What IS strategy, anyway?
Strategy. As entrepreneurs we hear the term bandied around all the time in our communities. But what is it?
“What you need is a strategy”,
“Sounds great. So, what’s your strategy?”
“I think I know what I want to do, but I don’t have a strategy”.
I’d hazard a guess that most of us here know that strategy is important, and we know we need a good one in order to truly grow our businesses in the way we want to. Without a strategy, we’re going to be flailing around unguided, doing activities, working with clients and employing tactics that aren’t necessarily coherent with one another or totally aligned with our ‘end goal’ .
But what is it? What IS strategy, really?
I’m a bit of a geek, and I wanted to know what the scholars think. I’m always wary of academic commentary on the business world. David Svetlik puts it nicely in “When the Academic World and the Real World Meet”:
“It is simply that the overwhelming majority of educators have never really been out of education.”
As a result I tend to rely on publications such as the Harvard Business Review as a means to qualify the viewpoints.
Most of the early definitions and conversations about strategy focused, unsurprisingly, on price. It wasn’t until Michael Porter came to the forefront of the topic in the late 20th century that the status quo on this changed.
“Price competition can’t be all there is to it.”
Suddenly, efficiency via supply chains and outsourcing, new product development and benchmarking best practices became key to the definition of strategy. And rightly so, I would add.
“At a fundamental level, all strategies [...] boil down to two very broad options: Do what everyone else is doing (but spend less money doing it), or do something no one else can do.”
Okay, so we’re talking about cost-saving, and we’re talking about disruption.
Are these two options equally viable for today’s business owner? I would argue that no, they’re not, if you continue to look at them in their purest form. Those of you who have ever worked in a commodity industry will know the struggle of the “race to the bottom”. Whilst doing what everyone else is doing but cheaper can work out for some, the reality is that all players in the space are effectively engaging in a form of self-sabotage. They’re contributing to the reduction of the market. They are, to be blunt, “shrinking the pie”.
What do you do when there is nowhere left to go? Continue trading at a loss?
Of course not. And that’s where the idea of “doing something no one else can do” comes into play.
In the female entrepreneurial space, we talk a LOT about your value proposition, your Unique Selling Point (USP), discovering where your strengths and weaknesses lie and how to find new ways to engage with your audience. This is ALL PART OF ‘DOING SOMETHING NO ONE ELSE CAN DO’.
I know you don’t think that you’re the only holistic coach, nutritionist, business coach, yoga teacher or mumpreneur out there. Of course you’re not - there are loads of us, and that’s great! But chances are, you ARE the only holistic coach, nutritionist, business coach, yoga teacher or mumpreneur with your EXACT SKILL SET & PERSONALITY.
The trick to strategy as an entrepreneur is not getting caught up in a panic about how your prices compare to others in your field. It’s about digging deep to discover and come to terms with what makes you unique - and then taking that insight and building it in as an integral part of your business model. You’ve got to offer your audience value, and you will absolutely do that by pulling out your USP, value proposition, your YOU.
Strategy is being clear about your goals, your why, your offering, your unique proposition and creating a business model that aligns.
Find your value chain and build your strategy around it.
Dani x