small business gurus - the blog of Cat & Keith Matson

by Cat Matson

I am a big proponent of business owners having a clear strategy.  I’m not so big on ‘plans’.

Plans invite us to drop into minutiae, a level of detail that doesn’t serve us in achieving our goals… but also puts us off creating the plan to start with.  Plans also feel a bit more rigid… and for entrepreneurial business owners, they can feel a bit stifling, not leaving enough room for creativity or spontaneous response to changing conditions or new opportunities.

A strategy however is quite different.  Your strategy is the over-riding theme for how you are going to achieve your business goals.  It gives you the foundation on which to build detailed execution plans, if that is your style, but doesn’t require that level of detail to still give you a strong sense of where you are going… and how you are going to get there.

What makes up a good strategy then?

A good strategy simply answers the following questions;

WHY are we in business?  Why does the business exist (think both in terms of value it provides customers as well as value to the owners)? 

WHO are we?  What do we (as a business unit) stand for, what are our values? 

WHO do we serve?  What is this group’s ‘problem’ that we are fixing?

WHAT do we do to fix the customers’ problem? How do we fix the problem in a way that’s different to our ‘competitors’?

HOW do we make money by fixing the customers’ problem?  What is our business model?

WHERE do we want to be in the future? Can we get there using this business model?

WHEN do we want be in that future position?

If you (and your team) can answer these questions clearly you will have a strong compass for running your business.  Economic, political, environmental or even technological conditions may change…but with a clear strategy you’ll be able to keep moving ahead… it will just be the ‘details’ that might change.

Cat

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