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Manager's To Do

Set a Learning Goal, Refresh Your Mission Statement and More Manager To-Dos for January/February

Or build your business’s local presence by joining a country club or historical society.

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JAN 2-8

staff
Set a 2025 learning goal for staff. It could be sales skills, social media practices or technical know-how. Just make sure it is new knowledge that they are acquiring. According to research, workers thrive when they experience both a sense of vitality and of learning. They also are less susceptible to stress and burnout, and much healthier and productive.

JAN 9-15

NETWORKING
Build your business’s local presence. Join a country club or historical society. (You’ll reach seniors.) Or sponsor a local Little League team. (You’ll reach families.) Now’s the time.

JAN 16-22

FINANCES
Get an early start on your taxes. On average, small-business owners spend more than 40 hours —a full workweek — filing their federal taxes every year. One in four spends at least three full weeks on the annual chore.

JAN 23-29

OPERATIONS
Give up bacn — the dozens of email newsletters you’ve subscribed to but rarely read. A huge inbox slows searches, eats storage, and makes your head hurt.

JAN 30 – FEB 5

CUSTOMER SERVICE
Show your branding expertise with a monthly tip for better business marketing and design on your website.

PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO

FEB 6-12

MANAGEMENT
Ask staff to answer to this question: “Why do you get up in the morning and why should our customers care?” You may find a new mission statement in the answers.

FEB 13-19

staff
Buy chocolates for your employees this Valentine’s Day. Inscribe the card, “Love your work!”

FEB 20-26

STRATEGY
Ask every new client: “Why’d you leave your last graphics provider”? At the same time, follow up on your lost clients. A polite inquiry for those who have decided to go elsewhere will help ensure they’re rare events.

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MONTHLY PROJECT

Try a Reverse Pilot Project

1. You’ve no doubt heard the advice to stop doing “non-essential things” or to trim the services you offer as a way to bring increased focus to your management and your business. But it’s hard to know what to cut. Everything seems to have some value or you wouldn’t have done it in the first place. Leidy Klotz, a professor of engineering and author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less, suggests running an experiment, which he calls a “reverse pilot.” Unlike a regular pilot project, in which you temporarily try something new, a reverse pilot calls for temporary subtraction. Just stop doing something for a bit, says Klotz, and see what happens.

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