AI | Weinberg Partners

Setting Goals for You and Your Business in 2024

The new year is a new beginning. If you are a business owner, this is often the time of year when you reflect on where you are at and think about your business goals for the year ahead.

Setting goals is an essential part of personal and professional growth. These could be lofty goals, or even setting out a plan to achieve some more mundane (but equally important) projects. Whether that is getting paid faster, reassessing expenses or bigger things like automation of processes and new markets. You may be looking to expand your business or create more time for yourself.

Having a clear vision and actionable goals can help you achieve your long-term plans. Here are some tips to get you started:

Envision your future: Reflect on what you truly want from your life and how your business can help you achieve those aspirations. Consider where you want your business to be in the next five or ten years. Having a clear endpoint in mind will make it easier to set goals that align with your vision.
Set measurable goals: Vague goals can be challenging to track and evaluate. Instead, focus on setting goals that are measurable. Think about the key metrics you already monitor in your business and how you would like to see them improve. For example, aim for a 3% increase in net profit year-on-year, a 2% reduction in expenses, or acquiring two new customers per month or grow your prospect database by 50%. If you set specific targets, you can easily track your progress and make adjustments as needed.
Develop a plan for each goal: Once you have identified your goals, it’s crucial to create a plan of action to achieve them. This can be as simple as jotting down your ideas or engaging in a brainstorming session with your team or advisors. Having a well-defined plan in place will help you stay focused and motivated to follow through.
Monitor your progress regularly: It’s essential to regularly check in on your progress towards your goals. Set reminders on your calendar or align your monitoring process with your invoicing cycle. By consistently evaluating your progress, you can identify any areas that need improvement or come up with fresh ideas to help you reach your targets.
Celebrate your achievements: Celebrating milestones along the way is crucial for maintaining motivation and momentum. Plan a reward for yourself when you achieve a significant goal. It could be treating the team to a morning tea, having a day out of the office together or planning an event for the end of the year. Choose something that brings you joy without breaking the bank.

Not sure how to get started?

We can help you with the strategy and identifing the information you’ll need to track, so you can monitor your progress.

Setting goals is just the first step. By implementing these tips and staying committed to your vision, you can turn your long-term plans into reality.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

Can an AI Assistant Streamline Your Business?

A business AI assistant is an artificial intelligence-powered software tool that’s designed to support and enhance different areas of your business administration and management.

These AI assistants (sometimes known as virtual assistants or chatbots) use natural language processing (NLP), machine learning and automation to interact with you, your team and your customers. They can give answers to simple questions and FAQs, perform efficient automated tasks and carry out detailed reviews and analysis of your business data.

How do AI assistants affect your business?

In a busy business environment, having a helping hand to reduce your workload is a huge bonus. AI assistants help you extend your capabilities and productivity, without the need to expand your team. Assistants pick up your key admin, operational and customer service tasks, freeing up your time to focus on high-value customer and business development jobs.

Tailored AI assistants can help in various areas of your business, taking on the heavy lifting while you do what you do best – talking to customers and growing the business.

For example, AI can:

Provide AI customer support – voice AI assistants use NLP tech to talk to your customers. An assistant like Alex from Curious Thing can answer your business phone, offer customer service support, resolve customer queries and answer common FAQs.
Streamline your bookkeeping – tools like Xero and Dext use a mix of optical character recognition (OCR), AI and machine learning to automate the digitalisation of your receipts and the matching and reconciliation of your transactions and bank statements.
Automate your content writing – AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Bard help you write professional-sounding marketing and communications materials. With quality prompts, you can generate blogs, emails and advertising content.
Record and transcribe meetings – AI transcription assistants like Otter.ai listen to your business meetings and provide a transcript in an instant. The AI can pull out important action points, summarise the key points and provide a record of the conversation.
Manage your inventory – AI inventory optimisation tools like Remi can help you monitor your stock levels, track sales trends and forecast which products and times you should order in. This keeps your business well-stocked at all times, automatically.

We can help you review your business processes, software systems and productivity goals, to find the ideal places where AI automation could make a difference.

Get in touch, we are here to help.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.