You Need a Strategy Before You Make a Plan
Just answer three questions
Strategy answers "Where are we going?" A Plan answers "How are we going to get there?" As the saying goes - if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. But the crucial differences are about control. A plan is under your control. It's about where you'll spend time, money and effort. You're in control of all that. A strategy is about how the market will react.
Roger Martin has a good video (10 min) about this here though it's geared toward larger companies. This post is my adaptation for SMBs.
A strategy answers these questions:
Where will we Play?
How Will we Win?
What must be true for our strategy to succeed?
Answer these questions in writing. The first question (where will we play) is about determining which market or markets you're going to serve. The second (how will we win) is about what value you'll offer the customers in those markets. Why will they pay you rather than a competitor, or rather than not buy anything at all? The third is about the assumptions underlying your answers to the first two questions.
Many SMBs can pursue a strategy even without writing it down.
That's because they have implicitly made choices about a market to play in and they sort of know the value proposition to help them win. But writing out your strategy is still useful. It forces you to make these choices conscious and prepares to you focus on them and away from shiny objects. And without writing it down, you'll almost never answer the 3rd question.
By answering those questions, a good strategy also makes it clear where you're not going to play, which market or market segments you're not going to go after, and which products or features you're not going to offer. If yours doesn't do that, you've not written it clearly enough.
Your strategy is not under your control.
It requires actual customers to respond a certain way in order for your strategy to be successful. And you can't control customers. (Don't you hate it when that happens?) That's why a plan feels more comfortable than a strategy - you're in control. If you don't feel nervous then you may have a plan masquerading as a strategy.
A strategy also has something else. It's based on a theory of how the market will react. In other words certain things would have to be true for the strategy to work. It's useful to capture these things in writing. Then on the highly likely chance the world doesn't beat a path to your door, you'll be in a better position to adapt.Â
Can you write your strategy in a single page answering the questions above? If not it maybe too complicated. Simplify it. Then you'll be ready to develop your plan.
In my work as a planning facilitator, I can help with strategy as well. If you want to see if you’d be a good a candidate for one of my remaining slots this year - email me. John@CEOBootCamp.com
