How good is your strategy?

This week's Impact Improver looks at a simple method of assessing the effectiveness of your business strategy. It relies on discovering whether your strategy provides the answers to six fundamental questions about you and your business. Prior to introducing these questions, I want to define what I mean by (business) strategy and state a precondition to using the article. 

Business strategy - definition
Many businesses have lots of different strategies for different parts of the business. That's fine by me, but the most important one in my view is (what most people refer to as) the Marketing Strategy. In micro and small businesses, this is one strategy you absolutely cannot do without. It's a mandatory requirement in my view and pretty much doubles up as an overall business strategy anyway.

What is it?

"A (marketing) strategy is an explanation of how I get my products or services into the marketplace and in front of as many potential customers as I can, as quickly and as cheaply as I can and in such a way that's difficult for my competition to copy."

Just think of the latent power in such a statement. How good would you feel if you had all the above encapsulated on a few sides of paper?

Precondition for using this article
If you haven't yet documented your strategy, please do so now. You'll find it so much easier to 'proof test' something that's written down that attempting to test ideas prior to writing them.

A testing time for your strategy
I was introduced to the following questions when studying for the Institute of Director's "Diploma in Company Direction" in the UK (contact Roger Godfrey at the University of Salford in the UK, www.aems.salford.ac.uk/iod). I've slightly modified the questions in terms of their application, in that I propose a 'double pass' approach thus:

Review your strategy against each question, posing each as a closed question, i.e. one that requires a simple "yes/no" answer. This gives you a very simple and quick overview as to the health of your strategy.
Repeat the above, this time posing each question as an open question by inserting the word "How..." in front of each one. If you answered "yes" first time around, you now have to state "how" you do it - and if you're going to be honest with yourself (and why wouldn't you be?) - then you'll produce some evidence that supports your statement of "how...".

The six questions
Here they are, written as closed questions, ready for use in step one above:

1. Does it force choice?
   Whatever you may like to think, you cannot sell everything to everybody - so who are you going target and what are you going to sell them?
2. Does it focus effort?
   If I read your strategy I ought to get a view of how you're spending your time and money - do I?
3. Does it balance continuity with change?
   Are you actually involved in a market that you know something about? How are you producing positive change in that market, that's difficult for your competition to emulate?
4. Does it integrate the organisation?
   Micro-businesses are by definition small, and this question is often over-looked. However, if I'm your part-time admin assistant (for example) I ought to be able to read your strategy and gain an understanding of what's important to you. This will help me use my initiative in deciding how best to serve you and ought to help you write my job description, (and you do have a job description for your part-time admin assistant, don't you?)
5. Does it convert big ideas into actions?
   Can I read it and then take action which I know is going to be useful to you?
6. Does it add value or reduce cost?
   These are the two critical questions that underpin any business decision. If your strategy does neither of the above, then why are you making the investment?
   As you can see, the insertion of the word "How" in front of all the above questions converts them from closed to open questions and makes them useful for the second step in the process.

Go to it - get stuck in - you've not a moment to loose on the path to riches.

 

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