As we put the final touches on our 2025 business plan, we picked 12 impactful business resolutions we want to share with the business community to tackle and implement in the coming year. The resolutions we are sharing here have been proven to be crucial to our success over the years.
1. Build a Recruiting Bench
Finding the right team members for the right place is critical for building a successful team. Developing a pool of potential candidates and building relationships with them before a position needs to be filled will take the stress out of finding a replacement when an employee moves on. One of the most successful approaches for us has been the use of the LinkedIn Business Premium subscription. You can filter your search by location, job type, company etc. to get in touch with potential candidates and start a conversation directly. Starting a conversation before someone is actively searching for a new career offers a less stressful approach and has yielded very strong team members.
2. Take Control of SEO
In today’s business environment, online visibility is key. Taking control of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy ensures that your business or organization remains at the forefront of search results. This involves regularly updating your website content, using relevant keywords, creating backlinks and leveraging analytics to understand and improve your online presence. Digital marketing toolkits such as Semrush (www.semrush.com) or Ahrefs (www.ahrefs.com) tie in with Google analytics and can offer a good foundation to build an effective SEO strategy. Adam Clarke’s bestselling book SEO 2024[1] is a great read to learn about SEO. We benchmark the performance of our website with other IT service companies and workplace technology providers to measure the effectiveness of our online marketing activities. This approach helps to consistently increase organic traffic, increase brand awareness, and ultimately lead to higher conversion rates and sales.
3. Find a Strategic Good Cause
Aligning your business with a strategic good cause can enhance your brand’s reputation and foster a sense of purpose among your employees. Over the years, several of our team members have been affected by suicide in their families or circle of friends which has formed a strong will to make The American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (AFSP)[2] our strategic good cause. Their mission of a research-based understanding and prevention of suicide is closely aligned with our values. Choose a cause that resonates with your company values and engage in meaningful partnerships. This not only contributes positively to society but also strengthens your brand’s image and builds customer loyalty.
4. Align IT Strategy with Business Growth Goals
For many smaller to medium sized organizations with ten to fifty knowledge workers, IT support is often provided reactively by an outside break-fix IT support company or by a team member who carries the “IT hat” besides their core function. Often, the owner ends up being that person. Partnering with a managed IT service provider such as Levifi to develop a customized IT strategy can be a critical step to help you reach your business goals faster and with less headache.[3] As an IT service provider, we witness daily how a well-implemented IT strategy, aligned with an organization’s strategic goals, can free up the leadership team and becomes a driving force behind business growth.
A successful IT strategy includes adopting scalable solutions, leveraging data analytics for informed decision-making, and staying ahead of technological trends. It can streamline operations, enhance productivity, and provide a competitive edge.
5. Implementing a Business Operating System
One common denominator we have observed is that most successful businesses run on a comprehensive business operating system such as Gino Wickman’s Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)[4], the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) framework[5], Pinnacle[6] and others. We follow EOS as it aligns well with our entrepreneurial spirit and values. A Business Operating System provides a structured framework for managing and scaling your business. EOS helped us clearly define our mission, vision and long-term goals. It helped us standardize our work processes, improve efficiency, and ensure consistency across all departments. This system should include clear goals, performance metrics, and regular reviews to track progress and make necessary adjustments.
6. Setting Up a Succession Plan
Imagine you die today. What would happen to the business? Is there a plan in place that outlines the way forward? Whether your business is a lifestyle business, or you are building a multi-generational organization, a well-thought-out succession plan is a critical part of your overall long-term business strategy. It should accommodate business continuity in an emergency situation as well as a planned passing on of the torch to the next leader of your organization. I integrated our long-term strategic business plan into the succession plan and discuss it with my wife and children as well as our senior leadership team on a regular basis. Besides business continuity, our succession plan outlines career progression paths and future new leadership roles and potential acquisition targets needed to scale Levifi for continued growth.
