If you are like me, a new year brings dreams of a fresh start for your small business. Hopes abound for new year. But, in back of your mind, you may remember your past resolutions. Resolutions that were swallowed up in bus-i-ness of daily life. By February, you have already moved on, with January’s resolutions only a vague memory.

Here’s a quick and easy way to grow your business by making your business resolutions last longer than end of January! Make your resolutions from a customer perspective. By focusing on your customer’s interest, you give a new purpose to your business resolutions. You give your resolutions more sticking power and more opportunity to grow your business!

Step One--Go with Customer Winners “Go with Winners.” Create a list of ten customer successes you had in 2004. These could be customer sales on a particular product; lead generation successes; selling model successes; customer follow up processes; different product or service offerings. These winners could be a more customer friendly website or an internal process that made it easier for customers to buy or buy more often from you.

If you are having difficulty identifying these customers winners, focus on areas where customers made nice comments about your business; places where they sang your praises; activities or areas where customers where delighted with your business efforts.

Now take three of these winners and do them again in 2005. They were customer winners in 2004; you can make these winners again in 2005. Create a simple plan. The plan should include what you are going to do, how you are going to do it and when are you going to do it. Write it down and post it where you can see it every day.

Step Two--Drop Customer Losers Every business has losers. You have losers. What are customer related activities that cost you money, lost time, or lost productive energy in 2004? Make a list of ten customer losers.

You may find your losers in same areas where you found customer winners. These could be areas of products or services, lead generation, selling models, customers follow up. They could be either internal or external activities that were not customer successes. Dropping losers is hard. You may have sacred cows you are afraid of dropping. If you need courage to drop a loser, remember your customer perspective. If it wasn’t a winner for them, why do you want to keep it? Besides, if you don’t eliminate losers from your business, there will be no room for more winners.

Mistake One: The “Get Rich Quick” furor There are news stories, magazine articles, books, web sites and businesses that propagate “Get Rich Quick” furor and yet US Patent Office statistics states that 97% to 98% of all patents issued for new products never make it to market. Although it is not clear how many of 2% to 3% new patented products brought to market are generated from established manufacturing companies introducing new products, it can be assumed that it is majority. The multi-billion manufacturing sector of economy risks many millions of dollars on research and development and employs countless business professionals, marketing professionals, industrial designers and engineers to guarantee new products will be brought to market place. Therefore it can also be assumed that independent beginner inventors likely makes up a very small percentage of 2% to 3% of patented new products that make it to market. To believe “Get Rich Quick” furor is biggest mistake that beginner inventors can make. If it can be believed that there is a “Get Rich Quick” solution to bring new ideas and products to market, it could also be believed multi-billion manufacturing sector of economy would employ that solution. But they employ many professionals that work hundreds hours and spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars per each new product launched, not a “Get Rich Quick” solution.