Many of the small business owners that I come across do not do strategic planning regularly; some not at all. For those of you who own and manage small businesses, this may not be not much of a surprise. Servicing customers, dealing with vendors and suppliers, managing our teams, and addressing the day to days of finances, HR, payroll, inventory, marketing and sales, etc can fill our days and often not leave much time for anything else.
Strategic planning is a deliberate, actionable process to identify and plan for the things you will do that will grow your business. And it does not have to be an onerous, overly time-consuming activity. There are many very popular and effective strategic planning frameworks in use today by thousands of businesses, large and not-so-large. They have been developed by brilliant thinkers and well-regarded global consulting firms. I will list some of them here, and you can find plenty of information on all of them with a quick Google search or AI prompt. I have used all of them to positive results. Here is this list: McKinsey’s 7S’s, McKinsey’s 3 Horizons, BCG’s 2×2 Matrix, Porter’s 5 Forces, SWOT Analysis, and others.
Over the years, I have developed a couple of cheats for strategic planning which I have used with clients from 5 figures to 9 figures in revenue. My intent was to enable clients to engage in an exercise that did not seem overwhelming yet could be an effective planning and execution process. I hope you will try them as a means to begin to perform strategic planning or to augment your current strategic planning process with a somewhat different lens. They are simple but can be a powerful tool to grow your business. So here they are:
Know Your Competition; Emulate What They Do Well, and Exploit Them Where They Are Weak
We all have competition; we see what they sell, how they sell, how they price, how they market, what social media they use, etc. Why reinvent the wheel? If it works for them, it will likely also work for you. At the same time – you know what you do better than they do, providing opportunities to command the space. Focus on those areas of strength.
More of the Same, or Something Different?
Seems way too simple – but If what you are doing is working, why mess with a good thing? Be aware of changing markets, demographics, technology, competitive offerings, etc that may trigger needing changes to your business model, but if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. In fact, figure out how to do more and better, further securing your foundation! On the other hand, if the indicators (sales, profitability, morale, etc) are going the wrong way, the odds are good that is not going to get any better. It’s easy sometimes to hold on to the past, expecting a turnaround without any real reason to do so. Instead, act with a sense of urgency. Figure out the obvious fixes and execute. Pilot where you are unsure. Crowd source wisdom from your team and let them help solve the problems; often, they are much closer to it than you are. Seek outside help if necessary. A fresh perspective may create better potential solutions. Document everything: ideas, deliberations, decisions made, actions, outcomes, etc.