7. Partner with a Professional Employer Organization
Our core business focus is to provide awesome workplace technology such as IT services, printing and imaging technology for small to medium sized businesses in the Carolinas and Georgia. We started from a small team of 4 to over 80 team members and continue to grow. To scale our organization to accommodate a growing team, we needed help and decided to partner with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) to help manage HR functions more efficiently. PEOs provide services such as payroll processing, benefits administration, and compliance management. Another important service a good PEO provides is legal advice and protection in HR related issues. The partnership with our PEO allowed us to offer Fortune 500 like benefits that we could never have offered on our own. It lets us focus on our core business activities while ensuring that HR tasks are handled professionally and in compliance with regulations.
8. Join a Peer-to-Peer Group
A successful business has a winning product offering, process or service it does better than others. You can learn innovative ways from others to improve the way you operate your business. To give back, you can share best practices from your business. Peer-to-peer collaboration has been proven to be one of the best resources to succeed in the market and strengthen your team. Selecting peer-to-peer groups is a strategic move. Selecting a good mix of groups from different industries, geographies and personalities can widen the perspective and provide creative ideas from different viewpoints. Your local chamber of commerce might be a great place to find a good group. For entrepreneurs, I can highly recommend looking into a local chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization[7].
9. Implement a Collaboration Platform
Instead of relying on e-mails, telephone and Zoom meetings, an integrated collaboration platform, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace or Slack will greatly increase collaboration and teamwork. We eliminated the use of internal e-mail when we implemented Microsoft Teams as the collaboration platform for Levifi. Microsoft Teams is part of our Microsoft 365 business subscription so there were no additional subscription costs, and we were able to discontinue our Webex subscription. The integration with 3rd party solutions, like our content management system DocuWare enables secure and compliant document sharing that is audit-proof. The use of Microsoft Teams has greatly increased the quality of collaboration among our team members.
10. Nominate an Internal AI Ambassador
Like the spread of the internet in the late 90s, artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the business landscape today. As it touches on so many aspects of our work environment, taking a comprehensive approach in understanding AI’s impact in our business is critical. Nominating an internal AI ambassador can help your organization to better understand the opportunities AI offers and potential threats it poses. The AI ambassador should assess, document and report on the potential impact of AI in all areas of your business.
11. Analyze Cyber Threat Risk
Cybersecurity is a top priority for businesses of all sizes. Working with an IT provider in your market specializing in workplace cyber security for your type of organization offers the best chance to receive a meaningful cyber security assessment.
A cyber security assessment should include a vulnerability assessment of your hardware, software and data assets. It should indicate the weaknesses of your system and the potential threats that could exploit it. A risk assessment determines the likelihood, potential damage and probability of specific cyber threats in your environment. Based on the results of such a deep dive, the IT service provider should outline recommendations on how to best mitigate the vulnerabilities and how to implement improved security measures that are continuously performed and reported. To take a proactive approach is always better than to wait for a breach or cyber attack to take place.
12. Creating a Consistent Onboarding Plan for New Hires
There is only one chance to make a good first impression. Having an onboarding plan that immerses a new hire into your organization based on your vision, mission and values is a great opportunity to help a new team member understand the culture and vibe of your organization. A consistent, structured and well-thought-out onboarding plan is essential for helping a new team member to become a productive member of your organization. Structuring an effective onboarding plan includes activities for preboarding, first day, first week, first month and first 90 days. Use a new hire checklist to document the progress of the onboarding so nothing falls through the cracks.
By implementing these 12 resolutions, your business is better prepared to navigate the challenges of 2025 with confidence and achieve sustainable growth. Each resolution is designed to enhance different aspects of your business, from talent acquisition, marketing, and technology integration to strategic planning and cyber security risk management. We hope these resolutions help you drive success and stay ahead in the competitive business landscape.
About the author: Thomas Fimian is the founder/CEO of Levifi (www.levifi.com), a workplace technology provider headquartered in Charleston, SC, offering IT services, IT consulting and office technology such as copiers, printers and VoIP phone systems.