Top Predictions For 2013

As a great leader, you need to have a strong vision for your business, as well as a leadership point of view. Additionally, you have to anticipate what’s coming next, both in the short term, as well as the longer term future. You also have to take action on what you anticipate to happen, especially if you hope to stay ahead of your competition.

With all of the changes in technology, it’s imperative that you have a good handle on what’s coming next, as if you don’t, you’ll be out of business faster than you can pull up your e-mail in the morning. If you don’t believe me, stop to think for a moment about companies like Blockbuster Video, Borders, and even to a certain extent, Kodak. These are three huge companies that either went out of business overnight, or lost some of their leading products and brands, simply because they didn’t anticipate what was coming next.

In order to assist you with your business, here are my top predictions for 2013, and what you need to do to address them:

Today’s Google is Yesterday’s Yellow Pages

80% of people now go to the web first when looking for a product or service. Google is the #1 search engine, and has replaced the Yellow Pages of old. If your prospective customer can’t find you online, you will lose business, and probably be out of business, shortly. Therefore you need to be easily found online. This means that your website appears on the first page of search results for the keywords that your prospects search when they are trying to find your product or service.

Additionally, once they find your website, 50% of people will decide whether or not they will do business with you simply based on the look and feel of your website. So, if you don’t have a professional, sharp looking website, you need to get one!

Mobile is The Next Big Thing

Just as the Internet revolutionized our world, mobile devices are the next generation of the revolution. Most people nowadays have a smart phone, and use it to access the internet, text message, and communicate with more than any other device. In fact, many consumers buy products and services right from their phone, and mobile will shortly eclipse computers as the way to access the web. What does this mean for you and your business? Businesses that are savvy enough to take advantage of this trend by having mobile optimized websites, leverage text message and social marketing to get their message out, and get out in front of this trend will have a huge advantage over their competition.

Furthermore, customers can now use their mobile devices to check prices and find the best place to buy a product or service right while they are in your store! Businesses like Best Buy are becoming dinosaurs because of this trend, and will soon be out of business if they don’t adapt. Competitors like Amazon are taking advantage of this platform, and are killing their competition in the process.

The Customer Will Have The Ultimate Control Over Your Business

We now live in a world of “frictionless communication”, which can be deadly for your business. Consumers can now, with the click of a button and in literally seconds, blast a message about you and your business to over 2 billion people worldwide. Websites like Yelp, Google, and others allow consumers to rate their experience, post pictures and reviews, and ultimately determine whether or not your business booms or fails via their computers and smart phones.

You must realize the power of this as a business owner! The key is to stay proactive and manage your footprint online. Responding quickly to customer concerns on social media sites, as well as review sites like Yelp is not only important, but can generate lots of business for you.

Labor Is Now A Commodity

Through websites like www.fiverr.com and www.99designs.com, you can now have business cards, logos, websites, book covers and pretty much any type of graphic design done for you quickly and less expensively than ever before. Sites like this are tapping into the power of the web, and are driving down labor costs will increasing speed and customer service levels. This trend will continue across all industries, and will make labor of pretty much any type a commodity.

Going forward, if you provide these types of services, you have to become an expert and own your category, or you will continue to lose business to lower cost, faster alternatives. We’ve seen this over the last couple of decades in the manufacturing markets, and now the service markets will face the same pressures going forward.

Video Is King

By the end of 2013, 90% of web traffic will be video! This is a huge game changer for business, and a trend that you must tap into. If you aren’t currently using video on your website and in your online marketing, you need to start doing this quickly, or face losing traffic and business to your competition.

Businesses Will Continue To Shift To Part-Time and Outsourced Labor

With the increasing pressure of regulations, healthcare costs, and the speed of change, businesses will be forced to utilize part-time and outsourced labor going forward. The benefit of this is that it keeps the overhead costs low for a business. As a business owner, if you aren’t tapping into this trend, you need to. Keeping your costs low and your profit high will be one of the keys to staying in business as time goes forward.

Savvy Business Owners Have a Ten Year Horizon

Today’s savvy business owner now has a 10 year time horizon when looking at technology, regulation, and business trends. Being able to anticipate what’s happening now and how it will project into the future trends are paramount. Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for around $50 million, but instead chose not to, as they thought no one would order movies through the mail. Opps! Now they are out of business, and Netflix owns that market. Border’s never thought the Kindle would eat into their business, so they were way behind in the e-reader business. The result is that Amazon now sells 80% of all books on the planet, and Borders is out of business, while Barnes and Noble is closing 33% of their stores.

If you pay attention to the trends in the market and anticipate what’s going to happen next, you can create a huge competitive advantage for your business. If you underestimate technology, regulation, and the speed of the market, you’ll most likely be out of business. So, take advantage of the trends above, as well as the ones you see for yourself and your business, and capitalize on them!

Good luck…