With another month of winter still to come, it is hard to imagine that we will be enjoying warm days sooner than we expect. But we will. And here is a suggestion for you.

Why not dedicate your spring to transforming your business?

You can make plans in spring, develop them over the summer, and then launch them when a new business cycle begins in the fall. And when I suggest that you make plans, I mean big plans.

Here are some suggestions, adapted from my upcoming book Ingaging Leadership.

Pick a Theme for What You Will Do

You could decide, for example, to make big changes in areas like these.

• Year 2020 will be your Year of Marketing. You will finally conduct the research you’ve been meaning to do into your products, your clients’ needs, and more. Then you will launch programs to increase your business by marketing more effectively.
• Year 2020 will be your Year of Training. You will study your performance in key functional areas like customer service, sales, and productivity, identify metrics to measure, and finally develop the kind of training that will lead you to excellence in those key areas. If you’ve been meaning to do it, why not now?
• Year 2020 will be your Year of Accounting. If your company, like many, has been flying blind and not really analyzing your numbers, this could be your year to turn things around. How can you tell if this is an important initiative for you? If you have ever been surprised by numbers when you do an audit or when you prepare your company taxes, it could be time to assign a higher priority to bookkeeping and accounting.
• Year 2020 will be your Year of People. You will identify key functional areas where you need to staff up, create detailed job descriptions, and make a hiring plan to bring “fresh new blood” into your company.
• Year 2020 will be your Year to Franchise. If you have been thinking of turning your successful company into a franchise, this could be your year to explore and develop that idea.
• Year 2020 will be your Year of the Brand. You might decide to study what your brand has become in the eyes of consumers and to strengthen it and possibly move it in a new direction. Reviewing and renewing your brand and its promise can be a process that completely revitalizes and reinvents your business. If you haven’t thought about your brand and what it means for the last five or six years, that could be a sign that it is time to think about branding.

Avoid Stagnation

Time and again, we have witnessed the demise of once-good businesses that failed to change and grow. The antidote? Keep making, developing and implementing the strategic plans that keep you growing.

Year 2020 is a better time to do it than 2021, 2022, or later on. Why not get started today?