What Are Your Strategic Goals for 2015?

[Davena]

Seems like almost every business I have been supporting in the last few weeks is implementing "Strategic Goals" for the coming year. Anyone care to share?

I'll start:

1. Getting new shop ready for success. (opening January)
2. Hiring a good CPA firm set me up with a new Business Structure. (done)
3. Being around customers and techs that regenerate my passion for IT. (already started)
4. Make a set amount of money and reinvesting the rest into the business. (still figuring this amount out)
5. Installing a barcode scanner and label printer to work with my PCRT system. (everytime I see a system come in with a code label on it- I am jealous)
6. Tweaking my WordPress site until the SEO goes through the roof. (already started)

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Going to focus on cloud servers...learn about MS Azure for example.

Going to expand the scope of offering higher end disaster recovery services (Datto)....used to just pitch it to the type of clients we service..the smaller side of SMB, those without in-house IT. But I'm going to expand that to the larger side of SMBs...those that have their own in-house IT. Why not? It's a good monthly high profit recurring revenue source. And companies with their own in-house IT can certainly benefit from it. It's not like I only have to offer it to my clients that I'm the IT guy for.

Automate more...I barely really scratch the surface of using N-Able....time to buckle down and take all those courses and attend those weekly online webinars they have and learn it better.

Continue growth....been on a roll the past several years....keep it going.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

And gotta come up with starting to cross train each other across our various clients. For years...basically I have my clients, my colleague has his clients, we send our 3rd tech to do break fix and basic stuff at both, and the 4th guy we hired a little over a year ago...he has his clients and we're still feeding him some new smaller clients to fill his plate....

...but basically we're starting to get so dang busy...hard to keep up. Because we each focus on tending to our own clients..and when a call comes in from another techs client...we just put that ticket in his queue. We each get so swamped at different intervals...becomes difficult to catch up. Not to mention work on big projects. So time to work on a system this year to distribute and share that load across the board. One obstacle though..will be the way we pay ourselves...based on billing with our own clients. You want that big paycheck so you want all the work for yourself....you don't want to hand out hours.

 

[Deetech]

Since my business is new, here is my plan

1. Get advertising off the ground
2. Get way better gas mileage vehicle. 05 chevy 3/4 ton don't work
3. Good reputation, without that I have nothing.
4. If revenue allows move out of own home.

 

[JohnKennex]

1. more focus on SEO (need better rankings for local key cities)
2. find new solutions for 1-2 user business
3. Gain more customers hire another tech
4. keep working on my local networking groups (seems to be paying off)
5. improve our brand (the family business had 0 advertising when I made partner. I've covered some good ground in 2014 - but we need to make up more

 

[callthatgirl]

I'm working on my 2015 goals now, so I'm ready to roll! I'm excited!

• Setup a scheduling program to save time and energy on booking appointments.
• Procure new relationships with other IT Professionals around the world
• Creating a consistent schedule for blogging/social media and newsletters (been very bad this year with consistency!)
• Creating a consistent schedule for my Office 365 Shows and quick videos (3 new clients have told me they enjoyed seeing my videos, so I know the YouTube stuff is working now)
• To deliver more "dynamic" content for my readers/viewers/subscribers--stay on top of what is trending, important and of value. Using strong keywords to what my clients are having problems with.
• Stop supporting SharePoint, what a piece of junk that is turning into.
• Work on my intake/closing of sales--I'm not the best closer I have learned.

 

[Eric@noware]

I too am working on my 2015 goals as we speak.

2014 Has been an awesome year, but that's no reason to rest on laurels.

Here's what I've come up with so far (in no particular order):

-Break into managed service, beginning with managed AV for residential and home/small business clients.

-Push/promote remote support services

-Add "learning enclave" to the lobby for those occasional training sessions.

-Redesign our website (perhaps finally get into this whole Wordpress thing that seems to be so hip with the kiddies)

-Push/promote more home/small business services and support.

That's all I have so far, but I'm sure that list will only grow.

 

[cypress]

Just started looking into this..

I want to:

-Increase my Marketing. Continue Social Media but also attend more networking events.
-Continue to promote Remote Support.
-Upsell more on Antivirus and Protection
-Continue fixing up my website or getting an overhaul of my existing one.
-Get Shirts Printed.
-Promote more of Home and Small Business Support.

 

[HCHTech]

I've also been working on my list recently - So far:

Continue to push managed services - keep the momentum from 2014 going
Move more work to my 2nd tech so I have more time for this list!
Finish my conversion to Mhelpdesk
Pick up the dropped ball on D7
SEO
SEO
SEO
Redo my shop networking
Get more stuff out of my head and onto written documentation sheets
Find time to work on the 47 various "make my bench better" projects that the pace of client work just won't let me complete.

It's public now - that means I actually have to DO IT!

 

[kjm_phd]

Okay, so here are my strategic objects for 2015... I'm a small shop right now looking for massive growth in the coming year.

1. SEO: The number one thing that I can do to drive customer growth. I plan to begin regimented devoting of 25% of my time to SEO / marketing. I have specific growth targets in mind for Q1-Q4 right now... which I'll update as time passes.

2. Develop a more consistent social media strategy. Right now I'm posting separately to different site (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and I'd like to unify my business postings to all of the various sites, while simultaneously increasing the relevance and regularity of the posts (i.e. I really want to begin scheduling posts in advance).

3. Better define the small business solutions that Cardinal can provide, and begin heavily marketing these to the local business crowd. I've gained a bit of insight into the way some of the businesses operate around here and so I'm going to re-launch the business services that we provide in 2015 to be more in-line with those clients' goals and financial realities.

