As the director of the Strategies department, I write about different strategies in all of my articles. Even if the word strategy is not stated, you can read them between the lines. You might ask, why are such strategies that important to a business? Do you have to develop one big strategy in business, or try dozens of them for all your business activities? Let's try to figure this out together.
First of all, finding a right strategy is THAT important. We all use different strategies in our everyday life no matter if we recognize it or not. When we are planning our children's education to develop a strategy of saving money and choosing the right college. When we are dealing with people and use different communication strategies. Even if we want to loose weight, we have a certain strategy in mind. For example, we can follow a special diet in combination with fitness, or we can cut on desserts and do jogging in the morning. We can even choose plastic surgery. All of this will depend on our time, money, and will.
Thinking about all of these matters, we understand that strategies are very important in our everyday life. But in business, strategies are even more important, especially in home business. Here, you are the only person to make decisions and to take responsibility for these decisions. When you have chosen to be your own boss, you have already made a strategic choice. You wanted to have more freedom in business and life, felt that you will be more successful this way, in the same time having an opportunity to spend more time with your family. Hopefully, your business is booming, and you are completely satisfied with your life. But, you have to continue implementing strategic thinking; otherwise one day, you might realize that something went wrong. Maybe the situation in your market has changed and your product is no longer as desirable as it used to be. Maybe, your competitor is performing better than you, and all of your clients are now his/her clients. Maybe, you had realized that people who were working in traditional 9-5 jobs have much larger savings than you do, although you we sure that starting your own business would make you incredibly rich in one year. I am not trying to make you feel anxious or depressed, I believe that using the right strategies will help you to avoid all these situations.
The right strategy will help you to achieve all the things you want in business, and to do it wisely, step by step. First of all you have to define, what is the ultimate goal of your business. Take your time to think about it. Turn on your imagination and think BIG! Remember - big goal - big success, tiny goal - tiny success.
OK, now you know what you want. At present, you have X number of clients, Y number of products on sale, and Z amount of profit. In 5 years you want to increase all of these numbers by 100 times over. Is it realistic? Sure it is. Let's develop a general strategy of how to achieve this big goal.
You probably realize that doing it at once isn't possible, so you can first think how to increase number of clients, products, and profit 20 times in one year. Try to take all issues separately and examine them in details. For example - what brings you new clients? Is it advertising, recommendations from old clients, your own networking, or special promotion campaigns that you conduct each Christmas. Write all of these things down and calculate how many of your existing clients came to you through each of these events. Now, calculate how expensive or time consuming is it to attract a new client by doing this or that. If you see that one of the methods is working better than others are and takes the less time, effort, or money, then stick with it. Now, you have to think of how to improve this method, how often can you use it, and how much money can you invest in your own promotion.
In the same time you have to estimate if you will be able to cope with 20X the amount of work brought in by new clients. If you feel that your performance will suffer, and each of the clients might not be satisfied with the amount of attention paid to him/her by you, develop another, parallel strategy. Otherwise, a saying "don't ever wish to get a job, cause you may really get it," might become a description of your mood at the end of this year. Also, if these 20 new clients realize that your service is not as good as it seemed to them in the first place, you will loose them together with all of your new profit. So, think of how you can expand realistically.
Other strategies include planning extra education, and hiring an assistant (or several assistants) when business increases. Be realistic when writing a strategy - do not forget that any day consists of only 24 hours and you are a human being; therefore, you need to sleep, eat, and have some personal time just for you and your family. Also, think of what amount of profit you can invest in improving your business, in promotion of new products/services. Maybe, you will have to create a separate strategy on how to escape for vacation in the middle of this crazy year, without ruining all of your results. Of course, you will have to find ways to show appreciation to your clients in the end of the year to make them stay with you and your company.
This list could be very long, and the longer it is the better the results will be and the more will be achieved. You will be less anxious every day, because you have a plan to follow. You know your goals and by what means they should be reached. By spending some time developing a strategy, you ensure yourself of not losing any time by making wrong moves. It's also lots of fun and exciting to plan the future of your own business (and therefore your own future). Finally, if you manage to develop a major strategy that works, then developing minor ones for different small issues will become pretty easy.
