New Year's Resolutions (image credit: Geekgirly)

Have you nailed down your New Year’s Resolutions?  Even if you have, let me suggest a few things.  Its easy to focus on resolutions that may improve your work, but make sure you have resolutions that improve your business as well.  Here are a few things that photographers need to focus on in 2009.

• First and foremost, use social media (primarily your blog) to tell your story.
• Use video to tell your story.
• Don’t go it alone – find partners that can help you build your business (hint: many of them may not be in the photography business).
• Figure out how to automate fulfillment of your work (printing, framing, selling online, shipping, etc) so that you can focus on your business and your work instead of grunt work.
• Set goals to follow up with EVERY SINGLE prospect and customer.  The key is to CONTINUE telling your story.  This helps them engage with you, follow you, and eventually buy your stuff.
• If you haven’t already, create a dream for your business and/or your work that is bigger than you.  I’ll talk more about this in a subsequent blog post.  But, if you don’t have something driving you that is going to change other people’s lives, chances are, you won’t make it through the tough times.
• Take time to analyze all of your efforts in 2008 and determine which were profitable and which were not.  If you do this effectively, you may be surprised at what you find.
• Look for a way to automate the referral process.  We all know that referrals are the hottest leads, but do you have an automated, systematic way to generate and track referrals?

2009 is going to be an exceptional year of growth and opportunity for those that take life by the horns and direct their own path.  Make sure you’re focusing on the right things.  May it be a prosperous year for all of us.

Do you have any suggestions for more goals that photographers should focus on?