We want you to get started on the right foot, or continue down the right path for the remainder of the year.  So far it may have been a little slippery or perhaps you are off to a good start. Regardless this article caught your attention so let’s get started to find out what pitfalls to avoid or what you can expect to see as you grow. We took a look at our past year and reflected on our client’s biggest hurdles and wanted to help them get a jump on this year.  Using our data and researching sources such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, and the Post, to see what others in the business industry had to say. All of the predictions are very similar, some a little more detailed than others but we did find some consensus. We want you to get started on the right foot, or continue down the right path for the remainder of the year.  So far it may have been a little slippery or perhaps you are off to a good start. Regardless this article caught your attention so let’s get started to find out what pitfalls to avoid or what you can expect to see as you grow. We took a look at our past year and reflected on our client’s biggest hurdles and wanted to help them get a jump on this year.  Using our data and researching sources such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, and the Post, to see what others in the business industry had to say. All of the predictions are very similar, some a little more detailed than others but we did find some consensus. Be sure to subscribe to this year’s series where we will continue to elaborate on these trends and more to help you successfully continue to grow your business.  We will offer insights and tips on how you can manage your business, growth, and automate your processes using free, to minimally priced software and solutions that will help you. In 2018 it seemed like everything was the solution for growing a business, dabbling in all solutions at once was the answer.  It was a lot for the business owner and the CEO’s to manage and orchestrate as our new client base pulled ahead in technology so quickly, 2018 felt volatile to say the least.  Technology, although still growing, it has remained consistent and continues to send us messages about the future of business and business management.  It doesn’t matter where the trends and changes occur, you need to stay informed and on top of them to find the right direction for your business, here is what we found to help to manage 2019, and the trends that will take place. Banking Industry and Payment options are evolving! Customers are beginning to embrace the ever-changing payment methods and are expecting businesses to change at the same rate.  I understand that it is not as simple as it sounds to just start accepting Bitcoin at the register. Most of us still don’t understand how crypto-currency translates to hard cash, or how it will pay the rent on our building space (It won’t!).  Bitcoin and blockchain may no longer be as prominent as they were at the beginning of 2018, but they’ve illustrated an important trend unlikely to go away. Speed and security will be important to consumers, mobile payment processing, contactless payment options, enabling your company to also accept non-traditional payment methods — be they through applications like Paypal or alternative funds like Bitcoin — could also prove key to winning new customers in the new year. Banking is shifting, there is already a massive shift in mobile banking and payment processing.  The big e-commerce players like Amazon and Google have already started planning to offer their own payment solutions, this will also lead the way to them building out new terms and regulations.  Digital banking will take the lead soon as it is on the rise, by 2020 digital banking will top out at 2 billion users, brick and mortar will continue to diminish or slow down as your phone becomes your new wallet.  As mobile banking continues to rise, so will online theft, breach of online security, encryption, and cybersecurity. It’s all about the employee, and the workplace! It was hard enough to keep up with technology and client segmentation to keep your customers happy and engaged, this year, it’s all about keeping the employee and the environment of your establishment or online personality.  With unemployment at an all-time low, it is crucial that you maintain a positive work environment to keep your good employees happy. Virtual teams, contractors, and gig employment are going to continue as trends also. Managing Employee expectations and their temperament is easier than you think. Relinquish some control to your employees giving them a sense of ownership in what they do. Ask for ideas and suggestions to help grow or improve the business.  This really gives your employee an engaged mindset to work on new ideas instead of just answering the phone or greeting customers. Not all ideas are valid ones but it starts an engaging conversation that can lead to some great improvements, and it will uncover some hidden employee challenges that you may not be aware of in your workplace. Remote and virtual employees will increase.  If you aren’t there yet, you will be soon!  You may think your business model can’t afford it or people are not as productive working from home.  As Millennials take over, they are more productive at home than coming into the office. It is time to rethink or begin considering and planning how you can effectively collaborate and share information digitally.  The top talent that you are trying to retain (and actually, even mediocre talent) are calling the shots.  