Good Questions Equal Great Business Strategy

Reviewing your existing business strategy, or creating a business strategy for a new business venture, should not be seen as a complex and difficult task by any business owner or business manager. In fact, the process itself can be invigorating and exciting, and if done well, will certainly make your business and personal life somewhat easier, over the next twelve months.

Unfortunately, most readily accessible literature on this subject is focused on the development of business strategies by large corporate entities or similar sized public enterprises, and what little guidance is around for the SME business owner is still overly theoretical, and in my view far more complex than it needs to be, or the simplicity of suggested methodologies is far from adequate in being able to make a real difference to business outcomes.

In reality, the process of reviewing an existing business strategy, or creating one for a new business, can be distilled into an easy three part process. Firstly, asking and answering the right questions in respect of your business, secondly, collating all of the answers and grouping them into a small number of specific strategies, and thirdly, identifying all of the tasks which need to be performed to successfully implement each strategy.

So what are the right questions that you firstly need to answer? I suggest that the following nine questions should always be asked, and answered in a comprehensive manner, as the first part of the process of developing a new business strategy.

1) What business arena are we really operating in, and is this the business arena we want to operate in?
2) What market(s) do we want to serve with this business and which particular customers/clients?
3) What outcomes do we want to achieve in the next 3, 6, 9, &12 months, and by year 2, year 3 etc?
4) What resources will we need to progressively apply in the business to achieve these specific outcomes?
5) What actions need to be taken and by whom to gather these resources so they are available as needed?
6) What management and support structures will we need to initially have, and progressively upgrade?
7) What tools will we need to put in place to measure and report progress?
8)  What external reporting requirements will we need to comply with, and how important are each of these?
9) What don’t we know, that we need to know, to manage known and unknown future risks?

Robust analysis of the answers that flow forth from the above process, and the grouping of these into relevant subject headings, will allow the second phase of the development of your business strategy to be finalised.

Ideally, the information so gathered, will allow you to quickly prepare a range of specific tasks for each of the following strategic areas;

1) Customer/Client Acquisition and Retention Strategies
2) People Acquisition and People Management Strategies
3) Resource Acquisition and Resource Management Strategies
4) Organisation Capability and Organisation Structure Strategies
5) Financial and Capital Management Strategies
6) Legal and Regulatory Compliance Strategies
7) Public Relations and Stakeholder Communication Strategies.

Once the full range of tasks has been identified for each of the strategic areas it is an easy matter to complete the third of the processes involved. That is the placing of timelines, costs or budgets, and responsibility for completion of each task to an individual or a team, against each specific task.

When this is completed your new business strategy is ready to be pulled together, documented, disseminated and put into action.

Do you have a strategic plan for your business?

If so, is it time you reviewed it and looked at it from a new angle?

If not, will this article provide you with the impetus to create one and run your business within its structured boundaries?

Business Planning Benefits Explained

The discipline involved in preparing a formal written business plan will stand any business owner in good stead as their business grows, whereas anyone proceeding with a business venture of any kind without one, is generally at short odds not to fully capitalise on the opportunity, that they seek to exploit for profit.

Preparing a formal business plan can be an eye opener for someone without a business degree or previous exposure to formal business planning processes. Business owners, who engage consultants to help them in this process, quickly become aware that there can be a lot more strategic and operational matters to be considered than they expected, and they often acknowledge that their limited understanding of the importance that these matters assume as a business grows, would most likely have cost them dearly if they had proceeded without a plan.

A business owner contemplating creating a formal business plan should consult others (which should at a minimum include legal, accounting and business advisors) who will question their assumptions, their projections, the substance of their offering to the market, and even their competence to successfully translate their ideas into a viable and sustainable business. The investment made in engaging these advisors is generally money well spent, providing of course, that the advisors are chosen carefully.

I would suggest that a business plan will never be passé, and I am confident in saying that anyone who prepares a comprehensive plan before embarking on the launch of any business venture, will give themselves a far greater chance of succeeding, than if they proceeded without one.

