get lost in the long-term thinking. My new year’s resolution is to make sure we maintain *both* throughout 2018. Alongside our strategic review meetings, I’m committing to a ‘tactical’ meeting each week to review these opportunities. Examples include: 
– Adding fresh content to a webpage for a ranking boost.
– Review keyword opportunities that are not currently being exploiting.
– Creating additional listings on 3rd party platforms for a broader reach.
– Continue to improve conversions through optimization.
In essence, making sure small (but effective) changes are made throughout the year to help our online sales.” — Tim Grinsdale, Owner and Director, TOAD Diaries

5. “My top two resolutions are to go national in terms of training and scale book sales globally. The vast majority of my clients for training and development are located on the New York area. My largest client is The NYC Department of Education. My goal for the year is to expand my reach more nationally. My second goal is to expand book sales globally. How am I going to get there? My strategy consists of applying to federal contracts and engaging in national email marketing. Second, I’m reaching out to global book distributors.” — Ama Yawson, Founder and President, Milestales

6. “My number one goal for the new year is to reduce our environmental footprint. At Maple Holistics – a company dedicated to all-natural and cruelty-free personal care – we already strive to be as green as possible. With employee and customer recycling initiatives as well as cutting edge equipment designed to reduce excess waste and energy, we think we’ve done a good job – but can do better. That’s why we’re installing a new slate of solar panels above our manufacturing facilities to further reduce waste, as well as switching to a lighter, more environmentally-friendly form of plastic for our bottles and labels.” — Caleb Backe, Manager, Maple Holistics

7. “I’ve been working hard on my online business to increase my income and free time. Here are 2 of my biggest goals and resolutions for 2018: 
1 – Achieve $3,000 / month in passive income. How? – Create great content that adds real value and helps people make better purchasing decisions. 2 – Setup new streams of income. How? – Start selling my first Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) product. Expand my current eCommerce store.” — Eugene van der Watt, Owner, Know It All Learning

8. “2018 will be the year that our business goes back to its heights and competes with the big boys and make My Favourite Voucher Codes a household name.
1. Increase Traffic by Double: My Favourite Voucher Codes is a small business in Bath who will be looking at increasing its visitors from an average of 80,000 a month to 150,000 visitors a month next
2. Become a money saving expert: we will be completing a full website re-write (2,000 pages), a PR and Content strategy (we wish to provide a blog of money saving articles and PR is to aim for traffic from a media presence).
For our small business of 7 this is a huge ask as we have 2 full time writers who will be completing around 1,500 pages by the end of quarter one. We have a digital team of 3 that are completing a number of PR tasks including outreach to smaller businesses and developing a first-class blog. Our 2 merchant executives will be keeping up with the 1,000+ vouchers we receive each week and our Founder is looking to have the website who works with the most number of merchants to maximize our reach. As a small business we also donate 20% of our profits to charity every month and we would like to donate £50,000 next year (double our total donation to date) to local worthy causes.” — Tegan Groombridge, Manager, Futureproof Digital Media

9. “My small business resolution for next year is to better balance my time towards my own projects. As a small business owner who does work for clients as well as working on personal website projects, it’s all too easy to get distracted by the paying work and neglect the priorities that are essential to helping my business grow in the long term. I intend to make myself as accountable to myself in the new year as I am to clients!” — Ben Taylor, Founder, HomeWorkingClub

10. “As a social media consultant, my small business resolution is to create a social media marketing resource hub for the entrepreneurs and small business owners who love to DIY their marketing. Through the creation of an online community consisting of courses, training, group programs and more, I’ll be able to provide these business owners with content that will teach them how to up level their social media marketing. These pieces will also be on the lower cost side to make it affordable for those just starting out as well.” — Ashley Mason, Social Media Consultant, Dash of Social

11. “In 2018, my primary resolution is to be more consistent in my business. My secondary resolution – in keeping with my “consistent” theme – is to create something new every day. Being consistent is one of the most effective ways to grow an audience: when people know what to expect, and when to expect it, they’ll come back again, and again, and again.” — Sydney Wyatt, Creator, To The Wild Co.

