2005 was a very busy and fruitful year, but I expect 2006 to be even better. We have great plans for both PowerHomeBiz.com and WomenHomeBusiness.com that will surely benefit our visitors and our loyal readers.

During this first day of the year, you may want to think of ways you can improve yourself and your business. Think of this process as your “strategic planning” session, rather than the often futile exercise of listing new year resolutions (which often goes unfulfilled, if you’re like me). Here are some of my own that you can also use:

1. Seek more learning opportunities. One thing I learned is that you can never stop learning. Learning opens your mind to potential opportunities that you may not initially see. It allows you to get to know your industry and competitors better. I’ve met a lot of home-based entrepreneurs who seem to live in a cocoon, thinking solely about their business and forever preoccupied with running it that they don’t give time to learn about things. Learning can mean subscribing to trade and business publications, reading on the Web and subscribing to worthy newsletters, participating in forums, borrowing books from the library, or even attending a class in a community college.

2. Get a better understanding of what customers want. This seems like a no-brainer, but many entrepreneurs (not just those home-based) create products or services that they think people would want — because that is what they know and think. Alas, what you want is not necessarily what the customers actually want. There is sometimes a disconnect (whether you like it or not). While big corporations have money to spend on market research (even for something seemingly mundane as doing market surveys on whether potential customers prefer to see the logo on the right or left), small and home-based entrepreneurs do not. But there are ways you can know what your customers want — either cheaply or for free. You can devise a system whereby you gather feedback about the product from the customer, whether it is an email several days after the sale or by routinely interviewing buyers. Or you can run a market survey yourself – services like SurveyMonkey allow you to create surveys for only $19.99 a month (survey can either be emailed or embedded in your website as a text link or popup).

3. Know where your business is heading. I know of some entrepreneurs earning 6 figures a year who either hate or simply refuse to do accounting or bookkeeping that they only know how much they earned for they year (and how much expenses they had) by the time they prepare their taxes! This situation is unthinkable for a large corporation and for the larger small businesses, but all too common for home-based and solo entrepreneurs. They do so much during the year that keeping track of their financial records is the last thing on their minds (as long as money keeps coming to their bank accounts, that’s all they care about). They also don’t trust (or don’t know) accountants who can help them.

4. Use resources you have more judiciously. If you are a web-based entrepreneur, you most likely have access to your website statistics whether offered by your web host or a third party application you use. But do you actually analyze your traffic patterns and implement your findings? Web traffic analysis is more than about pageviews or uniques. It is about what marketing campaigns are effective (and what you should junk). It is about what pages are bringing you the most cash if you rely on advertising. It is about knowing if there are any loopholes in your sales process that needs to be plugged. It can tell you what your web visitors are looking at in your site, and how they are arriving to your site. This year, make it a point to sit down and pour over your web statistics (and if your current web stats are crummy, get a better one!). Combined with customer feedback, web statistics can be a powerful tool in understanding your customer.

5. Do not be afraid to get help. Let’s face it, you can’t do everything with the same high quality all the time. Do what you do best (whether to write content, or market the business) and get help with other aspects of your business. For example, if you are a harrassed work at home mom, you can get a baby sitter for a couple of hours to watch your kids in order to be able to concentrate on working, instead of waking up at 2 am and losing sleep in the process. Believe me, that baby sitter is the best $20 you will ever spend on. If you need help keeping track of your accounting records, hire a bookkeeper or accountant. If you need help developing more quality content for your website, hire a writer. If someone other than you can do a better job in creating a more professional brochure, then find a graphic artist to help you. Remember, business expenses are deductible from your taxes!

6. Do not forget yourself. Always, always remember to give time for yourself. Your business is nothing without you. Take a vacation or week off from business. Pamper yourself, even if it only means staying in a bath tub longer with scented candles. Give yourself a massage. Or just forget about the computer for an hour and snuggle with your husband (or dog, whatever the case may be) for a couple of hours while watching TV. Go out, take a walk or go to the mall and shop. Whatever it is that you do, you need not be consumed by your business 24/7. Give yourself a break, and believe me, you will feel refreshed and enjoy more what it is that you are doing.

Here’s wishing everyone a great Happy New Year! Good luck to all of us.