In the business world, professionals are obsessed with tactics because they can help them meet their short-term goals. But if all you do is focus on the short-term, you won’t spend enough time or energy figuring out how you can succeed in the long-term.
Business Strategy
Your business strategy is a roadmap for achieving your business’ goals. It establishes a set of principles that inform your business’ priorities, decisions, and actions. It’s not, however, the actual tactics you’ll leverage to execute your business strategy.
How to Build a Business Strategy
Identify your business’ aspirations and values.
Conduct a self-assessment.
Pinpoint which segments of your market you want to capture.
Determine how you’ll beat your competition.
Set clear goals.
Make a plan.
Figure out which competencies are needed to beat your competition and sustain your business’ success.
Decide which management systems are needed to hone these competencies.
Measure your results.
Be flexible and willing to adapt.
Consider hiring a business consultant.
1. Identify your business’ aspirations and values.
In business, traditional goal setting lets you measure what you do, but it doesn’t lend itself to gauging how you do it or why. And if you only focus on the results, it can sometimes incentivize you to take a course of action that prioritizes your organization’s needs over your customers’ needs.
To help you focus more on your purpose and process instead of just your results, consider setting and anchoring to an aspiration, or your vision for your business in the future when building your business strategy — it’ll inspire you to do work that better serves your customers. Once you set an anchor to an aspiration, you can add your goal to the equation, which will help you simultaneously produce customer-centric work and hit your numbers.
. Conduct a self-assessment.
Once you’ve figured out your business aspirations and values, it’s time to conduct a self assessment to help you evaluate the best avenues for business growth and success.
You can do this by conducting a SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business. What do you do well and how can you capitalize on that? What can be improved and how?
3. Pinpoint which segments of your market you want to capture.
Your product or service most likely isn’t the best fit for your entire market, so it’s crucial to pinpoint the segment or segments of your market that benefit the most from your product or service.
Customers who genuinely need and want your product or service are also the customers who retain the longest and are least likely to churn, boosting your customer lifetime value and lowering your customer acquisition costs.