12. “My resolution for my company, TenlisEducation.com would be to provide more non-conventional teaching methodologies for online students. For example, implement skill based assessments with mobile applications (game play). And, to build a team of skilled professionals that will adopt this non-conventional teaching methodology as part of a new era of teaching English as a Second Language. I found that normal methods such as memorize a list of vocabulary or grammar rules is not a conventional method that should be ascribe to learners of a second language.” — Geneva Pugh, CEO and President, Tenlis Education

13. “My New Year’s Resolution for 2017 is to crack down on the amount of time I spend sifting through, reading and responding to emails. I feel as if I’m missing out on so many opportunities by keeping my head down glued to my screen when the real world is physically passing me by.” — Lori Cheek, Founder and CEO, Cheekd

14. “My goal this year is to build our Facebook page. More specifically, I’d like to grow our following to 10,000 likes. The plan starts with content. We’ve started covering sleep news on a daily basis and are sharing the best articles once a day. From there, starting in January, we’ll be doing one giveaway of a mattress, pillow, etc. each month. The giveaways will offer an incentive to like and share. After a couple months of giveaways, as our followers increase, I will begin going live weekly on Facebook. I will do sleep Q & A’s, highlight new products I am trying out, and discussing the newest innovations in sleep technology. The final portion of the plan will involve advertising. I’ll set a budget, and each week choose one post to put a bit of money behind to get it seen. I believe this approach will get us to the 10,000 fans we seek. I’m really looking forward to a big year on Facebook!” — Chris Brantner, Founder, SleepZoo

15. “My main goal for 2018 is to finally get our YouTube channel off the ground. There are so many marketing areas today – content marketing, Facebook, blog posting, podcast interviews – that YouTube has just fallen by the wayside. Also, if I’m really being honest, I’ve procrastinated on it because I hate to be on camera, but it’s a necessity if we are to grow our brand. We’ve cleared out a room to use for a studio, and we plan to hire a marketing assistant for me to pass some of those duties off to. This will give me time to create educational content (without any more excuses) to get out onto YouTube.” — Danielle Kunkle Roberts, Vice President, Boomer Benefits

16. “First, I need to get a side project officially launched (it’s called Winemaker TV). It’s become a time sink, taking almost an entire 40% of my workweek, to this date without anything to show for it. Second and perhaps more importantly, I need to get an entire line of gift baskets created. I’ll be creating a number of levels of baskets, some of which will be fulfilled on Amazon. Getting that channel open is an exciting concept.” — Mark Aselstine, Founder, Uncorked Ventures

17. “Since this business is rather new, it brings upon opportunities filled with aspirations and goals yet to be achieved in 2018. To exemplify a few, growth and knowledge have become the most apparent resolutions to concentrate on in 2018. While on the face, passing the remaining exams for my CPA license is of the utmost importance; further development and growth of the firm, seamlessly, seems to be quite the challenging goal of itself. I am beyond thankful to be at the helm of opportunity, staring down the waterways, with nothing but breathtaking goals to be met, and thus looking forward to what 2018 has to bring fourth. Happy Holidays!” — Steve Griffin, Founder, GRIFFIN Tax

18. “1. Double the size of the business. Our business has been growing by 100%+ a year since it was founded. The larger we get the harder it becomes to maintain that growth rate and this is one of the reasons why doubling the size of the business is always one of my new year’s resolutions. 
2. Implement better key metric reporting. When our business was small it was easy to keep tabs on everything that was happening because it was all right in front of us. Now that we have more than 50 people it is much more difficult to keep a pulse on how different areas of the business are doing, and to spot and extinguish small fires before they become blazes. This is why my second new year’s resolution for the business is to get better reporting of our key metrics in place.” — David Waring, Co-Founder, Fit Small Business

