The Savvy Seller with Kristen Doyle

173. 5 Things Every Small Business Needs to Know Going Into 2026

• Kristen Doyle, TPT seller, SEO coach, and web designer

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The end of the year has a way of sneaking up on us, doesn’t it? In this episode, I share five small business tips that actually work, from making strong first impressions and clarifying your messaging to showing up authentically and keeping things simple. These lessons have helped my clients attract the right customers and grow their businesses with less stress, and they can help you head into 2026 with clarity, confidence, and focus.

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Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode173

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Kristen Doyle:

The end of the year always seems to sneak up on us, doesn't it? But whether you are frantically wrapping up projects in your business, or you're finally catching your breath, this transition into a new year is actually the perfect time to pause and reflect on what's working, what isn't, and what we've learned this year. After working with everyone from Teachers Pay Teachers sellers to service providers to local businesses in 2025, I have noticed some really clear patterns about what is actually working for small businesses right now. So today I'm sharing five lessons I learned in 2025 that every small business owner needs to know going into the new year. And the good news is, none of these require massive overhauls or huge investments. They're all about getting really clear on the things that matter and setting some intentions for what you focus your energy on. Are you a digital product, or course creator, selling on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers, Etsy, or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I'm Kristin Doyle, and I'm here to give you no-fluff tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process—things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let's get started, y'all. This year has taught me so much about what actually makes a difference when it comes to attracting clients, building trust and selling your products. And those things have changed over the years. But what I noticed is that these five lessons kept coming up over and over again across every type of business that I worked with. Lesson number one, first impressions matter now more than ever before. Now I have said for years that you really only have a few seconds when people land on your website to reel them in. That three second test is more important than it's ever been for a lot of reasons. One of those is that people's patience and their attention span is shorter than it has ever been. We are tired. We are all exhausted. We are pulled in a million directions, and our focus is just not there like it once was. So you really do have to grab people's attention faster than you ever have before. The competition is bigger, and there is more of it, and that means you really do have to make yourself stand out too. So having a pretty website in 2025 is just not enough, and it definitely won't be in 2026. That pretty website is not going to convert on its own. What really matters is clarity on your website and building a connection with your visitors, not how fancy your design is. Now, I know I am the web designer, and that almost feels like sacrilege for me to say out loud. Pretty design is important. Professional design is vital. But what really does convert is being clear and connecting with your visitors. If people can't understand your business within a couple of seconds of landing on your page, they are not going to stick around. Lesson number two, the big differentiator isn't how pretty your site is, like I said, it is your messaging. Most people are trying to say all the things, and so they end up saying too much and not saying the right things. This is something that came up over and over with businesses that I worked with in 2025, and it actually led me to create my own AI copy system to help people say the right things instead of just saying all the things. See, when you try to say all the things on one page, you create clutter and confusion. And let's go back to lesson number one, people are exhausted. They don't have the attention spans they used to. So that clutter and confusion isn't just a little bit of a stumbling block anymore, it's the thing that causes them to just leave. So when you get really clear on your messaging, that makes everything work better immediately. I had a client, we'll call her Jennifer. Jennifer came to me with a beautiful website. It had a modern design. It looked great, to be honest, but the homepage was just very scattered. Products here, blog posts there, opt ins, all over the place, and it just didn't have enough focus. And when she came to me, what she said was, we redid this, and I love the way it looks, but it's not working, and it feels like it's all over the place. And so what we did is we redid the homepage with focused copy, targeting her specific audience and guiding them down a very clear path. And she emailed to let me know that she almost immediately started getting more leads from her website. So that's just one story to show you the power of cleaning up your messaging and really getting clear and straightforward in what you're guiding people to. So maybe you're wondering, then, what does my messaging need to say? There are three main things that your messaging needs to clarify—who you help, how you help them, and if you have one, what is your signature method or your framework. What is that thing that makes you different from other people. And then, of course, how can people get started. All right, lesson number three, this is one I think I've talked about before on the show. It is that, especially today, people connect with businesses that feel human. We're in this age of AI where people are constantly questioning if anything is real. I don't know about you, but even just pulling up social media, I see images and I wonder if that's even a real picture. Where we used to see an image and think, Oh, well, there's a photo, so it's real. Now we have to wonder if that's even a real photo, or if it's totally made by AI. In this age of questioning what's real, small businesses can really thrive by letting your unique personality, your unique method, whatever it is that makes you authentically you show through. Generic websites that look like everyone else just blend in, and then there's no reason for someone to buy from you versus the competition, or to use your services versus someone else. So what is really working right now is putting your authentic, unique