Are You A Small Business Owner? What is Your Business Strategy?

Strategy is about focus. You can’t do everything, so you do the right thing. You can’t please everyone so you select who to please based on common sense, your strength and your weakness and how you are different. You can’t sell everything, so you sell what you are really good at, what makes you appealing different and what sets you apart. You can’t do everything so you do what’s most important, what gives you the most benefit per unit of resources, what aligns you best with your target market and your focused business offerings…Tim Berry

A business strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. Strategy means dreaming. Strategy is futuristic.

As a small business owner, what is your business strategy? What strategies are you putting in place now to grow your business for the future? According to the Bloomberg research, out of every ten companies, eight fail within the first 18 months. In other to ensure the success of your business here are five questions to make sure that you are executing the right strategy to ensure your business doesn’t just survive but thrives:

1.    Where Am I Now?

To answer this question, you will need to do a SWOT analysis of your business to understand what you are doing well and areas you can improve. What are your short and long-term goals? A short-term goal for your business might be to ensure your products are in every retail store in a particular area, and a long-term goal might be planning to take your products to the international market. What is your area of expertise? Is your experience your strength, what makes you think customers will pick you over competitors? What technology or skills can you use to boost your business? What aspects of your business do you need to improve on or drop?

2.    Where Am I Going?

What is the vision you have for your business? Why are you in business? A vision gives your business clarity of purpose. You vision for your business should motivate you and the people who work for you. It is important to have a vision because it enables you to link your actions to the goals you want to achieve. Think now and write down – 5 years from now what should you have achieved in your business – let this be specific to show what you will do and what you would not do – For example, I run a home business, baking cupcakes. I currently make about ten boxes of cupcakes a week and sell to friends and family – 5 years from now my cupcake business should move from a home business to owning my cupcake shop which gives me the capacity to serve more clients and make more money.

3.    How Do I Get There?

In other to achieve your goals and make your vision a reality what skill will you require. It is best to work on improving your business every day – do one thing every day that takes you closer to your vision –learn a new skill, learn a new trick. What technology can you leverage to boost your business, what trends do you need to follow. It is easy to write down your vision, but you will need to apply an action to make it a reality – do you have your business plan written down, have you assigned responsibilities and have you set realistic timelines. In other to take my cupcake business to the next level, what do I need to do, I need to write new recipes, learn different decorating techniques and learn how to bake different types of cake.

4.    What Resources Do I Need?

Your most valuable resource is your business. What other resources will you require – how can you access capital, what human resources will you need? And what kind of technology or equipment will you need? Is your business duly registered – what level of education do I need? An understanding of what resources you need will help you take your business from one level to another.

5.    When I Get There, How Do I Sustain It?

Building a business that will be sustainable in the long-run takes deliberate efforts – you need to hire the right people, prospect the right client and continuously respond to change. Change here can be technology, market trends, economic changes and the evolving customer. Your business should remain aggressive in the marketplace. Recognize what is going on around you, what are your competitors doing, plan for the worst –Innovate or die! To build a sustainable business requires adaptability and foresight.

When you can answer these five questions clearly, then you are ready to take your business to the next level.