19. “Our greatest struggle over the last few years has been to keep our franchisees focused on networking/marketing activities. In 2018 we want our franchisees to focus on these three activities: 
1. Market as if you do not network, and network as if you do no marketing. Both are so crucial to a small business, but when you are a small business owner, it can be difficult to do both every week…. but it is a must. Our national referral rate is 35%, which is high, but each center must constantly focus on meeting new people every week and scheduling it in their day.
2. We historically know that for every $1 spent on marketing, our centers get $10 back in revenue. We asked our small business owners to write down their happy revenue for 2018, the average was around $400k….which means they need to budget a minimum of $40,000 per year (we require $48,000) if they want to hit their happy revenue goal.
3. Monday Morning meetings are great ways to start the week out right, look over the past week and make sure good follow ups were done, as well as go over weekly goals and strategize how to make it happen.” — Tanya Mitchell, Chief Research and Recruitment Officer, LearningRx

20. “My resolution is to get more sales through unique social media sites like Pinterest and Etsy. This will require reading up on these websites to find out how to land new customers. I would also like to figure out how to speed up my manufacturing process. I get my parts from China, which can take three weeks or longer. I would like to discover a way to get the product parts I need for the same low price, but delivered faster.” — Danielle Hannah, Inventor and Owner, Mantra Magnets

21. “I manage a small property fund in Cambodia which is the country’s first. We had great success in our first full year, barely reaching a milestone of $1 million under management. My resolution for this year is to scale things even further and reach $5 million.” — Reid Kirchenbauer, Fund Manager, Invest Asian

22. “After reading Double Double by Cameron Herold, my goal is to double our business size by 2020. I reread his book every four months or so, just to make sure that we are staying on track with particular goals. In order to reach my goal, webFEAT Complete must increase our business sales by 25% each year. So, my 2018 resolution is to hit 25% growth by the end of the year. We are on an excellent path, with 2017 hitting an estimated 27% growth. Of course, this growth will involve hiring new employees and adjusting to the company growing larger and larger.” — Michelle Selnick, CEO, webFEAT Complete

23. “1. I want to make a positive impact on the lives of women and girls the world over. I will achieve this by increasing marketing efforts and growing my audience in the United Kingdom—another country where my products are gaining popularity. 
2. I want to give back more. I want to donate a greater percentage of my profit to charitable causes.
3. I want to inspire more people, warm more hearts, and lift more spirits. I will achieve this by growing my social media presence, so I can personally share positive and uplifting messages with the individuals they are meant for.
4. I want to make a difference in the lives of more stressed out, overworked business owners by inspiring them to make themselves a priority in life with self-care. Follow your dreams, work hard, and achieve your goals, but remember the importance and joy of making yourself a priority in life.” — Zakiyya Rosebelle, Author, Sweet Little Luxuries

24. “My #1 resolution is to delegate better so I don’t slow my company down. First, I will talk with everyone to figure out what responsibilities they can and should take on. Then, start forwarding emails or tagging them when I don’t have the ability to make a clean handoff.” — Matt Caywood, Co-Founder, TransitScreen

25. “After several days of teamwork, we decided to define a new resolution for 2018. We will start working WITHOUT meetings. The objective of this resolution is to *eliminate interruptions at work* as much as possible. A 30-minute meeting does not rob you only 30 minutes of your time, it steals 15 minutes before (you need to prepare) and 15 minutes later (to return to focus on your work). The worst enemy of every creative person (in our company we are programmers, designers and writers), are the interruptions. Therefore, our goal for 2018 is to be more productive so we decided to fight to eliminate the interruptions!” — Cristian Rennella, Co-Founder and CEO, EMT