The most obvious benefits that a business owner will gain from the process of preparing a comprehensive business plan include the following;

a) It will force a move down from the big picture solution to the level where the detail becomes critical to the overall success of the business, and the planning required to co-ordinate all activities effectively and efficiently, becomes self-evident.

b) It will allow an early determination as to the feasibility of the proposed business activities relative to the human and financial resources definitely available to commence operations.

c) It will assist in setting the business owner’s vision in concrete, and from there allow the formulation of realistic goals, and appropriate schedules for the completion of these goals.

d) It will provide a framework for the guidance of those charged with implementing various components of the plan as to where their activities fit in relative to the achievement of the overall business objectives.

e) It will allow for financial control in the form of the allocation of budgets for each of the tasks which need to be undertaken in building the business to become a viable concern.

f) It will provide a scorecard of sorts, against which progress can be measured, necessary adjustments made, and final outcomes evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the actual planning process in the delivery of the results expected.

g) It will provide a certain level of confidence in that the planning process will have taken into account all of the known variables, thereby reducing the risk of the unknown by a significant degree and  as a consequence, providing a more solid platform upon which to grow the business.

h) It will ensure that all statutory and regulatory factors are known, the necessary compliance structures are established from day one, and all necessary training requirements are scheduled and managed.

i) It will instill the discipline of the planning process for the future years that the business will be operating, and the lessons learned from evaluating the effectiveness of each year’s process, can be utilised in making the following year’s planning more robust.

The preparation of the initial formal business plan does not have to be a laborious or expensive process, although the more time taken and the degree of expert input involved, may mean the difference between an average plan with average outcomes versus a dynamic well structured plan designed to maximise the profit opportunity for which it has been prepared to exploit.

The old adage, those that don’t plan are actually planning to fail, holds as true today in business as it always did. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to plan for the success of your business, and the extent that you embrace this responsibility, will determine the future profitability of your business.

Are you planning to succeed through embracing a formal business planning process?

If you are not familiar with such a process, are you willing to learn the process or engage those who can assist you develop a realistic plan for your business?

Can you see that an investment of time and capital into ensuring your business has a formal business plan as the framework for its future growth, will return great dividends to you, as the business owner?

Are you missing out in the new business race?

The question really should be; what is it that you are not doing, that if you did it, you would see a dramatic upswing in the fortunes of your business through the regular acquisition of new customers or clients?

Whether you like it or not, if you own a business of any kind, you are primarily in the sales business and despite the array of social media tools available today, the greatest and most effective tool anyone in the sales business has at their disposal, is still the telephone.

In the right hands, the telephone is the cheapest and most time effective means of introducing any offering to a target market and making appointments to present directly to the key decision maker.

To succeed in virtually any business, you need to have a consistent flow of appointments, to get appointments you need to talk to decision makers or their gatekeepers, to do this effectively you need to master the telephone and use it frequently to contact potential prospects who you want to become your customers or clients.

You can engineer a dramatic upswing in the fortunes of your business if you master the telephone, and make a minimum of twelve (12) calls to targeted business owners each and every business day, without fail.

After doing so for a few weeks, refining your pitch as you go along, you will find that at a minimum you should be converting at least 5 to 10 percent of the 60 weekly calls to appointments, where you will have the opportunity to make a sale. Covert a reasonable percentage of these appointments into new customers or clients, and you will be well rewarded.

The trick to succeeding in this endeavour is to set aside a minimum of 45 minutes each day, find a place where you can work free of any distractions, and do nothing in this time but make the calls. It works even better if you assign the same block of time each day to this activity.

Any business owner who adopts this discipline, sticks to it religiously on a permanent basis and at the same time works assiduously at refining and improving their pitch to the targets involved, cannot help  being successful at the key task of getting in front of as many prospects as possible, in the time they have available.

To maximise the effectiveness of this simple solution, business owners need to learn the art of the three minute telephone call. Buy an egg timer and if you see the sand has run out, and you have not arranged an appointment, terminate the conversation and move on to the next prospect.

It also helps if you keep daily records of the number of calls made, the number of appointments gained, the conversion rate of calls to appointments, and then track this ratio on an ongoing basis as you develop your skills in this area.

Who to call? You call anyone that you wish to make a customer or client within the niche you wish to create for yourself. The best sources of business leads for cold telemarketing have always been the yellow pages, local business directories, local newspaper advertisements, businesses letter drops in your local area, your local government authority, and the local chamber of commerce.

What to say? Prepare a very well crafted mini sales pitch for your product or service which will quickly grab the attention of the prospect you call, which focuses on the benefits for the customer or client, and which allows you to quickly uncover whether or not the prospect has a need for your offering.

Overcome your reluctance to pick up the telephone and then commit to simply making 12 calls each and every day to make appointments with prospective customers or clients, and before long, you will see the results and your business will be more successful.

Remember, that to make this a habitual activity and to ensure that you refine your sales pitch until it works brilliantly, you need to commit to this discipline for a minimum of 21 business days.

