What strategy is (and what it isn’t):

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Article |Strategic Planning|What strategy is (and what it isn’t):Strategy, Oh what a lofty word. High-minded. Mysterious even conjuring wizards behind the curtain. Military generals hidden in a secret bunker calling the shots. The simple word “strategy” can be added to just about anything to make it sound more important or thought-out, strategic relationship building is still just going to a cocktail party or out to lunch with a potential client.

Despite it’s overuse, strategy is still vitally important. Just the act of thinking about something, breaking it down and making a plan, is a thing of beauty in and of itself. Strategy is The Plan, the 360 view. It’s how all the pieces fit together, and what will hopefully result from our actions or reactions.

It turns out a lot of people have a lot to say about strategy. Every conflict ever known has figured in some kind of attack or reaction. Survival depends on it. And so does ours.

Sir Lawrence Freedman of Oxford University is one of the world’s preeminent international scholars on politics and war. His 2013 book, Strategy: A History, which took 40 years to write, is the best book ever written outlining the entire history of the development of strategy.

Freedman writes, “So the realm of strategy is one of bargaining and persuasion as well as threats and pressure, psychological as well as physical effects, and words as well as deeds. This is why strategy is the central political art. It is about getting more out of a situation than the starting balance of power would suggest. It is the art of creating power (emphasis added).”

When a client or manager or CEO asks, What are we doing here folks? we are the ones who’d better have an answer, and preferable a well-crafted document.

One of the most well recognized books on strategy is from the British military historian B.H. Liddell Hart. In his book, Strategy, he defined the concept in the very literal sense as “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy,” distinguishing strategy from, on one side, “tactics” — the modes of “actual fighting” on the battlefield — and on the other, “grand strategy,” in which civilian leaders set high-level policy and coordinate the nation’s resources toward a collective goal.

There is a temptation to confuse a vision or policy with a strategy, but they are not the same thing. Policies address the “what.” They’re prescriptions for the way things might operate in an ideal world. Strategy is about the “how.” How do you move toward a desired end, despite limited means and huge obstacles? A policy may have an implementation strategy behind it.

Strategy is often associated with high-level decision makers — generals, presidents, corporate titans — but the basic challenge of, in Theodore Roosevelt’s words, doing “what you can, with what you have, where you are” applies just as much when working from the bottom up.

Saul Alinsky, a hero of the labor movement and a patron saint of union organizers, made the claim that strategy is agnostic about who is currently in power. In his book, Rules for Radicals, he wondered how to use these same concepts of high strategy to wrest power from the oligarchs and tycoons and give it to the people. Alinsky believed the right strategy would allow anyone to wield power.

There are different interpretations of strategy. Beverly Gage is a history professor at Yale University, where she just resigned in a furor from the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy because of donor pressure over the curriculum. She writes, “The original concept of strategy comes from the world of military affairs. It derives from a Greek word meaning ‘generalship’ or ‘the office or command of a general’: it was an enterprise for the man in charge.”

Any strategic challenge in our daily life, both personal and professional, requires contending with limits and obstacles: scarce resources, structural constraints, devoted enemies and fickle allies, chance, and luck. The plan is a thoughtful prediction.

My belief is simple, strategy is all about creating something greater than it’s parts. Something bigger than yourself with the limited resources of Time, Money and People.

Don’t just leave the strategy to others. If you see a better path forward, outline the strategy and lay it out there. Sure it’s risky, but it’s better than nothing. You just might find yourself a wizard behind the curtain.

About the Author

Matthew L. Moseley is the president and founder of the Ignition Strategy Group and the author of Ignition: Superior Communication Strategies to Create Stronger Connections by Routledge publishing. He is a world record adventure swimmer and lives in Boulder, Colorado.

7 Growth strategies to improve your bottom line

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Article |Growth Strategy|7 Growth strategies to improve your bottom lineIn business, it’s all about profit and loss. The numbers are important.

A top line and bottom line is a form of that financial analysis. These names are quite easy to form an idea of their understanding for anyone. The top must mean something positive and the bottom must be some bad news. This presumption is not half wrong.

The top line refers to business growth. It’s a measure of a company’s ability to market and sell its products against its competitors. More revenue means that the company has more to spend on advertising, marketing and new product development.

The bottom line, on the other hand, is a company’s net income, displayed at the bottom, hence the name. It is an important indicator of overall conditions in the company’s target markets. However, mainly businesses want to improve these numbers. And by that they mean, they want to decrease the bottom line which is referencing the operational and overhead costs for the business.