26. “Our 2018 small business resolution is to help people globally interact with their dogs in a much more enjoyable way! We all love our dogs and love on them daily but sometimes their breath is just too much. Our remedy helps eliminate that issue – snuggle away in 2018!” — Jenna Fishoff, Founder, Dog Gone Breath

27. “Our small business 2018 new year’s resolution is to be in every little girl’s closet across the country! We are a family owned business who create and produce classic, investment pieces that can be shared within the family, just like designer mom Yves Homan did in her homeland of the Philippines. Each style is made in America, with love and the utmost of care, so they can be worn and loved by families for years to come.” — James & Yves Homan, Founders, Dapper + Crown

28. “My resolution for 2018 is to spend at least 2 hours per day doing something proactive to grow my business. When you’re a business owner, it can be very easy to get so caught up in all the day to day details that you don’t have the time to really be proactive and take the measures necessary to ensure that your business is growing. This is, of course, vital. My company just got through our first full year of business and there were so many days that I just didn’t have the time to do anything other than take care of the daily tasks necessary to run a business. This next year I want to make sure I set aside time every single day to make sure my business is growing.” — Stefanie Parks, Founder, DermWarehouse

29. “In the past, my New Year’s resolutions related to work have been to set aside adequate travel time to meetings, striving to single task, or collaborate and delegate, but this year my business resolution or goal for the New Year is to double the number of military spouses I mentor who are considering becoming a Virtual Assistant (VA) as a portable career, which I will achieve by making my goal public and by being an active listener while networking. Who’s next?” — Melissa St. Clair, Founder and President, Paper Chaser

30. “Creating more internal systems. Setting up frameworks is an essential step to making a creative team like ours more profitable. Getting those workflow systems in place will finally give us the time to work more on making sales and marketing our own company.” — Avery Enderle Wagner, Managing Director, Hoot Design Company

31. “Blu Skin Care’s resolution for 2018 is to find a sales rep to get our products into spas and stores. We are diligently putting together a plan that will consist of scouting, interviewing and eventually hiring at least 5 reps in the southern Los Angeles region.” — Zondra Wilson, Owner, Blu Skin Care

32. “Our resolution is to double sales. In the last year, we focused heavily on tightening our marketing initiatives and to truly understand our marketing metrics. Now that we understand exactly how much it costs us to acquire a client, and have optimized this number to ensure that each new customer brings us a profit; we are ready to introduce a larger marketing budget and expose our business to an even greater portion of the market. While our goal of doubling our sales number is lofty, we believe that with the right preparation and a solid execution, we can confidently meet this goal in 2018!” — Mike Sims. Founder and Owner, ThinkLions

33. “My goal for 2018 is to double revenue. From 2016 to 2017, I have tripled revenue by simply telling friends and family what I did for a living and I hope to double revenue next year. I plan to do this by creating an online pay per click course for entrepreneurs who want to learn more about pay per click advertising. Also, I’m working on a webinar that will, hopefully, bring in higher caliber clients!” — Ameet Khabra, President, Ameet Khabra Marketing Inc.

34. “One of our goals would be to educate consumers to understand the importance and value of online reviews to help small businesses grow and increase sales. It’s often overlook, with maybe a third doing so, yet it’s not difficult and definitely has a positive impact on just about every type of business.” — Mark Nicholson, Vice President, Nicejob

35. “If I had to pick one small business resolution for the New Year, it would be to get more exercise at work. I sit at a desk for a large majority of the day, which is evident when you see my FitBit count (under 2,000 steps!). To step up my fitness goals, I plan to walk to and from work. In addition, I will take a 15-minute walk during lunch.” — Nicole Delorme, Marketing Manager, Tigris Events

36. “We want to be growing in the right direction for Boatsetter; for us, that means getting at least 100,000 people on the water in 2018! We will accomplish this goal by delivering a world-class booking experience on our site and working hard to find the best boats in each of our 300+ locations.” — Jaclyn Baumgarten, Founder, Boatsetter

