As a business owner, you have many decisions to make daily.
You and your team have to make choices about what opportunities to take advantage of and where you’ll place your time and energy.
Some of those decisions include: what meetings to take, where to put your marketing dollars, who to hire, and what systems to invest in.
That decision making takes time, plus the time it takes to move forward on a solution.
People often ask us: “What is a management consultant?” and “Why do I need business strategy?”
If you’re an entrepreneur or micro business, you don’t NEED a strategy, but having one will get you where you want to go faster. For other organizations like small and mid-sized organizations, non-profits, or large enterprises, a comprehensive strategic plan, where the entire team is aligned, is imperative.
Strategy is like a map. You don’t need a map to go somewhere new, the map will help you get there faster and on the best route (i.e. saving you time and money).
The decisions you make on where you invest your time and money will be dictated by the vision for your business and your desired future.
That’s business strategy: making the choices of what not to do, because you know what you want to do.
If you know where you want to go, you’ll get there faster if your decisions (strategy) are inl ine with your goals and your vision.
If you are a small or medium sized business (between 10-250 employees) it will be hard to organize and align your team:
- Without them having specific goals to work towards
- Without a clear objective that everyone understand
- Without an understanding of where the organization is going
It would be chaos: projects would be delayed, people would work in silos, communication would be lacking, and time would be wasted.
In contrast, a well-aligned strategy will help everyone in your organization move in the same direction.
Like in an orchestra, it sounds better when everyone plays the same tune. Most (if not all) organizations lack the time and resources to go in every direction effectively.
You instead need to focus on what’s most in-line with your company’s vision, and what’s going to move your organization towards an achievable and sustainable future.
Where do you want the company to be and how is your business strategy (your tactics to achieve your goals) going to get you there?
You know your company best, and you’re the ones making the decisions that guide your company daily, but working with a strategic partner can help you guide the conversations and strategic plan in the right direction to help you understand and mitigate common issues that may arise, as well as helping you plan for sustainable growth.
Strategic partners and management consultants work with leadership teams to help them navigate the rough patches, and to keep the organization on course. The benefit of working with a consultant is that they bring an unbiased outside perspective, so they can be objective while understanding what the organization is trying to do, and to lead a directed conversation, while asking the tough questions.
We help businesses with their problems, and help move them towards where they want to be, through our unique process of Aligned Strategy Development.
As you go through your journey as a business and in life, it’s all about the choices that you make. Sometimes, even with the best laid plans, you still need help to move forward.
I’ll leave you with a note I learned from someone:
"A vision is like the horizon, as you move towards it, it will always move father away. Judge your success by how far you’ve come, and you’ll be happier for it"
To your success!