Growing revenues and reducing overhead expenses is the simplest way to improve the bottom line. But a lot can be included in this one statement.

Here are some strategies that can help:

1. Adjust Pricing

A customer wants the cheapest product they can find at peak quality and businesses need revenue. There is always a place for compromise.

Re-evaluate your pricing strategy. If sales are high but revenue is low then increase the prices of products where it is fair to both the business and the consumer. If sales are low then try to analyse the reasons that can be changed and decrease the pricing where there is room.

Analyze the price margins and evaluate if the current prices are truly covering the costs of the overhead. Do periodic research on both, the product and business competitors, to keep the pricing optimum with change.

Make sure you are aware of any fees you are paying for using different payment platforms, as these should be forming part of your pricing structure. If you are unaware of the actual cost of the fees, this can eat into your profits. Use a Paypal fee calculator if you accept payments via Paypal to help you set your pricing.

2. Market Smarter, Not Harder

There are various digital marketing services today that help regulate better marketing strategies for the business. Incorporate them.

This is one way that businesses can increase both the top line and bottom line at the same time. Focus on acquiring only the best customers through social media campaigns, and stop spending money on low-value customers. Do some research, think about who is most likely to benefit from your product or service, and then consider how to reach out to that group of people. Market to those customers that will surely invest in the business, not the masses.

Segmented marketing campaigns have a better chance at bringing in customers to the business rather than untargeted trials. Marketing should always be targeted towards people who are most likely to buy the product or services and generate more sales at less cost.

3. Create Conversions

Once the digital marketing campaigns are drawing traffic to the website, the next main thing to do is to regulate the conversion rates for bottom-line growth. Not all the investment should be done on getting traffic to the page, if there is no conversion then the visits are wasted.

Make the landing pages easy to understand and engaging and cover the same points as the campaign that brought the visitor there. Ensure some or the other form of data or commitment from the visitors so that better campaigns can be channelled to them again.

Do not focus alone on getting traffic on the page, after a point those efforts should be shifted towards conversion. Know the shift, and accordingly, change.

4. Upselling and Cross-selling

Cross-selling and upselling are surely very time-consuming practices but they bring significant improvement to the bottom line. Upselling is the practice of encouraging customers to purchase a comparable higher-end product than the one in question, while cross-selling invites customers to buy related or complementary items.

While finalizing a deal with a new customer, suggest other products or services that the company offers that would go well with what they’ve purchased. Upselling is a little harder to do without seeming greedy so make sure to keep the main goal of providing the best value to the customers clear in mind. Customers should never feel like they’re being sold to.

Cross-selling options are a great way to bring the customer’s attention towards other products that usually complement the one in question. Showing statistics like “usually brought together” or “x% of viewers of this product also looked at this” helps convince them of the purchase subtly and also gives them a sense of community.

5. Tighten Credit terms

Credit terms are simply the time limits businesses set for the customers to pay for their merchandise or services received. These are important because cash flow is very important for a business to sustain. Longer credit terms mean the business will have to wait longer for the cash inflows.

This is why the credit terms of the business should be designed to improve cash flow. Having multiple delinquent client accounts is a sign that a company’s credit terms are too loose. This can seriously affect the bottom line and create cash flow problems.

Try revising the general terms and charging late fees or interest on unpaid invoices. Many businesses try to give customers special discounts and coupon options if they choose prepaid options or pay within a specified period through affordable instalment plans. This provides the customer with an incentive to pay quickly which in turn improves cash flow.
can also encourage clients to reliably send in a check for services rendered.

6. Automation

Sure, robots aren’t taking over yet. There are various steps in business that need improvisation so automation isn’t going to replace manual labour. But that is not to say that automation doesn’t still have many benefits that should all be taken advantage of.

It brings efficient work, integrated systems, and better processes. It reduces errors, reduces delays in the business process, improves the speed of customer service processes and helps provide the rest of the team valuable time to focus on other strategic tasks.

Whatever can be automated or outsourced to a trusted service for less money than the cost of the company’s own time should be automated. Initially, an investment in the technologies that enable automation will look like another expense, but the benefits are cumulative and businesses who embrace workflow automation can see big results in their bottom line.

7. Employee Training

With budgetary restraints, most of the time the first thing to move to the bottom of the list, if not completely off it, is employee training. An underrated protocol that businesses usually overlook. But, it has many long-term benefits that go unnoticed due to ignorance.

