#146 5 Business Trends I'm Predicting for 2024
As a business owner and a business lawyer who supports many small businesses, I spend a lot of time planning and considering shifts and movements in the business world. So in this episode, I want to share with you the five business trends I'm predicting for 2024.
Firstly, I've noticed a growing trend in consumers becoming more educated and aware of what contract terms are reasonable and unreasonable. With the new rules around unfair contract terms, business owners, especially coaches, need to pay attention to this trend and ensure their contracts are fair and in compliance with the new rules.
I also think we’re going to see more emphasis on business structure next year. Given the economic and business landscape of the past couple of years, more and more businesses are realising the importance of revisiting their business structure. It is crucial for business owners to protect their businesses by choosing the right business structure for long-term sustainability.
To no surprise, I think artificial intelligence will continue to grow. As it does, it is essential to consider copyright law around AI and ensure that its use is done authentically without compromising the human element of a business's messaging, branding, and marketing. Business owners must understand the implications and ownership of AI-produced content.
The shift to online shopping has been evident for the past few years, and it is not going away anytime soon. Business owners now realise that building a profitable online business requires more than just a website and an idea. There is a focus on building sustainable online businesses that provide value to customers and adapt to the changing business landscape.
Finally, I think 2024 will see the continued proliferation of working from home and hybrid working arrangements. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, employees and employers alike are embracing flexible working options. However, for long-term sustainability, employers must ensure they are properly setting up remote working arrangements, including providing a safe working environment and effective communication.
I would love to hear your thoughts on these trends or if you have any other trends that you believe will shape the business landscape in 2024. Feel free to reach out to me with your feedback, questions, or ideas. As always, thank you for joining me on the Rise Up in Business Podcast, and I look forward to connecting with you soon.
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Tracey: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Rise Up in Business Podcast. If you are joining me from your Christmas break or in between Christmas and new year, when this episode drops, I hope you are having a really lovely, fabulous festive season and that you've got some time for pausing and some downtime.
If you're listening to this later in the year, enjoy as always, I hope you find it to be a value. in this episode, I want to share with you the five business trends. I'm predicting for 2024. I spend a lot of time planning, as you know, and my planning for 2024 was wrapped up quite some time ago.
And in doing my planning, I always pause to consider what's happening. In the climate that we're in with the clients that I act for in the broader communities that I'm a part of. And I always tap into shifts and movements that I'm seeing, in the context of business statistics, legal changes and implications and what that might mean.
So These are my predictions based on my experience as a business owner and as a business lawyer and as someone who supports so many small businesses.
So this is what I'm sensing. This is what I'm seeing and these trends. have helped inform my business planning, my practice planning, my strategic thinking for 2024. So I hope they're going to be a value to you in your planning and your strategic thinking for the year ahead. Let's dive in. The first trend I'm predicting is a sharper focus on contract terms.
I'm not just saying that because I love contracts and I'm a business lawyer who really [00:02:00] loves all things. Business contracts. I'm saying that because the trend that I've seen over the last half of 2023 is that consumers are becoming more educated and more aware of what contract terms are reasonable and unreasonable and given the new rules that came into play in November around unfair contract terms and the penalties that can now apply to small businesses that get this wrong. There's a real sharpened focus I'm sensing on what contract terms are allowable and what aren't. I did an episode on this back in November where I talked about the changes.
It's titled, you can't afford to get this wrong. So go back and take a listen. But in that episode, I shared what the changes to the unfair contract term rules are. Why they're important and what the penalties are to businesses. And because those changes have been a long time coming, consumers have become aware that they do have rights when it comes to entering into contracts with businesses and there's remedies available.
If they do feel like they've been treated unfairly, or if they do end up in a situation, which is unfair. So because of that, I see the sharpened focused on business contract and terms. And I see more and more business owners becoming acutely aware of just how important it is to get their contracts done for their business that work for their business and that are tailored.
