Great businesses are no accident.
So what is business strategy?
It’s deciding what to do now in order to have the business you want in the future.
Just like those what’s in and what’s out posts that were very popular on instagram earlier in the year. Business strategy is where you think about what you want from your business and formulate a plan to make that happen.
Lots of service providers talk about strategy. There’s brand strategy and business strategy and marketing strategy and content strategy and advertising strategy and social media strategy and people strategy and the list goes on.
There’s lots of thinking and deciding when you’re a business owner.
Business strategy is the highest level of strategy that will exist in your business.
Any other strategy in your business flows from this foundation. Business strategy is answering these questions:
Who we want to work with
What and how much we want to sell to them
What’s valuable about what we have to offer and how we do it (for the above people/businesses)
How we want to interact with our customers (eg faceless transaction through to attending your wedding level of relationship)
How we’ll reach our customers and how we’ll deliver our thing to them
What we need to be really good at
Who or what we need to have in our team (resources)
Who or what we’ll need standing by our side (partners/collaborators)
How much all of this will cost to deliver
Once you’re clear about these 9 elements of your business model, you can start to map out how your business will work. It’s something that small business owners aren't doing well, that could make such a big difference to their longevity, profitability and impact.
I love how business strategy is both creative and strategic. It’s like looking at a garden (or imagining a future garden) and thinking about what you want it to look like and how you want it to make you feel.
My love of business strategy
I love that I get to use my brand, marketing, copywriting, content, digital, human resources, leadership and communication skills alongside my financial skills (which underpin everything I do) when I’m working on business strategy with my clients. It’s a right and left brain and all over body experience for me to be working in this space with my clients.
There’s lots that you can do to think about your own business strategy. I’ll walk you through it.
Customer Segments
Who we want to work with
What groups of customers do you want to work with?
Are there multiple client or customer types that you work well with?
What is the market size or demand for each group of customers? I.e. there might not be a huge demand for left handed screwdrivers bu there might be a huge demand for kid sized screwdrivers
What do you know about your customers, such as where they go for recommendations or advice?
What is important to these customer groups, both in general and in the context of your product or service?
Revenue Streams
What and how much we want to sell to them
What do our customers need from us that they're willing to pay for?
Are there different ways to package our services (i.e. retainers, hourly rate, group, 1:1) or products (bundles, subscriptions)?
What other revenue streams can we grow, so we’re more diversified?
How many clients, or projects, or transactions do we want to work with or deliver each year?
How much annual revenue are we aiming for
Annual revenue = how much (price) x how many (volume) which I explained here
Unique Value Proposition
What’s valuable about what we have to offer and how we do it (for the above people/businesses)
What is your secret sauce?
What do you know or do that your customers don’t?
Why would (your ideal client) want to work with you?
What do your best clients say about your business or how you do things?
How do you explain what you do and how you do it?
Customer Relationships
How we want to interact with our customers (eg faceless transaction through to attending your wedding level of relationship)
Will we feel really close to our clients or a faceless email address?
How long do we want to work with each of our customers?
How do we want these relationships to feel?
Channels (Marketing and Delivery)
How we’ll reach our customers and how we’ll deliver our thing to them
How will we deliver our products and services to our clients?
What mediums will we use to deliver value (eg phone, parcel post, email, Zoom, online platform, in person, ecommerce website)
How will our customers find us?
What are our best marketing channels?
Key Activities
What we need to be really good at
What do you need to do really well, to have a successful business?
What are you great at doing or providing?
What is easy for you that’s not easy for others?
Are there things you need to be great at that you might need to outsource or hire for?
Key Resources
Who or what we need to have in our team
We know what we need to be good at (above), so what human resources will we need to have in house?
Are there other resources we need, such as equipment, or a large email list, or specialised technology?
Are there resources (things, people, skills) we’ll need in the future?
Key Partners and Collaborators
Who or what we’ll need standing by our side
Not all of our key people will be in our team, so who will we collaborate with?
What skills will we need to be able to outsource to be successful?
Which providers can we work with to deliver these skills?
Where are the gaps in our needs and who do we need to build a relationship with?
Costs
How much all of this will cost to deliver
What will be our main costs to deliver all of this value to our customers?
Will some of these costs be more important than others?
How much will we spend on each category of expenses?
Does this allow our business to be profitable? If not, how do we get profitable?
That’s a lot of questions
I know that this seems like a lot of questions to answer, and it is. I also know that business owners who spend time working on their business strategy are more likely to end up building the business that they actually want. It’s so easy to be passive as a business owner, floating from one random project or customer or marketing activity to another. And if you’re serious about being successful (whatever that looks like for you) as a business owner, your business strategy is the foundation that your success will be built on.
Once you’ve mapped out these decisions you can start to build out a plan, or a business design, that takes you from here to there.
If you love the idea of working with me on your business strategy, go and take a look at how you could Work With Me. Business and finance strategy are the foundations that all of the work I do are built upon, and I love nothing more than getting my left and right brain firing on all cylinders as I help purpose led business owners create their business strategy, financial forecast and design their business. I’d love to do it for you. You can join my group program waitlist at any time to be in the know when the next round kicks off or subscribe to my mailing list for some Peach in your inbox.