What is a business strategy? A guide for small business owners
If you’re a small business owner you may have heard that you need a business strategy or you’ve been asked if you have a business strategy? But what does it truly mean and why do you need one for your business?
Let’s unravel what a business strategy is together and how it can guide and support you to build and grow your online business.
The Core of Business Strategy
Business strategy can often sound a lot more complex and confusing than it is, at it’s core a business strategy is a well-thought-out plan that has been designed to help you achieve the goals in your business. It’s created to guide you and support you as you navigate building your business. An intentional business strategy aligns with your mission and values with smaller purposeful action steps that continually move you closer to your vision.
The Elements of your Business Strategy
Let’s take a high level look at what’s included in a business strategy. Think of your business strategy as a compass that directs the decisions and actions you take in your business. There are elements of your business strategy that evolve and change like your goals, capacity, marketing, and others that stay more constant such as your mission, values, vision.
1. Mission & Vision
Your strategy begins with having clarity around the why for starting your business. What do you wish to achieve? What are you passionate about? What values drive your decisions and actions? This stage is essential for planting the seeds for your business to grow. I have a blog on the 10 steps of business strategy, where you get a fill in the gaps mission statement to help craft your own here.
2. Goals & Objectives
Having goals help you work towards your big vision, your goals will change each season of business, so reviewing and setting your goals every few months keeps you focused and heading in the right direction.
3. Market Research & Ideal Client
Understanding where your business fits and how you want it to fit in your industry is an important step when creating your business strategy. Carrying out market research helps you identify any gaps your business can support, it also identifies any potential challenges you could face along your business journey. This is also a stage to get clear on who your audience is, who are you trying to help and support through your work.
4. Offerings & Unique Touch
This is the fun part, creating your offerings. What services/products is your business going to offer? Also think about what makes your approach different and stand out, what unique touch you can bring to these offers. Remember you as a person are already unique and different to anyone else, so don’t forget to embrace your individuality, that can be enough to stand out.
5. Intentions & Action Plan
Next, it’s about bringing this altogether and creating an action plan for your goals. You may want to break down your goals into monthly action plans to make it more manageable, this is down to how you like to work. But start by writing out the actions you need to take for each goal and start to build that into a timeframe.
6. Analysing & Reviewing
Don’t forget to check in with how you’re doing. At the end of each month, spend some time reviewing what’s working, the progress of actions and if anything isn’t working. It’s also a great time to reflect and check your actions are aligned with your vision and values.
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FREE WORKSHOP: Build Your Business With Intention
In this 30 minute workshop we look at the 4S’s within your business that impact how you show up and run your business. You will then identify which of these areas needs more support and clarity around what you want this to look like, then set out action steps for you to work on and implement after the workshop.
An Intentional Business Approach
As a mindful, small business owner bringing some intention and gentleness to your strategy can bring more joy and fulfilment as you build your business, consider these prompts as you develop your business strategy and your business:
Intentionality
Making decisions in your business need to feel right for you. Being mindful of what you’re saying yes to, what actions you’re taking helps you to stay more aligned with your vision and values. Monthly reflections and intention setting can help to bring greater intentionality to your days.
Seasonality
I love supporting my clients to embrace a seasonal approach to their business strategy, you can read more about seasons of business in this blog. The idea is to work in alignment with your natural rhythm, so creating a business strategy that understands and adapts to your needs, adjusting your output during seasons of lower energy and non-business priorities.
Connectivity
Connection is so important as a business owner, as there can be times of loneliness and uncertainty, so by cultivating connections with peers, your clients, other business owners you create a greater sense of support. Think about how you can bring more connection and community into your business whether it’s going to networking events, in-person meet ups, virtual coffee chats, joining a membership, working with a coach or consultant.
Adaptability
Business will always be ebbing and flowing, much like life. Being open to change or adjusting plans and doing this in a supportive way for yourself is so important as you grow your business. Change will always happen and we can’t control it, so being flexible and adapting will help you build resilience and long term sustainability in your business. The monthly reflection and intention setting is really great if you need to make any changes or adapt.
After reading this blog, I hope you feel more clear around what a business strategy is, and it’s not as scary or complex as it may appear. Remember, a well-crafted strategy brings you clarity and purpose, it guides the decisions and direction of your business with an intentional action plan whilst giving you the space to adapt and change if needed.
