[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1548289356400{background-color: #bcbcbc !important;}”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”4635″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1753491617377{padding-right: 19px !important;padding-left: 19px !important;}”]Strategy is critical to your success. Often it is made more complicated than it needs to be. The heart of good strategy is a thorough understanding of your customer’s need and then organizing your company in such a way to meet that need in an effective and efficient manner. It is that simple. It is finding the need, meeting the need and collecting a check. To learn more, download the chapter on strategy.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]
Chapter 4: Strategy Counts
Strategy is a bigger topic than this short book can cover. I mention it here, however, because strategy is one of the fundamental steps of success. We will talk about it briefly, with the understanding that strategy is a topic worthy of its own book. In fact, two of the best books on strategy I have read are Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, by Richard Rumelt, and Strategy and the Fat Smoker, by David Maister. There is a lot of confusion as to what strategy really is, but what strategy is not is vision and goal setting (topics I will cover later).
It Starts with a Need
In graduate school one of the instructors (a business person, not a professor) told us something that I have never forgotten. He said that business was relatively simple and amounts to this: Find a need, fill the need, and collect a check. Then he added, don’t screw it up in the middle because most businesses owners do screw it up.
To me this is the heart of good strategy: finding the need and figuring out how you will meet that need. Knowing what problem you are solving and how you will solve it is strategy. Then you organize your business in such a way that it can meet the needs in the most efficient and effective manner.
According to research by Nathan Furr and Jeff Dyer in their book The Innovators Method, the most successful companies do not just offer products that are easier to use, they offer products that delight their customers. How do you delight your customers? By meeting their needs and solving their problems. The authors go on to say that you have to first deeply understand the customer’s problem, pain, or desire. They describe it as the job to be done and it comes from understanding a problem in a way that others have not, and then going beyond the customer’s expectations in providing a solution.
As Richard Rumelt says in Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, a good strategy has an essential logical structure and a set of coherent actions. He illustrates with Apple and Steve Jobs: ìIn 1997 two months from bankruptcy, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as interim CEO. Steve did the unexpected and shrunk Apple down to a more suitable size to be a niche producer in the highly competitive personal computer business.î. He cut Apple back in order for the business to survive. Steve’s strategy was to go after and address the fundamental problem of survival with a focused and coordinated set of actions. Where is Apple today?
In essence, strategy is an intentional focus and alignment of resources that delivers maximum and measurable results to meet the customers’ needs.
Success Steps
- What problem are you going to solve?
- Where is the problem located?
- How will you solve it?
- How will you organize your company in order to solve the problem?
- How will you add value to your customers?
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It’s Not Hard, It’s Business
Fundamental Steps to help business owners learn what it takes to grow their business and increase their revenue.
As the former GM and COO of a $40 million company with seven locations I have learned what it takes to be successful in business. In this book, I share some keys to sustainable business growth and acceleration and the way to close the gap between your performance and your dreams.
You didn’t go into business to just get by, you got into it to succeed. Follow our series on the website and get your desktop reference copy from Amazon.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”4271″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
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