Is your business acquiring as many customers or clients that your product or service deserves?

Do you have a disciplined approach to telephone prospecting?

Will you devote a minimum of 5 hours per week to producing an upswing in the fortunes of your business?

Focus is Everything in Business

A long time ago, at the rear of an old and well established business that I was visiting, I found nailed on the back of the only toilet door, a story titled something along the lines of "My Busy Day".

It had obviously been there for sometime, as it was faded and torn around the edges, but the fact it was still there, indicated that it was probably worth reading as I went about my business.

I was very glad I did, as the message it contained has stayed with me to this day, and it is a message that I have been forever grateful to have received.

In essence it told the story of one person's day from the moment they arose until they lay down in their bed at the end of the day and reflected on what they had achieved during the day.

It went something like this;

Today I am going to plant a vegetable garden; I get up, get dressed, have breakfast and start heading out the door to go to the tool shed to get everything I need to start building the vegetable garden.

Just as I step out the door, the dog runs up to me carrying a stick in its mouth. I throw the stick for the dog to fetch and then notice that my bicycle has a flat tyre. I decide I had better fix the tyre because I might need the bicycle tomorrow.

I head back into the house to pick up my puncture kit from the laundry, and as I step into the laundry, I see that there is a load of washing that needs to be hung out to dry. As I carry the basket out to the washing line, I notice that someone has left the garden tap running, so I put down the washing and go over and turn the tap off.

As I head back to the washing line, I spot my gumboots that I have been looking for for a few days, lying under the wheel barrow. I walk over and pick them up and take them back into the laundry where they are normally live.

As I do this, I see through the laundry door that the kitchen window is wide open and I walk across the kitchen to shut it. On the way, I see yesterday's mail still sitting on the kitchen table so I stop and pick it up.

Knowing that several of the letters contain bills, I put them on my office desk and head to the bedroom to get my cheque book from my coat pocket. On the way to the bedroom, I pass the bathroom and see that the rubbish bin is full. I pick it up and head off to empty it.

On the way, I decide that I am thirsty, so I put the rubbish bin down beside the back door and head into the kitchen to get a glass of water. While pouring the glass of water, I notice that the fridge is desperately in need of a clean. I quickly drink the water and go out to the shed to get a cool box into which to unload the contents of the fridge.

I come back with the box, and as I open the fridge to get started I see some chocolate bars. As I now feel hungry, I grab a chocolate bar and decide to have a break. I go outside and sit on the bench on our front porch, whilst I eat it.

Admiring the view as I ate my chocolate bar, I tried to remember what it was that I had first set out to do today. Before I could remember, I saw the local policeman put a leaflet in my neighbour's letterbox and walk away. This reminded me that I had not returned a bowl I had borrowed from that neighbour, so I headed back into the house to get it.

As I walked down the hall, I kicked one of the kids toys which had been left lying on the floor. I picked that up and walked further down the hall and threw it in the child's bedroom and as I did I noticed they had not made their bed. I decided I should make the bed, but before I got to the bed, I saw that their was a pile of dirty washing on the floor, so I picked that up and started heading off to the laundry to wash it.

Going through the kitchen, I remembered I still hadn't shut the kitchen window, so I put the dirty laundry on the kitchen chair and walked over and shut the window. I then turned around and headed out to the laundry still trying to figure out what it was that I had set out to do today.

The rest of the day continued in a similar vein;

At the end of the day the vegetable garden did not get built, the bicycle still had a flat tyre, the washing had not been hung out, the bills had not been paid, the rubbish bin was still full, the fridge was still filthy, the neighbours bowl had not been returned, the kids bed was still unmade, the dirty washing was still dirty, and the dog was still sitting on the porch with a stick in its mouth.

Lying in bed that night, the person reflected upon their day and could not understand why absolutely nothing was achieved that day given that they were frantically busy all day.

Does this ring a bell with you? Do you regularly fail to achieve what you start the day out hoping to achieve? Are your business goals proving elusive?

The crime here is lack of focus, a key killer of any chance of real success in the business world.

As a business owner, you only have so many hours in the day, and you need to maximise your effectiveness in using each of those hours to be successful.

Learn the discipline of preparing a to do list for tomorrow as the last task you complete each day and make this list the first thing you look at each morning.

Make sure the first three items on this list are must do items, and then ensure that these are the major focus of your day. Don't go home until you have ticked off on each of these three must do items.

If you do this you will sleep far better at night and the results will be self evident very quickly.