4. Improve local networking. I've done a bit of this but not nearly enough. Primarily I need to improve my marketing to small local businesses and this requires the work of the previous point to be done before it can really take off.

5. Improve my sales methodology. I've not focused a lot on closing, or on good ways to email clients that contact me, and I'd like to develop nicer marketing materials to keep on hand when I'm at a client site (i.e. a few charts, maybe a brochure or two about our various services).

6. Automation of certain processes, like updating all of my tools and such. Basically, I need to spend a weekend tweaking Ketarin to do everything I want it to do instead of just a few things. I'd also like to automate some things like sending clients emailed post-service satisfaction surveys and such.

Those are my goals... things that I'd like to accomplish in 2015. It's going to be a lot of work, especially since I've recently accepted a position as an adjunct professor one day a week at a local college, but I think I can do it. I'm hoping to hand off some of my management tasks to my bookkeeping-student wife, so that I spend less time analyzing financials and thinking about taxes, etc.

 

[cypress]

I too am working on my 2015 goals as we speak.

2014 Has been an awesome year, but that's no reason to rest on laurels.

Here's what I've come up with so far (in no particular order):

-Break into managed service, beginning with managed AV for residential and home/small business clients.

-Push/promote remote support services

-Add "learning enclave" to the lobby for those occasional training sessions.

-Redesign our website (perhaps finally get into this whole Wordpress thing that seems to be so hip with the kiddies)

-Push/promote more home/small business services and support.

That's all I have so far, but I'm sure that list will only grow.

What are you using to create your website now? Your site looks pretty good so far.

 

[SOHOtechRob]

For scheduling, take a look at www.TimeTrade.com and www.AcuityScheduling.com. TD is about half what AS is. Both are user friendly, can integrate into a centralized calendar and can be published on a WordPress website.

I'm working on my 2015 goals now, so I'm ready to roll! I'm excited!

• Setup a scheduling program to save time and energy on booking appointments.

 

[mrapoc]

Seo...non existent..oh and managed services

 

[Eric@noware]

What are you using to create your website now? Your site looks pretty good so far.

Thanks!

Embarrassingly enough, I used Coffeecup's Visual Site Designer (saying it almost makes me feel dirty) because I was too lazy to code it myself.

 

[drnick5]

My biggest goal for 2015 is to improve efficiency. We've been getting busier and busier, and I've noticed all the small time sucks that we have around here that take 5 minutes here 10 minutes there, it all adds up!

What we are doing to become more efficient:
-Moved to Quickbooks online (did this a few months ago, so much better than using Quickbooks crappy on premise software!)

-Migrating from Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Repair Shopr (trying to get this done in january)

-Trying to make recurring payments easier to track (hoping Repairshopr helps with this)

-Making sure clients are paid up in a timely fashion

-Creating new marketing materials to make our products and MSP offering easier to sell

 

[lsi]

my goal is to have 100% of my overhead provided for by contracts. I need about 75 more hours a month and I'll be set. Then any break/fix or project work I do will all be pure profit as long as I am keeping the contract customers happy. Right now I'm at 67%

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Figure out how to maintain our growth. We exceeded our financial goal this year....had met it back in November.

This past year, and the prior year.....it was pretty easy to meet and/or exceed our yearly goals...as the XP and 2K3 EOL drove a lot of businesses to "have to" replace their systems.

Majority of our clients systems are now replaced. These upgrades/replacements were a big part of our ballooned income over the past 2 years.
So the upcoming year will be....rather flat. We want to at least keep this coming years income level/even with this year....it will be difficult to project the typical 15% growth we've projected for the prior 5+ years.

 

[clayb226]

My number one goal for 2015 is to learn a better way to balance work and family life, as I am married, and have 4 young children that need their Dad.

After this, I have a few more goals, that contradict my number one goal.

1) Write an awesome business plan, looking to start my business back up.
2) Build my website, have deleted my site several times over the last 5 years, can never get it satisfactory to me.
3) Start the Business up, and get it rolling.
4) Move my current employer to a MSP Contract for my business
5) Continue Learning the trade, Knowledge is rather important in this profession

I will have more, once I actually start these goals, but my contradictory goals will always be on the back burner, compared to my Number one goal, since I have a feeling that as my kids get a little older, they will not want to hang out with me as much as they want/need to now, so I have no problem pushing my contradictory goals off, even for several years if need be.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

My number one goal for 2015 is to learn a better way to balance work and family life, as I am married, and have 4 young children that need their Dad.
.

That's difficult in this field...especially if you take care of business clients. You end up working very early in the morning (rebooting servers and doing stuff before clients get to their offices)....and of course there's requests for help after 5pm or 7pm or whatever. And then doing server migrations...there go long nights, weekends, etc.

My wife..err...soon to be ex wife.... (this will be ex #3 for me ) she's successful in real estate...and she's similar...always tied to her phone and computer, 20x7x365.

 

[clayb226]

That's difficult in this field...especially if you take care of business clients. You end up working very early in the morning (rebooting servers and doing stuff before clients get to their offices)....and of course there's requests for help after 5pm or 7pm or whatever. And then doing server migrations...there go long nights, weekends, etc.

My wife..err...soon to be ex wife.... (this will be ex #3 for me ) she's successful in real estate...and she's similar...always tied to her phone and computer, 20x7x365.

Sorry to hear this, maybe I should remove my contradictory goals, I will turn my back on my career in a heartbeat for my family. Do not feel any amount of success would be very enjoyable without them... Maybe I should consider rethinking my business plan, as I can see where I could be putting in 100 a week before I even knew it. I shall pray about it and seek guidance in this matter. Thanks for the heads up here, I may not of considered this, until it was out of control.