We may be in the thick of the holiday season, but we’re also less than a month away from the new year and a fresh slate for business opportunities. Now is the perfect time to start developing or enhancing your 2025 business plan for growth and expansion.
Let’s dive into how to set yourself up for success and scale your business in 2025.
Assess Current Business Model
Being an entrepreneur is hard work, and it requires a lot of self-reflection, dedication, and motivation. To grow your business, you constantly need to evaluate its current state and identify ways to take it to the next level.
Before you can set goals and make plans for next year, you must pause to reflect on the current state of your business. As markets, customer demands, technology, and other factors change, your business's needs and structure will also need to evolve. Now is a great time to evaluate your current business model. Take an honest look at your structure, processes, and resources. What is working well? Where are there areas for improvement?
Strong reflection comes from qualitative and quantitative data. Compare your growth and performance to precious years and reflect on challenges or processes that could be improved. As you take time to reflect and perform an honest audit of sorts of your business, you’ll find the areas where you’re thriving and be able to overcome challenges and lean into your existing success.
Set Tangible Goals
After reflecting on your company’s performance and model, you can set goals for the new year. Great goals push your company to new heights. If you want to scale, you can’t keep doing what you’re doing — you need to find ways to push yourself in strategic ways to take your business to the next level.
One survey found that only 35% of business owners set goals. Of those who set goals, 90% consider themselves successful (compared to 71% of business owners who don’t set goals). It’s clear: If you want to scale your company and see progress, you have to set clear benchmarks and goals.
It’s also important to note that these goals can’t be vague or generic, or they won’t lead to meaningful growth. Create specific, tangible goals that are unique to your business. Here are a few ideas to get started:
- Increase revenue by X amount. This is perhaps the easiest goal to track, but numerous factors contribute to its success. If you set a revenue goal, consider and plan for the steps you’ll need to make it happen.
- Expand operations by hiring X new employees, acquire X new customers, or open X new locations. These goals are centered around strategic growth and expanding your business in non-revenue-specific ways.
- Leverage new platforms or software to help streamline current processes. These platforms can address challenges that came out in your reflection, such as accounting, inventory management, customer relationship management, or email marketing.
Don’t know where to start? Ask your customers for feedback to understand their needs and identify areas of improvement. You may think you know what new products to offer or ways to expand, but involving customers can provide valuable insights to keep you connected to the most important people in your business.
There are plenty of resources and tools available to help small business owners succeed. One of the most impactful resources is partnerships. To scale your business in 2025, tap into the power of partnerships. You aren’t alone in your small business journey; don’t be afraid to network and utilize your local community of other small business owners. Join local entrepreneurship groups or tap into virtual groups for small businesses in your industry to share resources, collaborate on projects or product launches, or provide mentoring. The best growth can come from partnering with and learning from others.
Next year has the potential to be the best year yet for your small business. But that success won’t happen on its own. Start now to create your plan and goals to scale in 2025 and take your company to new heights.
Disclaimer: Fundbox and its affiliates do not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction.