Let your business be a success!
Think BIG, use strategic planning and be a winner!
First of all, finding a right strategy is THAT important. We all use different strategies in our everyday life no matter if we recognize it or not. When we are planning our children's education to develop a strategy of saving money and choosing the right college. When we are dealing with people and use different communication strategies. Even if we want to loose weight, we have a certain strategy in mind. For example, we can follow a special diet in combination with fitness, or we can cut on desserts and do jogging in the morning. We can even choose plastic surgery. All of this will depend on our time, money, and will.
Thinking about all of these matters, we understand that strategies are very important in our everyday life. But in business, strategies are even more important, especially in home business. Here, you are the only person to make decisions and to take responsibility for these decisions. When you have chosen to be your own boss, you have already made a strategic choice. You wanted to have more freedom in business and life, felt that you will be more successful this way, in the same time having an opportunity to spend more time with your family. Hopefully, your business is booming, and you are completely satisfied with your life. But, you have to continue implementing strategic thinking; otherwise one day, you might realize that something went wrong. Maybe the situation in your market has changed and your product is no longer as desirable as it used to be. Maybe, your competitor is performing better than you, and all of your clients are now his/her clients. Maybe, you had realized that people who were working in traditional 9-5 jobs have much larger savings than you do, although you we sure that starting your own business would make you incredibly rich in one year. I am not trying to make you feel anxious or depressed, I believe that using the right strategies will help you to avoid all these situations.
The right strategy will help you to achieve all the things you want in business, and to do it wisely, step by step. First of all you have to define, what is the ultimate goal of your business. Take your time to think about it. Turn on your imagination and think BIG! Remember - big goal - big success, tiny goal - tiny success.
OK, now you know what you want. At present, you have X number of clients, Y number of products on sale, and Z amount of profit. In 5 years you want to increase all of these numbers by 100 times over. Is it realistic? Sure it is. Let's develop a general strategy of how to achieve this big goal.
You probably realize that doing it at once isn't possible, so you can first think how to increase number of clients, products, and profit 20 times in one year. Try to take all issues separately and examine them in details. For example - what brings you new clients? Is it advertising, recommendations from old clients, your own networking, or special promotion campaigns that you conduct each Christmas. Write all of these things down and calculate how many of your existing clients came to you through each of these events. Now, calculate how expensive or time consuming is it to attract a new client by doing this or that. If you see that one of the methods is working better than others are and takes the less time, effort, or money, then stick with it. Now, you have to think of how to improve this method, how often can you use it, and how much money can you invest in your own promotion.
In the same time you have to estimate if you will be able to cope with 20X the amount of work brought in by new clients. If you feel that your performance will suffer, and each of the clients might not be satisfied with the amount of attention paid to him/her by you, develop another, parallel strategy. Otherwise, a saying "don't ever wish to get a job, cause you may really get it," might become a description of your mood at the end of this year. Also, if these 20 new clients realize that your service is not as good as it seemed to them in the first place, you will loose them together with all of your new profit. So, think of how you can expand realistically.
Other strategies include planning extra education, and hiring an assistant (or several assistants) when business increases. Be realistic when writing a strategy - do not forget that any day consists of only 24 hours and you are a human being; therefore, you need to sleep, eat, and have some personal time just for you and your family. Also, think of what amount of profit you can invest in improving your business, in promotion of new products/services. Maybe, you will have to create a separate strategy on how to escape for vacation in the middle of this crazy year, without ruining all of your results. Of course, you will have to find ways to show appreciation to your clients in the end of the year to make them stay with you and your company.
This list could be very long, and the longer it is the better the results will be and the more will be achieved. You will be less anxious every day, because you have a plan to follow. You know your goals and by what means they should be reached. By spending some time developing a strategy, you ensure yourself of not losing any time by making wrong moves. It's also lots of fun and exciting to plan the future of your own business (and therefore your own future). Finally, if you manage to develop a major strategy that works, then developing minor ones for different small issues will become pretty easy.
Let your business be a success!
Think BIG, use strategic planning and be a winner!
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