Tweet

Start Being StrategicTo Be Successful In Business

Guest post by: Andrew Ludlam

Article Overview: In this article, I am going to turn the attention to you, the business owner, and examine why a strategic focus is essential in growing you business, and in helping you set yourself apart from the competition.

Start Being StrategicTo Be Successful In Business

The problem that many business owners have, is that they tend to think very tactically i.e. how can they can get more clients. This is very important - however - you must always be working tactically, from a strategic focus. Let me explain: for you to have any chance of being perceived as the expert or authority in your industry, you must look at the bigger picture, and ultimately be able to answer the question, "What do we want to be known for?" or "What is the ultimate position we want to hold in the market place?".

In other words, focus on how your 'tactical' activities can impact on your strategic or positioning objectives.

Why is it that so many businesses look the same or do the same without making any real impact? They merely survive, as opposed to thrive. Very often this is because the business is centred on the wrong thing: the product or service. Instead, focus on serving the needs of your clients better than anyone else in your industry.

That is the key: making someone else's life better in such a profound and purposeful way, such that it differentiates and lifts you above the competition. The durability of any business, and for that matter the resilience and robustness of any business owner, is to focus totally on making the lives of your clients better.

You see many business owners start up in business and unfortunately get it wrong from the very beginning. For example, they will focus on a specific product or service that they might have previous experience of, or may have worked a similar role before, or simply want to try something new. They will then scrabble around trying to find clients, without ever giving any real thought to what makes them different - what ultimately are they offering to the market - what position do they want to take - what is their overall strategy?

Do not design the business around you - instead - design your business around the needs, wants and desires of your client. This is what will ensure longevity; this is what will ensure you position your business in a category of one.

Of course the purpose for running your own business is to improve your life - you're putting a lot at stake here. However, your ultimate strategic focus should always be client led. Build your business around what your potential client wants. Or even better, build your business around the client, such that, it removes some form of pain, frustration or problem. You're not just in the business of marketing; you're essentially in the business of solving problems. Never forget this, especially when crafting your marketing message.

With so many businesses all looking the same and offering the same, it is vital that you are able to offer a clear, competitive edge; something that clearly resonates with your audience and is a point of differentiation. In fact, it might reasonably be assumed that the reason many businesses have gone to the wall, it simply because they were never able to offer a compelling and persuasive edge; or literally were too inwards looking and did not see their business from the point of view of the client. A tactical, ad-hoc approach, as opposed to a strategic focus.

However as with most things, this is much easier said than done. Trying to identify a key competitive edge is difficult and can take time. Most business owners will never attempt this exercise, and that is why most business owners do not create the impact they want in their sector. They have set themselves up to be an also-ran, as opposed to striving to make any real impact.

So let's now explore three key areas that collectively, will help you discover your strategic objective - what you want to be known for - and enable you to stand out and become the expert in your field. Each of these areas, when explored in detail, will offer you plenty of insight as to how best to out-market your competition. We'll start with the obvious one first.

Study the competition:

Examine your competition closely, and get a good grounding in how they market themselves. For example, what do they do well and more importantly, what don't they do so well. What areas are your competitors falling short on? You will need to remain reasonably objective at this point, however, by observing the opposition you will become a lot clearly on how to better market what you do. So areas you might want to focus on include:

• Does your competition keep in regular contact with their prospects i.e. do they use opportunities to build a list?
• Is the marketing client-focused, or focused on the product or service?
• Is it obvious when reviewing their website that the company comes across as an authority in their field? If so, how? And can you borrow some of these ideas?
• Perhaps you could even go as far as ordering their product or service and see for yourself how they deliver? Is your competition providing 'value' at every stage of the interaction?

I'm almost certain there will be key areas where your competition is falling down on. So exploit and utilise this is your overall strategy.

Study the commentary:

Part two of the exploratory phase now consists of looking at, and analysing the commentary that is used in your sector. This can be a very powerful form of research, especially with regards to establishing a strategic goal.

Start to pay closer attention to trade magazines and periodicals, as well as online platforms. Look at the thought leaders in your field, and if they have a blog, see what posts are frequently made. What are the reoccurring themes that your industry comments on or discusses? What problems, issues and concerns are frequently focused on?

Because you are able to tap into a rich theme of ongoing thought processes, you can use this in your marketing messages and talk directly to your audience.

Study your prospects:

The third and final phase of the research process will involve the most important: your prospects. We have already highlighted how every business should be client-led; therefore never underestimate how critical this is to your success.

What are your prospects fears and frustrations? Try and develop a mental image of your prospect. Try to imagine who it is you're going to be talking too.

Appreciate that your prospect is not buying your product or service; they are buying the results of your product or service. So try and get into their mindset and get an idea of what they really want, or what issues, problems and concerns they want to solve. For example, visit relevant forums or bulletin boards in your sector; what topics of discussion keep coming up? Having a clearly picture of what your prospects want, will give you a clearer idea on what you want to be known for.

By reviewing the competition, the key commentators in your field and gaining a deeper understanding of the wants and needs of your prospects; you will have a much clearer idea as to how to position yourself strategically or in other words, be able to answer the question "What do we want to be known for?"

Related Articles
  Creating Success
  The Most Successful Home Based Businesses Available Today
  Market your Business like the Pros Do
  Knowing The Entrepreneur Definition Will Help You Become A Successful Entrepreneur
  Home Business Expert: Eliminate Your Limiting Beliefs
  3 Facts to Learn About Affiliate Marketing
  Do You Deserve To Be Happy and Successful?
  The Best Home Based Business Opportunity
  How To Write Articles To Be Successful
  How to Determine Your Future Success
  Start With Passion!
  Are YOU Taking Your Business Serious?
  Ideas To Work From Home With Your Own Home Business Online
  Tips for Encouraging Your MLM Downline to Improve Performance
  Ideas To Make Money As A Business Coach
  A Small Internet Business Could Enable You To Quit Your Job
  Starting An Online Business? Did You Know It Was So Easy?
  Entrepreneurs and Success-Seven Qualities that Matter Most
  Be Successful with the Right Internet Marketing Skills
  Questions and Answers About Starting An Internet Business

Article Tags: business strategy, marketing consultancy, marketing consultant, positioning, strategic



Related Forum Posts
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
Re: How can I promote my site? - To promote website online you need to hire professional SEO expert because you have to perform the below activities for your website promotion:- Start On page optimization which includes the following task:- 1. Meta tag optimization 2. Header Tag Optimization 3. Alt tag Optimization 4. Content Optimization 5. Anchor Text Optimization 6. URL Optimization 7. Navigation Optimization After On page optimization, Start off Page Optimization which includes the following task:- 1. Link building 2. Directory submission 3. Classified Ads submission 4. Article submission 5. Press Release submission 6. Social Bookmarking 7. Business Listing 8. Local Listing 9. Blog Optimization 10. PPT Creation & Optimization
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: What's 1 word to describe what your business will be in 2012 - Successful.
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Understanding Influence

Ten Ways to Make Blogging Work for Your Business

3 Pointers to Recruiting and Retaining Good Staff

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.