Of course, you’re busy running your business. 

If you’re in a seasonal industry (like retail, online consumer products, or hospitality), you’re heading into crazyville around the holiday season. So we’ll keep it short and simple.  Here are some key trends for next year that can shape your business. Get smart…fast…and stay a few weeks ahead of the business owners who aren’t reading this! Shhh…

1. Health and wellness products and businesses related to anti-aging will continue on upswing, as the population ages.
2. Millennials are here to stay and companies will figure out how to communicate better with them and integrate them into their cultures…maybe even evolving their cultures to incorporate new thinking.
3. At a high level, analytics and focus on the customer experience will be over-arching themes in marketing.
4. On a tactial marketing level, we know that content marketing and social media are now part of the marketing playbook. But soon to be joined by augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality.
5. But what about REAL reality in 2017? We’d all be delighted to see customer service make a comeback. Lots of chatter about UX (user experience), but businesses are starting to realize that poor service is costing them millions. Smart businesses will figure out ways to delight their customers IRL or enabled by technology (or both).
6. People aren’t taking jobs or quitting just because of the size of their paycheck. And a beer keg is simply not enough to attract top talent. Here are some clues to how to hire and retain the best people in a business of any size.
7. As for the last one…we’d like to predict that 2017 will be the year of the strong, empowered woman. sheBOOM will avoid political discussions, but check back here next week to see how the election outcome might impact small and mid-sized businesses.