So they're not in breach of any of these unfair contract rules. And so they're setting themselves up for long term success with their clients. So that's the first thing I'm really sensing. Given the area that I work in and what I'm seeing, I actually think this is going to impact coaches more than any other small business.
Industry, there's so much talk over the past years around coaches, business coaches, locking people into contracts, not letting people out. There's been a lot of dialogue around the lack [00:04:00] of, compliance requirements and monitoring in the coaching space. That's nothing new. That's been here. That's been around for a while. But these particular changes to the unfair contract term rules. I think will impact coaches the most. So I'm aware of many, many business coaches who have really hard line termination clauses in their contracts, whereby they simply will not let a business owner or a client out of contract.
Those terms won't stand anymore. That is blatantly unfair under the new rules. And there's real risk to coaches now, if they don't get this right, because clients, so the consumer or the business owner who has entered into the contract has the right to go to court to not only set aside that clause, but the whole contract and penalties can now apply.
This is really significant. And because of that. I think that the emphasis on contract terms and fair contract terms is something that coaches in particular are going to need to focus on. It's something that I think ought to be proactive because if it's reactive, I think that it's going to cost a lot of time and money that could have been avoided.
So this is a space that I see real change needed for a lot of coaches. And I see more and more business owners wanting to become more and more aware of what's in their contracts and what they need and why. So that's the first one. The second trend I'm predicting for business is an emphasis on business structure.
So given what we've seen economically and otherwise in the business space over the last couple of years, particularly around government. Payments, sole traders missing out on, on payment entitlements and packages. And given the number of insolvencies that we've seen over the last couple of years for businesses, and that's not going away anytime soon, more and more businesses are becoming aware that business structure is something they can revisit and in fact should revisit to see whether the structure they're operating in is [00:06:00] right for them.
Because given everything we've seen and everything business has gone through over the last couple of years. Business owners are now alert to the fact that there's things they can do to protect themselves and there's things they can do to protect what they're building going into the future. And business structure is the first and foremost thing that ought to be considered when we're talking about positioning ourselves for risk mitigation and protection and long term sustainability.
So I'm seeing a shift already in terms of the conversations that I'm having and my colleagues are having around business structure and the benefits to asset protection and risk mitigation. And I think that's something that's going to continue into 2024. The third trend I'm predicting is an increase in the use of AI.
I don't think that's going to come as a surprise to anybody. AI is here to stay, let's call it. So the question becomes how to integrate it and how to leverage it. And it's still new, of course, but more and more businesses are experimenting with it. More and more businesses are becoming open to using it.
But there needs to be a focus and I think there will be a focus on copyright law around AI and who owns the copyright and around the need to ensure that any AI that's integrated or any use of AI that's integrated is done in an authentic way. That's on brand and it doesn't lose the human element of a business's messaging or marketing.
So I think AI has been an interesting discussion that has been kicked around for the last couple of years. But I think now the discussion is becoming more pointed and more
specific by businesses when they're considering how to use it without compromising authenticity and integrity without losing their human side. Of their messaging, because they're all humans running businesses and we need to make sure that we don't lose that and that we keep it, but also copyright something.
It's certainly a discussion that I and lots of colleagues are having with more and more business owners [00:08:00] around using AI for course creation, copywriting, how does it fit in terms of who owns it? Who owns what's produced? So business owners are becoming more aware. I think certainly from what I'm seeing of the importance of understanding the implications of using AI.
Okay. But I think the conversation is going to gravitate to a more holistic style conversation so that AI can be integrated in a way that's still authentic and still human. So there's a hybrid there, I think of what we're currently doing in business and how can AI enhance it? I don't know the answer. I think this is, this is a conversation that's going to become stronger.
Though in 2024, because AI is not going anywhere and we need to know how to use it without exposing our businesses and without
compromising the integrity of the business as a whole. So that's the third trend that I'm predicting. The fourth trend I'm predicting for 2024 is the continued increase in online businesses.
The online shopping businesses in Australia increased by almost 14 percent in 2023 from 2022. I think that statistic is going to continue because of the way that we're now working and operating and living. And we've got the last few years to thank for that. The good, the bad, the indifferent. I think it's here to stay.