One of the shots they are calling is the demand to work when and where they want. And that means remote working is not only mainstream, not only a perk but often is a requirement these days.  Indeed, by 2020, nearly three-quarters of all employees are expected to be mobile employees. Watch out for “ghosting”, According to Quartz at Work, none other than the Federal Reserve Bank has listed “ghosting” as an emerging employee issue. According to a Federal Reserve publication formally known as the Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, “A number of contacts said that they had been ‘ghosted,’ a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact.” Finding the right balance for achieving flexibility and high-quality results will prove crucial as businesses try to keep their best and brightest from jumping into the gig economy. It’s not just a job, it’s a “gig”, the gig economy is not going anywhere. The digitally decentralized world we have created has also created more opportunities to launch new ventures and opportunities for individuals to begin new businesses.  You may not have seen the impact on gig work or freelance entrepreneurs but the trend is coming for your business to outsource positions and work to someone already in the industry.  According to a recent survey by Bankrate, nearly 40% of all Americans now have a side hustle. Of course, a side hustle can be almost anything, be it the full-time employee who drives for Lyft after work, or the stay-at-home mom who sells her art on Etsy, or the musician who teaches piano between gigs. But whatever the case, the advent of the gig economy means that these side hustles are not unusual. In fact, they are usually lucrative. According to Bankrate, the average side hustler earns about $8,000 a year. So yes, the gig economy is the new norm. AI is here, and no it’s not robots or self-service auto chauffeurs.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) hit the mainstream in 2018 in the form of chatbots and smart marketing, and it is only growing.  AI is intended to improve the client experience and streamline the business. This automation and intelligence will, in turn, give you a bigger advantage and bottom line. Omer Khan, founder, and CEO of VividTech, stated in an interview that, “Today’s chatbots and virtual assistants are able to handle more customer service tasks than ever before to better facilitate the customer journey. As they utilize machine learning to better respond to customer requests, these interactions become even more efficient. We’re also seeing chatbots that integrate the brand personality to further streamline these online conversations and improve company results,” Marketing and advertising are still a requirement, but not in the typical norm anymore. Marketing will become very personalized.  You will need to step out of the stock images, impersonal calls, generic campaigns.  Consumers want a high-value personalized experience. User reviews are king! Reviews influence 95% of customers online today, 90% of the online consumers, will leave a purchase without reviews.  Your brand will drive your campaign to influence new consumers. Voice recognition technology and AI will help marketing efforts exponentially to target and personalize campaigns. Voice search is replacing typing since it is faster. “With the increasing popularity of smart speakers, in 2019 we’ll continue to see the number of voice searches performed go up. This will reshape search engine optimization, as search is shifting to conversational and long-tail queries.” – Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing Businesses will further adapt to the modern customer.  “Customers today have more choices than ever, and they have shown they will gravitate toward those who prioritize the delivery of fast, seamless and personalized service. This is true whether they are ordering lunch, getting their car repaired or making a financial transaction. In my industry of financial services, we’ve already seen large legacy companies start to fall behind smaller startups who offer better user experiences.” – Bernardo Martinez, U.S. managing director at Funding Circle Technology will not replace the human touch. “Technology is always improving, and with the latest and greatest tempting every organization, we need to keep in mind that AI and predictive analytics will not replace the human when it comes to delivering the customer experience. While there are definitely some great opportunities ahead for AI … it will not be a true game-changer, at least in the next year. AI can really be thought of as ‘augmented intelligence,’ because it can augment the human, giving people better information, greater insight and the ability to perform their roles better.” – Claire Sporton, senior vice president of customer experience innovation at Confirmit Regardless of all of the changes and shifts in technology, we as consumers are coming full circle to search for genuine relationships, ease of use, and stress-free lives. I want my cake and eat it too! We want to build relationships and connections, but still, want it from the comfort of our home.  Offer alternatives for your customers to engage with your business, chat, email, phone, text. Be flexible in your interactions, offer several payment options, build community, build payment structures, or offer alternatives.   Do the same for your employees, and be open-minded about the way they work. As much as it seems life was easier a decade ago, we as business owners need to adapt just as quickly as technology changes.