A CEO’s New Year’s Resolutions If You Want To Grow Revenue In 2023

In January, almost everyone comes back to the office ready and raring to go. This means trying some new things in 2023.

In our personal lives, we call these resolutions to do things differently in the new year, such as eat better, work out more or be a better friend, partner or co-worker. 

Some of these resolutions transfer over to business. For example, you might want to try a new strategy or do strategic planning for the first time. A lot of CEOs don’t understand the difference between strategy and planning. In this article, I’ll share an amazing video that clearly outlines the major differences, and they are significant.

Doing something new in your business can be exciting.

Here are some resolutions to consider in 2023 if you want your company to outperform your revenue and growth expectations.

Resolution #1 – Get A Better Understanding Of The Differences Between Strategy And Planning

This is very important. Almost everyone says they do “strategic planning.” But it’s actually the wrong approach. Here’s the video I referenced in the intro on why there are two different efforts – strategy and then planning.

You can see from the video that your resolution should be to develop a strategy for your business that makes certain assumptions and positions it for success. Then you should do the planning associated with the necessary execution to deliver that strategy.

You’re probably asking, “Why didn’t you tell me this a few months ago?”

That’s a fair question, but you still have time to get this organized and moving for 2023. So, your resolution should be to think differently about strategy and planning, then get this up and out as fast as possible.

Resolution #2 – Set Growth Goals Based On Budget And Resources

We talk to hundreds of business leaders every single year. Almost all of them have goals for their company’s revenue, but most of them set those goals without any context, meaning they didn’t match their performance expectations with their budget or the resources available.

In 2023, set goals that you can accomplish based on the money you’re planning to invest (budget) and the resources you have available (your current team).

Wanting to generate 100 new marketing-qualified leads each month when you’ve historically generated just 10 is a great goal but setting a budget of $1,000 a month and assigning the goal to your one marketing manager is a recipe for missing those goals.

Either set the goals based on your budget – which in my example would be getting from 10 to 15 or 20 leads – or match your investment and resources directly with your goals. Back to this example, going from 10 to 100 would require an investment of closer to $10,000 and a team of three people. Better yet, focus that investment on an agency that has historically performed similar programs and produced similar results for businesses like yours.

In 2023, make a resolution to have realistic goals based on your budget and resources.

Resolution #3 – Arm Sales With A More Remarkable Sales Process

A lot of CEOs look past sales and directly to marketing to help drive revenue. In 2023, start with sales instead. Specifically, start with the sales process.

Most company leaders have never considered aligning their sales process with how their prospects want to buy or, as we say, their buyer journey.

This is a mistake. Your prospects have questions. They have specific informational and educational needs. They have emotional considerations as well. For example, no one wants to make a mistake in their job for fear of getting in trouble or even fired.

Your sales process has to be designed to answer every question before prospects ask, deliver all the educational information they need before they ask for it, emotionally connect with each person on the buyer committee and get everyone to feel like you are the safe choice.

People only make purchase decisions when they feel safe.

By resolving to improve your sales process and make it remarkable in your industry, you will shorten your sales cycle and increase your close rate without needing any additional leads.

Resolution #4 – Increase The Amount Of Video Content You Create

Speaking of educational content, I guarantee you don’t have enough video content. You need video content on your website, on your YouTube channel, in your sales process, on your blog, in your email campaigns and on your social media channels.

You need video content in every single marketing, sales and customer service experience.

People want to watch videos. They get to know, like and trust you from your videos. Video is one of the secrets to higher-ranking websites and more engaging content.

There is no downside to video, and you have to double or triple the number of videos you make and share in 2023.

But let’s take it to an even higher level. Video allows you to create content at scale. One 20- to 30-minute video can be turned into a new blog article and broken up into shorter snippets for use on your social media platforms. It can be used in the sales process, and those video snippets can be used on your website and in email campaigns.

Video is the most scalable type of content in your content marketing arsenal, and you should make a resolution to push your company to do more of it in 2023.

Resolution #5 – Regularly Use Data And Metrics To Drive Revenue-Related Decisions

One of your key resolutions in 2023 should be to access the data you need to make better, more informed decisions. This means making sure your revenue-related data is correct.

Data is becoming increasingly important, especially your first-party data, which is the data you collect directly from prospects and customers.

In 2023, companies are going to need to lean aggressively into their own data instead of relying on third-party data, which is the data you buy.

Regulations, privacy and technology are making it harder to use third-party data without consequences. This means you need to double down this year on keeping your data clean, keeping it accurate, getting it properly segmented the first time and removing old, outdated data.

It means making sure that data is easily displayed so you and your team can review it regularly.

It also means being able to pull out the insights from that data so you can all feel comfortable that the decisions you make are data-driven.

Opinions, perspectives and past experiences are fine, but they’re never going to be as relevant and as important as decisions you make based on the data from your company about your prospects and their buying habits.

If you do nothing else in 2023, you should make sure you have a renewed focus on your data and that you’re using it to make decisions based on facts and numbers.

Leading a business to month-over-month revenue growth might be one of the most challenging aspects of running a business. This list is a great place to start in 2023.