And I think business owners are becoming more and more aware that to build a profitable business online, it takes more than a website and an idea. I think those days are gone and I don't think there's any illusion anymore that you just need an idea and a website and throw something out there and you'll make all this money.
Business owners are smarter than that, and there's an emphasis now on. Building long term sustainable online businesses that are going to serve the business owner into the future. If the statistics are anything to go by, I think we'll continue to see an upward trend because of everything we've [00:10:00] seen over the last few years and the shift in the way people are doing business and the shift in the way people are consuming content and the way that they are engaging with other businesses, service based and product based
online business is not going anywhere. And I think that from my personal experience and the number of new clients I have reaching out to me who are introducing online offerings into their existing businesses, or who are pivoting from traditional bricks and mortar into virtual businesses, there's a serious upward trend there, and I think that that's going to continue.
I think it's a great thing. I think that it's fabulous that we've got such diversity in the way we can now run a business as opposed to 10 years ago, when this wasn't even a conversation we were having. So that's a trend that I'm looking forward to watching. And I'm looking forward to supporting more business owners in making those pivots and those shifts.
And the fifth trend I'm predicting for 2024 is the working from home and hybrid working arrangements. It's no surprise to anybody listening that the working from home and the hybrid working arrangements are here to stay. And we've got the last couple of years to thank for that. But this is a thing now, employees who want to work from home, employers who want to support flexible working arrangements.
If done right, if done well, this can significantly increase profit and job satisfaction. Those statistics are everywhere. We've all read about it, but the devil's in the detail. And it's a big if, if it's done properly and if it's done well. So employers need to be sure that they're protecting themselves.
If we're talking long term sustainability for working from home arrangements and hybrid working, employers need to be sure they're setting themselves up for success. I say this a lot, that the law is always slow to catch up and working from home is no exception. So employers still have an obligation to provide a safe working environment for employees, but a little hard when you've got people working from home and you can't pop in and make sure they've [00:12:00] set themselves up properly, but there's a lot of things that employers can do in relation to communication and conversations and policies and of course their employment agreements and making sure that the remote working arrangements are covered in communication.
The policies and the employment agreements, but it's a conversation to be had with employees. And if it is going to be sustainable and long term, it needs to work for both the employer and the employee. So I think these conversations are going to be really rich going into 2024, because as I say, times are changing.
This is here to stay and I know from my own experience with my own business and my team and the business owners that I support implement these documentation and these arrangements. I know that the positive impact this can have for the business and the team as a whole. If it's done well. So this is not going away working from home and hybrid working.
It's here to stay. Embrace it. Do it well and do it properly. But I definitely see an upward trend in these types of conversations and the focus that business owners will continue to have in supporting team members to. Land somewhere that's going to support both parties. So they're my trends.
They're my, five business trends that I'm predicting for 2024. To recap, I'm predicting a sharper focus on contract terms, especially in the coaching space, I'm predicting an emphasis on the right business structure. the use of AI is going to continue to increase, I think, I think online businesses will continue to increase and will continue to thrive if done well.
And I think the conversations around working from home and hybrid working will increase because that's a steady trend and I don't see that going anywhere. I'd love to know what you think, are you resonating with these or do you have something else that's jumping out at you that you think, gosh, Tracy, I'd love to talk to you about this.
I actually think that this is a trend for 2024. I'd love to hear from you always, always love your feedback and love engaging either in DMs or an email about your thoughts and views for what I'm sharing on the podcast and any questions you've got. [00:14:00] If anything's jumped out at you from what I've shared today that you'd like to talk about, or if any of this relates to your business and you would really like to get a jump on this going into the new year, please reach out so we can start the conversation.
If I can help, I would love to. And these are areas that I think need attention. And if done well, these areas where I think businesses can really thrive. As always, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate your time. So grateful that you've chosen my podcast to listen to today and I'll catch you next week.
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