Fires - Focus - Growth

Fires - Focus - Growth

Are you trying to solve too many problems at once?

Or are you stalled because you don't know where to start? 

Business is a busy place! There are so many things to think about. It's easy to get caught up in everyday tasks and challenges. There's never enough time to stop and think, "Where do we want to be in 3 or 5 years - and what would make the biggest difference this year?"

Create a Winning Strategy - continued

(Originally posted spring 2012)

Stand out from the crowd. Don’t be a sheep!

In my previous blog, I looked at the importance of having a strategy firmly focused on the needs of our customers.

In this blog I’ll be looking at how that translates into creating actions and daily work-plans.

But most importantly, my intention is to gently remind everyone: 

Review your Strategic Plan. It's a vital document.

So, with a clear sense of what we can offer that is irresistible to our customers – we also need to make sure that it stands apart from the offerings of our competitors.

I’m sure that most people reading this blog are familiar with USPs (unique selling points) or the need to differentiate (if not, leave me a comment and I’ll expand on it). But even when managers are familiar with the idea, these question easily get skipped:

“How can I differentiate my product/service in a way that’s not easily copied?”

“What have we invested in that would make it hard for competitors to catch-up?”

Examples of the investment that underpins a USP may be:

• A product which is really different (ideally patented).
• A superior service with a unique system to deliver it.
• Better operational efficiency and effectiveness.
• The best trained people.
• The most highly rated brand.

Any USP that can easily be copied doesn’t stay a USP for long – and then all you can do is compete on price and reduce your profits.

Any business, large or small, that wants to differentiate itself has to be set-up to deliver that USP better than anybody else!

It also needs to consider developments in the wider environment that it operates in. Again, I’m sure the readers of this blog are familiar with SWOT analysis: the Strengths and Weakness of the business (internal factors) against and Threats or Opportunities from wider environment (external factors).

Then the overall marketing led strategy needs to be converted into operational plans. The overall objectives of the business need to be broken down into financial objectives and all the operational objectives that will deliver the strategy: sales and marketing, product/service delivery, finance, legal, admin, HR etc.

From there, objectives and targets are broken down into projects to achieve them, with defined stages and milestones (agreed points at which those stages are complete) – and then into smaller tasks and actions.

I’m aware that this blog isn’t a comprehensive guide to Strategic Planning. There are countless weighty books on the subject. My intention here is to serve as a reminder to the countless SMEs that are too busy working their businesses that it’s essential to review and renew their Strategic Plan.

The Strategic Plan is the document that allows all other decisions to be made wisely:

• What to focus on and what to drop
• How to prioritise time
• Who to hire and who to retire
• What relationships to develop and which to diminish

So to recap again. Having a carefully thought out Strategic Plan is vital. It’s the primary task from which all other activity should flow. 

Selectivity is a key leadership skill – and that can’t be done without clarity on what we’re trying to achieve, why and how.

Strategic Planning is the thinking that needs to be done to save us from running around like busy fools.

If you haven’t looked at your plan for a while, or updated it for over a year, now is the time to sit down and do that essential thinking with your top team.

Leadership & Motivation - "Catch Yourself Winning"!

(Originally posted Summer 2011)

What really drives us?

One of the most important things to understand about leadership and motivation is… Emotions Drive Behaviour!

The simple truth is - they do! 

And if emotions are at the heart of behaviour then they are also at the heart of leadership and motivation.


But what is an emotion?

In it’s simplest form, an emotion is a biochemical shift in our bodies to help us survive and thrive! If we see a tiger, we’re filled with chemicals to help us fight or run away. If we see someone we find sexually attractive, our bodies fill with chemicals to help us ‘make love’ - increasing our offspring and chance of survival…

So what does this have to do with winning?

When we feel like we’re winning, our bodies fill with chemicals, especially testosterone, which make us want to keep going and try harder. Testosterone feels good… and whatever we were doing, we want to feel good and do it again.

So to motivate people, including ourselves, a simple guideline is to “catch ourselves winning.”

We want to create goals where we feel we can - and will - win.

If a task is too great - break it down into manageable stages.

If it looks unattainable - reconsider the plan!


If things aren’t going well, one of the most important tasks is to be upfront about the situation – and then create a realistic and workable plan where even the smallest success can be celebrated.

The more subtle art of motivation is knowing what other people want. What do they really consider to be ‘a win’ in the long-term? …How to find that out is another subject.

Photo by April Davidson via Flickr.

Blurry Eyed or Focused on the Vision?

(Originally posted Spring 2011)

If you can read this, you’re too close…

How Bumper Sticker Strategies focus teams on their vision.

In Smart Things to Know about Strategy, by Richard Koch, he introduces the idea of a "bumper sticker strategy."

This idea can be successfully used to produce a crisp, clear statement that sets the direction of a company - internally and to the outside world.

I'm bending his words a little, but in essence a “bumper sticker strategy” sums up a business in one sentence, whilst:

1. Declaring what they do that's different from their competitors.
2. Promising something of great value to all their key customers.
3. Being underpinned by what they do better than anyone else (their core competence).
4. Also being underpinned by a unique system to deliver it.

The end result may be a little leaner than a mission statement. But in my opinion, if well crafted and memorable, they're much more use.

A couple of my favourite examples from the book (though they're probably out of date by now) are:

Ikea – Stylish furniture at low prices for young families

Virgin – debunk the establishment, business as fun

This crisp, clear statement creates a focus for decisions and actions - at every level of a company.

If a decision or action doesn’t in some way serve the strategy, it should be left out.

Now... what is your Bumper Sticker Strategy?

Photo by Paul Wicks via Flickr.