It's the end of another year, which means it's time to make plans for next year in areas such as how to grow revenue, create budgets, launch new products and services, and develop your marketing strategy. This issue of SCOREBOARD has articles and links that can help you with these important responsibilities.

Every business wants to grow revenue, so there are two articles on this subject. Creating a budget is essential to operating a business successfully, so we've included an article that gives tips not only on how to create one, but how to manage it throughout the year. Marketing your firm's products and services is rapidly moving from traditional media into the e-commerce and e-business arena, and several internet firms are offering free ad campaigns you should consider looking into. And finally, how you word your communications is critical to gaining the interest of your viewers, so there's an article to help you with this.

The information in these articles can make 2012 a banner year for your business, so take a little time to read and digest them. And remember that SCORE is here to help you "For The Life Of Your Business!"

There are four basic ways to grow your business: sell existing products to existing customers, sell existing products to new customers, sell new products to existing customers, and sell new products to new customers. This basic strategy has been defined as the Ansoff Matrix, and how to use it and which is easier to implement is explained in "How to Master the Ansoff Matrix."

Is your core business delivering disappointing margins and low growth rates? Are you unsure of the path forward to growing your business? If you think big investments outside your core are your only means to accelerate growth, think again. The opportunity for profitable growth may be locked within your core business. "4 Steps to Super-Size Your Growth" explains how you can unlock that potential.

Let's try an experiment. First, read this:

"Acme Industries today announced a groundbreaking strategic partnership with a leading solutions provider to create an exclusive, dynamic, state of the art application that will revolutionize the social media user experience."

Now look away, close your eyes for about ten seconds, and try to repeat what you just read.   We thought so. Now read this:

How you word your marketing materials, press releases, and web content is essential to gain the viewers' interest, and ultimately have them take action on what they read. Jeff Haden reveals some words you should avoid using in "Buzzwords You Shouldn't Use In Your Communications."

This is a two session workshop designed for those considering beginning their own business.