37. “What I really need to do (and this puts me in the same boat as an awful lot of other entrepreneurs) is to have enough space to work on my business, not in my business. I would like to be able to spend more time writing, speaking, and making sales calls, and less time on administrative work. It takes a bit of will to let go, but I just tell myself: it’s a fallacy (and sheer narcissism) to think that only you can do any particular task in your business, or to think that only you can do it well. So here’s to letting go in 2018!” — William Gadea, Founder and Creative Director, IdeaRocket

38. I’m calling my 2018 small business resolution my 25/50 rule. That means I’m trying to improve revenue by 25% and I’m trying to get my close rate of proposals to 50%. I’m in my third year of business and 25% was my revenue growth from year 1 to year 2 so I’m trying to sustain that. I’ve built a good foundation of repeat business to give me a floor and I can build from there each year, with more word of mouth, marketing, etc. My close rate in year 1 was 33% and 40% in year 2 so 50% is the new goal. I think figuring out the tricky science of quoting pricing has been maybe the toughest thing I’ve had to do in my company but with more and more practice I seem to be figuring it out.” — Michael Mason, Owner, Perfect Chaos Films

39. “One thing our business is resolving to do for the new year is expanding and optimizing our digital footprint. By focusing on our web presence in 2018, we hope to spot how we can do things better and make improvements across all areas of our business.” — Harrison Doan, Director of Analytics, Saatva

40. “The distinctive AWE Medallion that adorns our jewelry is a universal symbol of strength, hope and resilience, which unites our community while giving back 20% to four National Charity Partners. I’m so fortunate that we’ve built a highly engaged following of inspiring individuals, and my resolution would be to personally connect with them more often. Having deeply personal conversations has been so rewarding: in sharing our many ups and downs I am constantly reminded of the resilience and gratitude we are capable of. In remaining closely connected, I can also ensure that our product and platform remains a source of hope and inspiration in their lives, something core to our brand and mission. My plan is to schedule phone calls and in-person coffees with 1-3 community members each month. I am excited to implement this amazing opportunity for personal growth, sharing and connecting – something on my to do list for the new year!” — Jill Johnson, founder, AWE

41. “My small business 2018 resolution is to get my site a higher DA domain authority and PA page authority, promote more articles on social media, and reach out to influencers to share and create more infographics for sharing.” — Harris Brown, Founder, HFB Advertising

42. “Two of our resolutions for 2018 are to grow our user base to more than 1 million and triple our revenues because both these areas are key to sustaining our business. We’ll do this through a variety of ways like introducing new products and features to our website, and focusing on a variety of marketing strategies to grow and engage our community.” — Georgene Huang, Co-Founder and CEO, Fairygodboss

43. “My Personal resolution would be to reach out by phone or e-mail to one old friend every week to reconnect and say hello. It sounds old fashioned but getting updates via social media only does so much, I want to have real conversations with people I care about but don’t get to see often. My professional resolution would be to limit e-mail time and get off half the newsletters and group lists I am on, unsubscribe is my friend.” — Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder and CEO, Mavens & Moguls

44. “I speak to small business owners across the country every day, and there should be one priority on top of the list for 2018: Speak to a financial professional in 2018. Your business is growing and changing so it is important to take action to protect what you have worked so hard to build. A recent study found that nearly 40% of established small businesses in America are at risk of closing shop if something happened to the small business owner. With proper financial guidance, you can ensure that it won’t happen to you.” — Brian Madgett, Vice President, New York Life

45.“My #1 goal for 2018 is to ensure I’m no longer working “in” the business but instead working “on” the business. My role should be more of a leader and mentor, focusing on where the business is headed and not where we are today. I need to get out of the everyday minutia and focus more on the big picture!” — Greg Corey, Founder and Principal, Porchlight Atlanta

Is your resolution for 2018 to start your own business? Give us a call at 1-877-692-6772, or visit us at mycorporation.com.