This week I want to talk to you about strategy Strategy in my view is just one of the most misunderstood concepts in business. Why? Well because people use the word strategy when they’re meeting goal, or tactic, or something completely different Programs like The Apprentice have ruined that word for so many people because it’s just completely lost its meaning. 

So what is strategy? Well, if you ask a hundred different people what strategy is, you will definitely get a 100 different answers, my take is that strategy is all about how you use your company’s resources to create sustainable, competitive advantage What does that mean? Well, your company’s resources is all about your company’s time, energy, the different function, sales, marketing, operations, finance, how you use all of those things in the most intelligent way to create an advantage that is sustainable over your competitors. 

So here’s the thing: you are in a race against your competitors ,the thing that you need to understand is what race are you most likely to win? If you are trying to compete in the 100 meters and you’re trying to do a bit of javelin you are probably not going to be able to compete very well across those events What you need to understand is what you have a great chance of being able to compete at, so that nobody else can get quite as good as you in those areas. 

This is what strategy is all about you need to understand what types of customers are you best suited to serve what types of customers can you serve better than all of your competitors because that way instead of you trying to be all things to all people you can really fine-tune your proposition to a very specific group of customers granted there needs to be enough of those customers to help you achieve your financial goals.

So yes, there needs to be a big enough slice of the pie, but provided you can find a core where there is enough volume, then what you can do is you can focus all of your company’s resources on creating super strengths to be able to outperform any competitor who goes after that very same core customer type. 

That’s what strategy is really about it’s a tool to help you make better decisions, it’s a tool to help you understand where you should focus your time and your money, it’s a tool to help you shape all of the different functions in your business, it is all about helping you make long-term decisions instead of short-term tactical decisions that go from A to Z, to K, to J The reason that it is so important for you is, because if you get it working right you will outperform your competitors every single time.

If you’re looking for more small business tips, then we’d like to see you every week on “Mind Your Own Business,”

If you’d like help implementing these tactics then contact Marco Soares for professional coaching for business