A new year is a great time to make a fresh start – especially after the challenges of 2009.  If you haven’t done so already, I suggest you take some time to envision what you want 2010 to be – for your business and also for your personal life.

Key to this is decluttering your life, your work space and your mind. Another key is identifying and focusing on what will bring the biggest return to your business.  Then you’ll be able to give attention to the activities that will help you achieve your goals.

To make sure that 2010 gets off to a great start with the potential to become your best year ever, here are 21 things to do to get off to strong start:

Clean up and Declutter

1. Clean up your website(s) – Here are 7 clean-up activities to get your website in tip top shape for the New Year. This includes your blog.

2. Update your social media profiles, fan pages and group pages --  Information changes.  Your social media profiles are a representation of you and/or your business.  Make sure they represent you well.  Look at your updating strategy, too.  If you’re not updating social profiles regularly, put a plan in place to do so.  There are oodles of technology tools to help automate the updating process, such as Social Oomph.

3. Clean up your marketing materials – Do you have outdated marketing collaterals with old versions of your logo, former addresses or phone numbers no longer in use?  Clean them up!  Are you using old business cards and crossing out an old email address? Order new ones! They look “mickey mouse.”  Prospects won’t take you seriously. 

4. Clean off your desk – Is your desk, credenza and the rest of your work space cluttered with papers, jumbled cords, unopened junk mail, and old magazines? Is your keyboard gunky and your monitor streaked and dusty?  Clean up and organize -- and you will instantly feel more productive.

5. Use a personal time management system – With all the distractions of email, mobile devices, Internet surfing, and social media websites, you may find it more challenging than ever to stay focused.  Use a personal time management system, such as Getting Things Done, to stay productive.

Sales and Profitability

6. Diversify your revenue streams – Many small businesses suffer from a similar condition:  too much revenue is concentrated in a single large client or tied to a single product or market. If that market suddenly sours, or when (not if) a client goes away, your business can be at serious risk.  Make 2010 the year you diversify revenue sources enough to de-risk your business. 

7. Create a sales funnel to increase revenues – You don’t want to have to “guess” where your future sales are coming from.  A sales funnel is a way to envision and keep track of new sales opportunities from existing as well as new customers. The act of creating and using a sales funnel will cause you to focus attention on how to get new sales, helping you increase revenues.

8. Record all business expenses promptly - If you have piles of receipts or unopened bank statements, take the time to enter them into your accounting software. Or hire a bookkeeper. Take advantage of online banking and credit card statements too – you can automatically download transactions without manually rekeying them.  Properly categorize expenses. Make sure employees submit any business expenses for reimbursement promptly. Be sure to promptly bill clients for out-of-pocket expenses they are obligated to reimburse. Take these steps and you’ll be in great shape for tax time. Your company P&L and your budget forecasts will be more accurate, too.

9. Re-evaluate your tax situation at least twice a year – If you step back and evaluate your tax situation with your tax advisor, allowing sufficient time to make adjustments, you may be able to reduce your tax liability.

10. Seek out automation opportunities – Automation can drive productivity and improve profit margins dramatically.  Don’t just accept old processes – inexpensive new solutions are being introduced at breakneck speed that can help you drive out existing costs, and expand without increasing costs.

11. Systematize your invoicing --  I wish I had $10 for every business owner who has confessed to losing money through failing to either (1) invoice customers, or (2) follow up to collect outstanding receivables promptly.  Luckily there’s technology to help. Invoicing solutions can help you get paid faster with more payment options, a recurring billing system, and better follow-up records so you can collect past-due invoices.  Whatever system you use, just make sure to have “A” system.

Email and Computers

12. Unsubscribe -- If your inbox is cluttered with newsletters you never open or don't remember why you subscribed to -- find that unsubscribe link.  Take no prisoners! You'll have more time for the communications you really want to read.

13. Get newsletters and alerts out of your inbox -- "Chunk your reading." Set aside a block of reading time once a week or every few days for newsletters, Google Alerts and other non-urgent information you still want to receive.  But get them out of your inbox -- set up labels (in Gmail) or file folders (in Outlook) just for such communications.  This way you won’t stumble over them every time you visit your inbox.

14. Clean up old files on computers – Computer files have a way of getting messy throughout the year.  Organize documents, photos and other files by topic, client, project, or some other method that makes sense.  Delete or archive anything you don’t need currently. You’ll spend less time hunting for stuff. Designate an afternoon called “File Clean Up” and have all employees clean up their files, too, so that the entire company gets a fresh start for the year.

15. Back up computer files – Do you have a comprehensive backup system for company files?  If not, now would be a good time to implement a backup system -- before disaster occurs. Choose an automated solution that doesn’t require human intervention (because humans forget to do backups). If you already have a backup solution in place, double check to make sure it is functioning properly and actually backing everything up. 

16. Sync mobile and desktop devices -- Don’t forgot to implement solutions to automatically sync mobile devices with desktop devices.  We’re going to use our mobile devices more frequently in 2010. You don’t want your team fussing with manually transferring files back and forth.  Automation is the answer.

Your Team

17. Give (better) performance reviews to develop your team– If you currently give your staff formal written performance reviews, give yourself a gold star!  And then resolve to give more frequent feedback and coaching throughout the year, not just at review time.  If you don’t do performance reviews, you owe it to your people to pay them attention in the form of an annual review.  See my tips for performance reviews.

18. Don’t cheap out when hiring technical help – Hire the best talent you can afford this year for software programming, Web design, network administration, SEO and other technical work.  Technology is increasingly critical for innovating, serving customers better, and driving productivity – so you need a good tech team to support these business goals. 

19. Provide pay increases – When was the last time you gave your people a raise?  Good people should get raises annually. Increases for 2010 are expected to average between 2.6% to 3.3%.  As the economy recovers, pay increases take on increasing importance. An employee feeling underpaid may jump ship as soon as the job market loosens up. 

20. Fix performance problems – If you are unhappy with one of your staff’s performance, the worst thing you can do is let it fester. It stresses you out. Other employees may be resentful, too, especially if the “problem child” doesn’t pull his/her own weight.  Confront it head on.  Work on remedial action, giving written warnings. Terminate the person if improvement doesn’t happen.

21. Reassess roles of employees and service providers – Look objectively at each of your service providers and employees and ask: “is that role still necessary?” and “do they have the skillsets my business needs to achieve its goals?”  Priorities change. Market needs change. You may need different skills to get your business to the next level in 2010. Better to make those decisions in January, than in July.