Go for the Goal 15 New Year's resolutions that are challenging, constructive and attainable. Really.

New Year's resolutions about losing weight or organizing thegarage may not last more than a few weeks, but it's possible tostart the year with plans for your business that will persist for afull 12 months--or even longer.

But like the often-repeated resolution of an out-of-shape personthat this year will be different, resolutions for a business gonowhere if they entail recreating reality. Resolutions that pushfor incremental progress or for simple clarity of thought are theones that stick, say successful entrepreneurs and businessadvisors.

"Making resolutions means taking a risk, but the thing weall need to do to stay in business these days is constantly put ourcompanies at risk," says Tom Mears, CEO of Holland Inc.,parent company of the Pacific Northwest's Burgerville USAchain. "The only way to grow in 1999 is to keep yourself frombecoming complacent and find things you can change about the wayyou operate."

Five years ago, Mears, who is at the helm of the Vancouver,Washington, family-run company, detected that the old-line burgerhouse was quickly losing ground to the big chains and resolved toturn it around. "Without taking some risks and deciding tomake changes, we'd have kept sliding," says Mears, 57. Nowthe company is on firm footing with sales of $47 million thisyear.

Of course, there's nothing magical about laying plans inJanuary: Sharp-minded entrepreneurs are always charting the routeahead, no matter what time of year it is. But January, when frostyweather and the post-holiday slowdown leave many businesses quiet,is a fine time to take stock and think deeply about your overallstrategy and approach to your business.

So forget about that messy garage or the extra inches in yourwaistline--for now, at least--and instead consider making some ofthese 15 resolutions that have worked for your fellowentrepreneurs:

1. Give Your Goals a Reality Check

When Portland, Oregon, chef Paul Wenner, 51, set out in 1985 toinfiltrate the world of burgers with his meatless Gardenburger,his goal was broad: Change the world's eating habits. By thebeginning of 1986, he had deals with 70 restaurants to carry hiscreation, which has a base of mushrooms and brown rice instead ofsoybeans, the more common alternative burger base.

As 1986 dawned, Wenner recalls, "I decided I really wantedto kick all year and get to 200 restaurants--which meant more thandoubling our business. And I did it." In fact, he overshot themark, ending the year with 220 restaurants on his client list. For1987, he resolved to aim for 400 restaurants--and he beat his goalby 50 restaurants. Today, Gardenburgers are on the menus of morethan 40,000 U.S. restaurants.

"One of the keys to success is having an objective you wantto reach, but to get there, you need to set a series of [smaller]goals along the way," says Joe Giglierano, a marketingprofessor at California's San Jose State University. "Each[smaller] goal should stretch you a little more but be reasonable,and as you figure out ways to reach each of them, you move yourselftoward your long-term goal."

This strategy works for Wenner in a carrot-and-stick kind ofway. "I always have a number out there as my goal, and allyear I'm checking my progress to see if I'm on track to hitthe goal," Wenner says. "One year, it was 'I'llget into 25 percent of the health-food stores [in the UnitedStates],' and I did it. So the next year, the number was 60percent, and I did that, too. Every year, I've been within 5percent of what I said I'd do."

It's a simple, timeless technique--but one manyentrepreneurs don't find time for. Make the time, and soon youmay wind up in the same class as Gardenburger, which is now a $500million company.

2. Make Your Move

That may be in a literal, geographic sense or in a more abstractway. Is your product right for this particular market or for someother one?

Judi Shepard Missett, 54, was a professional dancer and danceinstructor in the Chicago suburbs when she worked up the idea thatwould become Jazzercise, a dance-based fitness program that is nowtaught in 19,000 classes every week nationwide. In 1972, threeyears into the idea's development, she and her husband feltdrawn to Southern California. In December of that year, they quittheir jobs and headed for San Diego.

Leaving Chicago meant turning her back on the city's theaterbusiness, which had kept her busy performing, but Missett quicklyrealized that in doing so, she'd opened herself up to a majornew opportunity. "San Diego was and still is very open toanything that has to do with health and fitness," she says."So people were very ready for these classes I wanted toteach. They wanted me everywhere in town; it was nothing likeChicago. [Jazzercise] spread like wildfire."

3. Tune in to Your Employees

Is yours the kind of workplace where when one person is swamped,another naturally helps carry the load? Or do your employees keeptheir heads down and do only the tasks that are theirs? Do youremployees expect that for the company to win, they have to lose, ordo they think a win-win scenario is possible?

Houda Samaha is a Framingham, Massachusetts, managementconsultant who specializes in prepping corporate staffs forinnovation and change. In her work, she's noticed that too manyentrepreneurs and managers assume everybody below them knowswhat's expected of them, but they never bother to find out ifthat's really true. By discovering what your workers believe isstandard practice, you may find openings for profitable changes,she says.

