The best strategies have three things in common and you want to look at them each in their own light before proceeding with a chosen strategy. The first thing you want to look at is is the strategy founded on one or more of your key business strengths. Odds are that you will only be successful if your strategy relies on things that you are already very good at, so make sure you review your strategy and ask the key question: In order for this strategy to work, what are the strengths on which we must rely?
If in order for your strategy to work you’ve got to rely on something that isn’t a strength of yours, and you can’t buy, build, or otherwise acquire this strength, then I strongly advise you to pick another strategy. Just as the best athletes play to their strengths, so do the most successful companies play to their best abilities.
Second, the best strategies seize one of your biggest opportunities and play into it. Seizing a key opportunity is the offense that lets you score points and win the game. This may be investing heavily into a specific product or service line, or market niche, or delivery strategy. This is the concept of feeding your winners and starving your lowers. The key is that any winning strategy must help you seize a key opportunity that has the real potential to yield big results.
Third, the best strategies mitigate or make irrelevant your gravest business threats. For example, if one of your biggest threats is that 58 percent of your business is with one customer, then if your strategy fits for criteria one and two, ideally it will help you grow other customer relationships so that you have some protection from the loss or diminishment of this Goliath customer. This is perhaps one of the hardest areas for many business owners to look at, because we don’t want to recognize our flaws or shortcomings, but by identifying our weak points, we can then form a strategize to overcome them or mitigate their impact on our growth.
So as you plan out your year or quarter, look at your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and lay out a focused plan to achieve your goals and reach the next level within your business.