Having trained professional employees who know what the scope of their jobs are and who are held accountable for their productivity can save companies thousands of dollars each year. Any employee is a part of the team and should be an enthusiastic brand representative, whether in office or not. A strong training program focuses on developing functional skills, improving company processes and streamlining strategic goals.

It assists in ensuring savvy customer service representatives and productive team members. This also helps businesses to understand and track the employees that excel from the ones that may be underperforming.

Conclusion:

Scheduling time to closely examine all company expenses and business costs can truly help realise where money can be better invested. Always calculating the return on investment for every action can truly make a difference in cutting costs and improving the bottom line.

Is Profit Bidding Strategy Beneficial?

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Article |Profit Bidding Strategy| Is profit bidding strategy beneficial?So, how can you ensure that your AdWords advertising meets the goals that are most important to your company? To achieve success, an increasing number of advertisers are employing a profit bidding strategy, in which they optimize for total profits rather than maximum CPAs or target ROIs. Only then will they be able to discover the optimal balance of volume and efficiency.

What Does the Bidding Strategy Imply?

Bidding on its own brand terms on the SERPs is known as brand bidding. Your competitors are free to utilize your trademarked phrases in their own keyword lists, according to Google regulation. They won’t be able to utilize your brand name in their ads in most circumstances, but they will be able to run ads that urge consumers to click on their ads rather than yours.

How Does Profit Bidding Differ From Revenue?

Revenue might be deceiving since it hides margins, fixed costs, payment fees, and shipping charges. POAS has data and insights that revenue doesn’t have. Other costs, profit margins, and product margins are all factored into the equation, allowing advertising to be completely open to all stakeholders.

This is how a profit bidding strategy makes effects on your business

Increased CPC
Enhanced CPC bidding is identical to manual bidding, with the exception that it allows the Google Ads algorithm to change them manually specified keyword bids. Better CPC allows Google Ads to change the price of a term in a single auction based on the likelihood that a click will result in a sale. This adjustment used to be limited to a 30% rise or drop, but in recent years, that limit has been removed, allowing Google Ads to react to any amount.

You Increase Your Brand Recognition

Another significant advantage of using Google Ads and bidding on competitor names is that it aids in brand awareness. Larger, more well-known corporations are exempt from this rule. On a lesser scale, you can still raise brand awareness by reaching out to the audience your competitors have already built.

Should Be Maximized

The Maximum Conversions bid approach aims to maximize conversions while staying within your daily budget. There are no more controls available to the marketer, as we will see in future possibilities. It’s critical that each Maximize Conversions campaign has its own daily budget and isn’t part of a common budget, as this technique will always strive to spend the entire daily budget per campaign.

Outranking Share as a Goal

Target Outranking Share, like Target Search Page Location, focuses on the placement of an ad in an auction rather than the actual outcomes of that placement. Target Outranking Share is a feature that allows marketers to rank higher in search results than another domain, usually a rival.

Conclusion

When you’re establishing a new Google Ads campaign, deciding on the best bidding format can be difficult. There are a lot of options to pick from, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, your decision might make or break your campaign. Before settling on a bidding strategy, consider your goals.

How to Write Your Business Mission Statement

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Development Article |Mission Statement|How to Write Your Business Mission StatementBefore businesses launch their products and services, they need to think about the mission statement for their company. What type of message do they want to convey to their clients?

Company mission statements are therefore an instrumental part of a company’s business plan or proposed integrations for development and growth. Without a mission statement in place, it’s like trying to paddle upstream without a paddle.

So, how do you write a mission statement? What should be its main focus?

What Is the Reason for Your Business?

A mission statement is synonymous with a company’s purpose. You are declaring to the world why your company operates. It solidifies your business’s stance. The statement expresses your company’s values

How a Mission Statement Is Used

Basically, a mission statement does 3 main things:

  1. Tells people what your company does – sells food products, offers HVAC services, supports people’s training or educational needs, etc.
  2. Tells people how you operate.
  3. Includes why your business does what it does.

Examples of Mission Statements

1. Say you sell athletic wear and shoes. Your mission statement might take the following form:

My company’s purpose is to:

Sell athletic apparel and shoes that cover the needs of customers who will use the products in sports, such as baseball, basketball, football, running, and tennis.

2. Maybe you have set up a nursery. You might create the following mission statement.

My company’s reason for operating is to:

Offer lush and healthy flowers and plants, gardening tools, and seeds of the highest quality so people can rely on my business for all their plant and garden needs.

How Mission Statements Can Be Used

You can use a mission statement to support your business’s ad campaigns or include it on your company’s website and in social media. If people are not familiar with your company, they can refer to your business’s mission statement for direction.