Samaha notes that early on, FedEx's well-known hub systemwas full of bugs. Although the company promised overnight delivery,entire shipments were sometimes stalled at the company'sMemphis, Tennessee, hub, causing bottlenecks throughout the system.The reason, says Samaha, was that the crucial work of unloading,sorting and reloading packages was being done by wage workers whowere paid to put in eight hours, no matter how quickly or slowlythe work got done.

"They put in eight hours, and if the planes hadn't allbeen unloaded, so what? They went home," she says. Whenexecutives who wanted to make good on the company's servicevows figured out this was the norm, they adopted a new pay policythat changed everything. Now workers are paid for a set number ofhours per week even if the work is finished in half the time.

"You can't change people's behavior unless you knowwhat's making them act the way they do," Samaha says. Onceyou've determined the reason employees perform the way they do,give them a better reason to do something different.

4. Get Caught in the Web

Should you set up a website or not? Marketing professorGiglierano says there's no point in waffling anymore: You musthave a presence on the web.

For consumer-oriented firms, it may not yet be an urgentsituation, he says, "but for business-to-business operations,it's almost mandatory." So many potential clients areusing the World Wide Web to search for vendors now that not havinga site of your own is akin to opening a restaurant and not puttinga sign out front. "It's the way people do businessnow," Giglierano says. "If you want to do business, youhave to be there."

5. Give It Up

At the end of 1977, Jazzercise's Missett was stuck in thesame spot countless entrepreneurs wind up in: By doing it allherself, she was doing herself in. In her case, the physical tollwas obvious. She was teaching 25 fitness classes each week (anddriving 1,000 miles a week to their various locations), and, as shesays, "My body was wasting away from working out thatmuch."

Resolving not to carry the whole load herself, Missett shiftedher focus to training fellow dancers to teach Jazzercise classes,effectively launching the franchise program that now numbers nearly5,000 units.

Although your business may not be sucking the life out of youphysically, if you continue to be a control freak as your businessgrows, you'll probably lose the mental sharpness and energyneeded to keep your company successful. If your business isgrowing, don't be a martyr: Delegate.

6. Know What You Do

Burgerville USA's decline stemmed in large part from tryingto run along behind McDonald's and the other big chains and dowhat they did on a smaller scale. Some aggressive soul-searching atthe headquarters in Vancouver, Washington, made Mears realize thatthe company "couldn't compete directly with those kinds ofplayers and last much longer," he says.

The solution: Do something else. While he didn't jettisonthe holy hamburger, Mears de-emphasized it somewhat, offeringturkey burgers, fish and chips, sliced turkey sandwiches and otheritems, as well as adding character to the restaurants. They'renow dressed in a distinctly '50s look, with black-and-whitetile and big dollops of red and chrome in the décor. Inkeeping with the retro feel, burgers are cooked to order and servedhot off the grill instead of from warming racks.

The changes pointed the company forward by looking backward atthe things that made the family's first restaurant a locallandmark. Dick Barnett, a Beaverton, Oregon, management consultantand author of Reignite Your Business! (ConfidentLeader Press), worked with Holland Inc. on hatching a strategy toreverse its slump. "What they've done is look at why theirdoors are open," he says. "Do they want to make a lot ofmoney? Cook a lot of burgers? Sell health food? Or do they reallyenjoy making food that people like to eat?"

7. Admit That You Don't Know Everything

Your business was founded on a good idea. Don't let theflood of other good ideas that rushed in afterward drown yourefforts.

Missett ruefully recalls the period in the mid-1980s when thefitness industry had gone volcanic and a group of consultants urgedher to fan out her company's program. Don't just havefranchisees with small Jazzercise operations in strip malls, theconsultants said; build your own health clubs, and fill them withJazzercise and other classes, such as children'sgymnastics.

"Well, I only have a degree in theater, not an MBA,"Missett says, "so I went along with it." After just onefitness club had been built, she realized she should have stuck toher original concept. "Our strength was the dance program, notall these other things that were popping up, so we stopped doingall those other things."

Similarly, at one point, Gardenburger's Wenner realized hisproduct's energy was spread too thin. In the late 1980s, hebrought cheese, milk and chicken substitutes under the Gardenburgerumbrella. Then, when sales fell short of his expectations, he had arevelation: "If we didn't focus on the familiar roundshape of a Gardenburger, this fabulous product of ours was going toget lost in the hustle." So he got rid of everything but theburger line in the early 1990s.

8. Make It Work

In 1993, Burgerville USA was developing a location that Mearssays "looked like it would have been wonderful for us."The trouble was, he had resolved at the start of that fiscal yearnot to open restaurants that wouldn't pull in at least $1million a year, and the analysis suggested this site would pull inabout $900,000. That's not bad, and not far off the mark,"But I had taken a stand and said we just couldn't livethat way," he says. "So we added breakfast items andespresso, tweaked the look of the restaurant, and we [generated]twice the volume we'd anticipated-$1.8 million the firstyear."

The lesson that emerged from that experience, he says, was ifyou know what you want, don't back off.