self out there, being quirky, if that's you, letting things be just a little tiny bit messy sometimes. The takeaway here is your website really needs to feel like you, not like some template that tons of people are using, and not like some watered down version of you trying to sound like everyone else in your niche, because you think that's what's professional. See, it really helps clients to feel safer hiring someone who is clearly a real person doing their own real work. Now I am not saying that that means you have to do everything yourself. We are all experts in our own thing, and it's okay if your expertise isn't marketing or copywriting or branding or web design, but when you hire that expert to help you look polished and professional, make sure that they aren't stripping away everything that makes you you. Make sure you're working with someone who is going to bring out that uniqueness, instead of trying to turn it into the same thing they create for everyone else. Okay, lesson number four, and this is one I really love. Confidence fuels growth. And when I say confidence, I'm not just talking about confidence in your website, although I've been talking a lot about websites on this episode, I'm talking about confidence in your whole entire business model and all the pieces of it, your website, your messaging, your signature method. See, once you get clear on all of those things, you show up differently. Your marketing becomes easier. You stop second guessing things like your prices or policies, your boundaries. In my own business, I have been working really hard on getting super clear on my message and my signature method over the last few months, and it has helped so much. See, I spent some time getting clear on who I wanted to be talking to, on defining what my signature method is. See, what I discovered is I have had a signature method all along, but putting it on paper and really getting clear on how I work and why I do things the way I do has helped me so much. The result of putting in that work on getting my messaging really clear and figuring out what that signature method is has made it so much easier to create my podcast episodes, to write the emails, even to talk to potential clients on a discovery call about my web design process. See when you are confident putting your content out there, and you're confident in what you say and how you say it, it makes it so much easier to book the clients and to sell your products. Last but not least, and this honestly might be my favorite one. Lesson number five is that simple and focused beats complexity every single time. A lot of us, especially as small or micro businesses, we start to think we need all the bells and whistles. We need to be doing the things that bigger businesses are doing if we want to become a bigger business. But the problem with layering on all that complexity is that a lot of times we feel like we can't do anything until we can do everything, and that keeps us stuck spinning our wheels. It keeps us doing tasks that maybe feel productive but aren't really making a difference—things like spending weeks on a fancy funnel because you think you need all the upsells and order bumps and card abandonment sequences and down sells and all of those things, and never launching that sequence, versus spending a few days creating a really simple funnel you can actually launch that starts bringing in sales. Or maybe for you, it's more like playing with automations and fun features on your website without thinking about the return on investment, both the time and the money that you've invested.A lot of times, those projects feel fun and it feels like we're doing something productive, but it's actually just distracting us from doing the work that brings in customers. See, what small businesses really need to do well, is actually pretty simple. You need a clear message that speaks directly to your target audience. You need a solid, professional website that features that messaging and has a nice, clear, simple, straightforward structure, and you need a straightforward call to action so that people know what they're supposed to do. A lot of times when we strip back unnecessary elements and animations and all those fun things we think we might want to put on our website, it actually helps to make your site feel more professional immediately and resonate better with your buyers. So when in doubt, simplify. All right. Here is what you need to do this week. Pick one of these five lessons and audit your business just through that one lens this week. If it's first impressions, do the three second test on your website. You can grab that in the link in my bio, or at kristendoyle.co/threeseconds, all one word. If it's your messaging, spend a little time honing in on exactly who you help and how, and write that down in 50 words or less. If it's being a little more human, then find three places that you can inject a little more personality into your website. If it's building confidence, then identify that spot where you second guess things, or you stumble over your words. Make a decision about what you can do to fix that, and then put in a little time doing that work. For me, it really was reflecting on my who, my what, and my why. Maybe that's what you need to do too. It was building out my signature method and spending some time really digging into the reasons for that so that I could feel confident sharing it with people. And if it's simplicity, then do a brain dump. List out everything you think you need, and look for those places where you can just mark things off and say, You know what, that's extra, I don't really need to complicate things. I can scale that back a little bit and still do just as well. See if you can cut your list in half. Here's what I love about those five lessons that I shared. I saw those patterns popping up across every different type of business that I worked with this year, TPT sellers, service providers, local businesses. These are those fundamental things that apply to everybody, and they make the difference between struggling and thriving. The good news, like I said at the very beginning, is that none of these things require massive overhauls of everything. It really just requires you getting super clear on the things that do matter, and setting some intentions for what you are doing, but just as importantly, for the things that you are not doing. If you're feeling overwhelmed by all five lessons, just pick one and start there. And if you want to hear how I am personally applying these lessons in my own business, make sure you tune in next week. I am going to share some specific changes and shifts I'm making in my business going into 2026. I'll talk to you then.