New Year’s Eve – that day we make all sorts of resolutions, often only to start breaking them approximately 24 hours later.

But have a look at the following few business ideas, and see how many you can adopt as resolutions for 2025 – and then will stick to as the year goes by….

1. To look forward, start by looking back.

Review your goals for 2024 – did you achieve them all? Did you achieve any?

If not, why not?

Use your learnings from this exercise to make sure your goals for 2025 are truly going to make a difference.

Targets shouldn’t be so easy to hit that they aren’t really a challenge, but they have to be realistic and within your capabilities at the same time.

2. Don’t try to be all things to all people in 2025.

Stick to what you know, and what you believe in, and don’t be swayed by others’ strong opinions.

3. Don’t say one thing to one person, and the opposite to another especially if they are both members of the same team.

Chances are, they will talk to each other.

Be consistent in your approach.

4. Whatever system you use, keep it up to date.

If it’s MYOB, or Xero, or whatever, keep the data input and the reporting current all the time, and above all don’t let the backlog get too big to tackle.

5. Use your system to produce reports that are meaningful and useful to you – and then use them.

Reporting just out of habit, and using the info, is about as useful as not reporting anything at all.

Put yourself in a better place to identify issues well before they become real problems.

6. Stay on top of cashflow.

Know ahead of time when the pinch points might be, and take as much action as you can to reduce the impact.

Sometimes the simplest of actions can make a difference – here’s just one example: change your invoice payment prompt from 20th of the following month to 7 days after invoice – not everyone will meet this last request, but even if just a few do, then your cashflow WILL get better.

7. Don’t ignore the creditors – doing so will NOT make them go away unfortunately.

Hoping they don’t notice won’t work, nor will not communicating.

8. If you have specific known obligations coming up (tax payments for example) and you put money aside for these things regularly, you will find the bills when they do fall due are so much easier to deal with, and you won’t fall behind.

9. If you DO put money aside in this way, remember it is solely for the stated purpose and is NOT to be ‘borrowed’ to pay something else that crops up.

Yes, I know you intend to put it back before the tax bill is due, but will you?

10. When you are paid by a customer, clear the associated materials immediately from the revenue.

Or if you haven’t been billed by your supplier yet, then put the money aside and pay the resulting invoice the day it is received (but don’t forget point 9 above)

Paying attention to these suggestions may just make the difference your business needs in 2025, so every best wish for the year ahead.

And maybe – just maybe – these goals stand a better chance of being met than the usual ones like eating less chocolate, going to the gym regularly and so on.

Send me a message on www.matchboxconsulting.co.nz if you’d like to have a chat about all this over a coffee.

Happy New Year, from Andrew.