9. Play the Margins

It's common practice to check in periodically with majorclients and verify that your firm is still on their minds, treatingthem right and deserving of their business. But Giglierano says anentrepreneur who wants to see sales rise will resolve to do thesame with smaller and even marginal customers.

"Some of these small customers have probably remained smallbecause you aren't calling on them enough," saysGiglierano. They want to be treated like important clients, notlike also-rans. "If they saw somebody from your company moreoften, they would have increased their orders."

These small customers may be on the verge of major growth andcould take you up with them. But how will you know that if you onlypay attention to the heavy-hitters?

10. Relive Your Failures

The beginning of the year offers a clean slate, a chance to putproblems behind you and move forward. Samaha suggests a wiser wayof looking at things might be to put any failings of the past yearin the middle of the table and let everybody take a long, painfullook at them.

"I'm not talking about a day of finger-pointing andcutting off heads," Samaha says. "I'm talking aboutdoing a post-mortem in a learning environment, where mistakes arevaluable learning tools, just as successes are."

11. Pay the People Who Carry the Load

Mears says the smartest part of his company's attempt toreinvent itself and curb its losses was eliminating a level ofbureaucracy: district managers. "We want each restaurantmanager to be the general manager of their restaurant and the mostimportant person in the company," he says. Toward that end,the company established a lucrative performance-based bonus programfor the managers of its 37 restaurants.

The transition from being closely supervised to having a lot ofleeway has been tough for some of the managers, but Mears sayswithin a few years, he expects to see it pay off in the form ofhigher-performing restaurants throughout the chain. "If thistransformation we're putting ourselves through is going towork, the restaurant managers are the ones who are going to make ithappen," he says, "and they'll get part of the[monetary] results."

12. Start a New Company Every Year

Barnett and his partner, Bill Kutz, dismantle their Beaverton,Oregon, management consulting company, Barnett & Kutz Inc.,every December and start fresh in January. They don't draw upnew articles of incorporation or go through other formalitieswastefully, but they act as if the company has shut down andthey're starting from scratch. "We question everything,down to whether we still want to be partners," Barnettsays.

Their aim is to underscore the idea that change can happen andthat nothing about a company is set in stone. "The realoutcome is that you find you've been dragging along baggage youreally don't need," Barnett says. "So you just setthat stuff aside and move on."

Three years ago, the pair set their sights on the speakingcircuit, believing their future lay in Barnett making the rounds ofassociation meetings and other speaking engagements, spreading theword about their style of corporate management. By mid-1998, bothpartners realized the speeches weren't getting them where theywanted to be. So their resolution for 1999 is to find a new way todisseminate their ideas.

"We don't want to stick to something just becauseneither of us is willing to stop doing it," Barnett says."We'll never get off the plateau and start climbing againthat way."

13. Go Back to School

Continuing education, innovation training and otherself-improvement programs are good not only for employees, but alsofor the boss, says Richard Tyler, a Houston management consultantand author of Smart Business Strategies (PowerPublishing).

Continuing your education keeps you stimulated and gives youvital business information, Tyler says, but he sees it as anunacknowledged management skill as well. "When your employeesstart to think they know more than you do about your business, thefirst thing they lose is respect for you, and the second thing theylose is productivity," he says.

14. Pick One Long Shot and Ride It Home

Although Wenner's Gardenburger company has grownexplosively, it's still tiny in the eyes of the corporateworld. That's why Jay Leno, Tom Brokaw, The New YorkTimes and others made hay with the fact that Gardenburger wasone of the advertisers on the final episode of"Seinfeld." The spot cost about $1.6 million, but Wennerconfidently estimates the payoff was worth more than $2 million inpublicity. Says Wenner, "When our marketing vice president[got the idea], everybody wondered, 'What if we spend all thatmoney and it doesn't work?' But I'm an entrepreneur,and to be an entrepreneur, you have to dream big."

15. Ask Your Employees What Your New Year's ResolutionsShould Be

It's a more active form of the open-door policy that manyemployees assume is just a policy, not a real opportunity for themto open up to you. Samaha advises entrepreneurs to ask each oftheir employees to submit one idea they have for improving any partof the operation, no matter how small.

"The employees see up close where things are bumpy andwhere they're smooth," she says. "If they'regiven permission, and even an invitation, to come forward withtheir opinions, they can point out all kinds of opportunities thatyou might miss on your own."

Why not make it a New Year's tradition? At the holiday partyor on the last workday of the year, make a big production out ofgetting each person to say what they'd do if they had the powerto change one thing about your company. And then publicly resolveto follow through on five of the best ideas. As everyone who'sever tried to lose weight in January knows, there's no betterincentive to following through on a resolution than making the vowpublic.

Next Step

When making your New Year's resolutions, don't forgetabout the Y2K bug--and don't think it won't affect you. Howdo you keep it from wreaking havoc on your business? Check out nextmonth's Entrepreneur, where we'll tell you all youneed to know to zap that bug.

Dennis Rodkin is a Highland Park, Illinois, writer whoselongest-lived resolution lasted until February 1.