A Foundation for Your Business’s Plans and Objectives

When you have a mission statement in place, it is much easier to create and outline a business plan. Doing so will allow you to follow a principled approach to conducting business. Use a mission statement to promote your business and gain trust from your customers. You can also employ it to support your needs for venture capital and funding.

Remember: Company mission statements are not just slogans. They represent a company”s values and purposes in business. The influence of a mission statement enables you to create a company that will live up to specific standards so it can build customer trust and loyalty.

Growth Mindset Should Be a Part of Your Business Strategy

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Article | Growth Mindset Should Be a Part of Your Business StrategyAn organization that embraces a growth mindset positions itself to thrive. A growth mindset encompasses a set of behaviors and attitudes that reflect a business owner’s belief that their company’s business model is not set in stone. Such an entrepreneur is open to infusing new talents, innovations and creativity into the business to strengthen it and guarantee its longevity.

Aside from adjusting your business model as part of your growth strategy, you should also hire flexible employees with the capacity to learn and grow with the business. Your staff needs to share in your ambition to develop a future-oriented business. They should be ready to take on new roles, advance their skills and evolve with the company’s growth.

You will also rely heavily on integrated learning tools that facilitate employees’ professional development and streamline business operation. An Integrated Learning Systems (ILS) mindset growth arms the learning and development (L&D) department with accessible solutions for the evolving business operations.

Striving to become truly good at what you do guarantees that more customers will want your services. A growth mindset enables your business to stand out because it ensures you put in the work to achieve the company’s full potential. Continue reading to learn how incorporating a growth mindset in your business strategy helps you add value to the company.

Embrace Integrated Learning Systems

So how do you ensure you have talented employees by your side as you prepare your business for exponential growth? Integrated learning systems (ILS) is the solution you should embrace to provide your workforce with the necessary training to withstand the roller coaster ride of change as the business evolves.

How can you train your growth mindset and ensure your employees are more knowledgeable and competent in their jobs? Technology-based employee training offers a stack of solutions that address all parts of their learning needs. ILS mindset growth enables your business to shift towards digital learning and earn the massive benefits of training your team to execute development projects better.

ILS provides your company with a vast library of content suitable for end-to-end corporate training solutions. The system’s continuous micro-learning allows your staff to master new skills in the flow of work. Such a modern integrated learning solution that embraces all types caters to different types of employee development needs.

You also gain access to various forms of skills assessment to deliver skills-driven learning. This way, your employees can be more productive and better positioned to satisfy your customers.

Build a Culture of Taking Risks

To embrace a growth mindset is to accept that failure is an inevitable part of growth. But this should not hold you back from stepping out of your comfort zone. Oftentimes, when entrepreneurs recognize their weaknesses, they end up holding on to their failures as well. But working on one’s weaknesses does not mean you carry your failures as a burden.

When you focus on your failures, you’re distracted from the potential success your business can achieve in the future. Instead, claim and learn from past failures, then focus on growing from the mistakes. Building a culture of taking risks enables you to feed creativity and innovation into the business to fuel it forward, notwithstanding the risks involved.

Ensure you lead by example by practicing controlled risk-taking to allow the business to expand beyond your established market segment. Additionally, allow your employees to take on leadership roles that require them to learn how to think on their feet. If you don’t empower your employees to take some risk, they cost the company money by playing it safe.

Forward-thinking employees will learn from their mistakes and utilize their freedom and independence to tap into new markets. While it will take some time and effort, the risk is worth the reward.

Understand Your Purpose

For your business to stand out based on its specialty, you need to be purpose-driven, doing what you love for the people that love what you do. Purpose helps you define your company’s reason for being beyond profit. Ensure the purpose you establish for your business encompasses the company’s ultimate role in the broader economic, environmental and social context for years to come.

While on the surface, the products and services you offer keep your business running, a clear purpose that defines the impact your company can make guarantees its longevity. Define and articulate your purpose in a way that enlightens your employees and propels positive change. An elaborate purpose will:

  • Inform your long-term business strategies
  • Establish a competitive advantage in a saturated market
  • Inspire innovation
  • Boost brand visibility and brand credibility

Your employees will be motivated to go the extra mile to put your business on the map when you establish a relevant and aspirational purpose for your organization. Your purpose will be like the north star that guides day to day business operations towards a specific goal.

Conclusion

To become a forward-thinking company, you need to incorporate a growth mindset in your business strategy. It’s essential that you think and act differently in order to position your business on the map. Use these solution-driven approaches to unleash your business’ full potential.