BY JULIE A. PALM

Make 2016 your best year yet 

Try one of these five easy resolutions to invigorate your store or your professional life during the coming 12 months

The new year is a nice time to take on new challenges. Many of us make personal resolutions as the calendar turns to January. This year, Sleep Savvy encourages you to commit to making one change that will improve your professional life or business.

We’re giving you five interesting ideas, but you might want to call a store meeting and brainstorm with your team to come up with others. Choose a goal for the entire store or have each person make an individual resolution.

Tip for success: Break the resolution into smaller steps, set regular goals and then put them on your calendar to create accountability and remind you of what you plan to accomplish. In July, do a midyear review. If you’ve accomplished your goal—and we think you will—build on that progress and make another resolution for the second half of 2016.

1. Stop thinking of “add-on” sales as “add-ons.”

We use “mattress retailer” as a shorthand term, but if you sell mattresses, you should offer a complete range of sleep products—and devote as much time to merchandising, promoting and selling them as you do bed sets. If you think of a product as an “add-on,” your customers will, too—and will be less likely to buy that “extra.” In 2016, put the emphasis on selling a complete sleep system.

2. Be adventurous during furniture markets.

Before attending the next furniture market (Las Vegas is just around the corner), pick five vendors to visit who offer a category of products you don’t currently carry or whose products you’ve thought in the past aren’t quite right for your store. Be open-minded. You don’t know what new best-seller you might find.

3. Be charitable.

Pick a single organization—or a specific cause—to support and concentrate your philanthropic energy there. Be creative and generous in the ways you offer support. Your efforts will increase consumer awareness and traffic, build goodwill and, most importantly, help others.

4. Improve your image by improving your imagery.

Partly because of image-driven social media sites like Instagram and YouTube, consumers researching and shopping on the Web or following you on social media expect not only high-quality photos and videos but lots of them. Invest in a photographer to update images of your store, staff and products and then commit to regularly taking your own photos and videos using a smartphone to post online throughout the year. Keep it fresh and fun.

5. Read more to learn more.

Order additional copies of Sleep Savvy for your store so everyone has ready access to each information- and idea-packed issue. (We’ll send as many as five free copies to each U.S. location.) Subscribe to Sleep Savvy here. It’s easy. For an added 2016 challenge, resolve to try a new idea from every issue!