5 Ways to Conquer 2024
Each year, I choose a word that defines the direction I’ll take my business. This word also defines a lesson I want to instill in my audience, a lesson that can help them strengthen their businesses and uplevel in various areas of their life. This year, my theme word is “innovation” – and as we’re starting a new year, I’d like to share 5 ways you can innovate to conquer 2024.
Innovate: to introduce something new; to make changes in that which is established.
Innovation can be used to grow a business in a number of different ways, and I’m incredibly excited for all it entails. There are three main ways to innovate as a business owner:
#1: Innovation in Resources and Services
Whenever we think about innovating, the first thing that often comes to mind is creating new brand materials, processes, or services.
Not only will this help you to stay relevant in your market, it can also help you to attract new audiences and test new services.
However, just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s automatically right for your audience or your business. Do you research, test your ideas, and be willing to tweak and pivot according to your results.
#2: Innovating a More Streamlined Method
I’m all about systems – in fact, I’ve built my business on helping other business owners develop them. It’s not always enough to simply have a system in place, though.
Sometimes, an initial system doesn’t work as well as we want it to. It’s a good start, but it can be refined.
And sometimes, what worked for you at one stage of your business won’t work for you at another. As your team grows and your team members have more opportunities to specialize, new systems will need to be put in place and others will need to be streamlined.
Sometimes, innovation is merely the opportunity to identify what isn’t working and define a more streamlined process. You’ll be amazed at how big a difference this can make!
#3: Innovating a New Concept
There’s a reason why thousands of patents are filed with the U.S. Patent Office every year – and why millions of items are filed annually with the Trademark Office. People are always crafting and creating. It’s what we do.
While it might be great to sit and innovate all day long as the CEO of a company, chances are the best ideas will not come from you – they’ll come from the people around you.
Here are 5 ways to conquer 2024 by encouraging your team and others around you to help you make it your year to innovate.
- Empower your team to make suggestions, ask questions, and come to you with new ideas. You’ve hired your team for a reason – let them help you with new ideas and perspectives!
- Empower your team to submit a new or revised version of a system in your business on a weekly basis. This might be a policy, procedure, checklist, template, script, diagram, workflow, video, or other resource that can help things run more smoothly.
- Work with a coach who will push you to consider other perspectives and new methodologies that can streamline how you do things. Having worked with hundreds of other successful business owners, an experienced coach can bring ideas you may not otherwise consider.
- Attend conferences, workshops, and small group experiences to hear trends and methodologies other successful business owners are finding success with.
- Read! You’ve heard the phrase, “leaders are readers”, and this is true. The more ideas you come in contact with, the more innovative you’ll become.
Some of these suggestions involve changing your mindset, and some involve taking action. Both are great ways to innovate – and by doing so, you can push yourself and your team to reach new heights in the coming year!
Need some help achieving this? Check out our resources and contact us to see what we can do for you!
