Build a September Game Plan to Thrive in the New Year

It's planning session time?to increase business opportunities come January, so we’re sharing the biz-dev strategy process we use with our clients.

It's already mid-September, which means the kids are back in school, football has kicked off and it's time to dust off all the plans you made at the beginning of the year to map out a better biz dev strategy?- and also panic that you only have a quarter left to make it happen. But never fear. Right now is the best time to bring your team together to nail down a new approach to maximize the opportunities come January. And to get the strategic juices flowing, we thought we'd share the process we use during our planning sessions with our clients. Just like the structures you construct, a strategic plan can’t be effective without a solid, well-designed foundation to support it. Done right, it doesn’t just define your business development process, it also unifies all team members behind a strong vision and purpose to drive it.

Kickstart Your Planning Session?With This Diagram

When we conduct strategy sessions with our clients, we always start with a working diagram of four overlapping circles like shown below. This gives structure to your planning session as you fill in all the components during your discussion.

Remember, your strategy session isn’t going anywhere if it’s driven by your personal opinions and preferences. It should instead center around your customers, and what matters to them.?

Agree on and write down the primary need of your audiences in the lower right hand circle. This is the first component in your foundation diagram, serving as the base touchpoint for the other components to come.

Proclaim Your Superpower

Next, ask yourself, what is it that we do better than anyone in the market to serve those needs of our customers? Remember “we provide great customer service” doesn’t count because that’s what everyone else says.?

Record your superpower in the upper left quadrant, ready to be tested against the next component.

Unleash Your Passion

Your capabilities are one thing, but what do you really love to do? What aspect of your work energizes you to show up every day, excited to contribute and grow?

Record your passion in the upper right corner of the diagram.

The Cha-ching Factor

Finally, Take a deep dive into which service or product brings in the most revenue.?

Plot this insight in the lower left section of your chart.?

The Next Level

Next, it's time to start drilling down into your core strategic foundation. If you mash together each of these components it gives you the ability to have a productive discussion to find your strategic position in the marketplace.

Vision

Analyze the connection between your ideal customers' needs (lower right) and what generates the most revenue for your business (lower left). Your vision represents an ambitious goal that guides your company toward ultimate success. It provides your team with clarity, direction, and motivation to pursue a larger purpose.

Mission

As your next matchup, evaluate your Passion (upper right) against your Audience Needs (lower right) to uncover your mission.

While your vision focuses on a long term aspirational goal, your mission is how you go about achieving it on a day to day basis. Your mission statement is a declaration of your company’s purpose and core values. As a builder it should align your passion with what your ideal clients value most.

Niche Expertise

In today's constantly changing environment, you can’t attract and close new business if you’re copying your competitors’ playbooks. To truly differentiate yourself, you must showcase niche expertise to demonstrate your value in their eyes.

If you juxtapose the top 2 quadrants, Your superpower (top left) and your passion (top right) you uncover the essence of your niche expertise.

Competitive Advantage

By combining your superpower (upper left) with your cha-ching factor (lower left), you reveal your true competitive advantage—an essential piece of your strategic foundation. This should help your team see what truly sets you apart from competitors and how to showcase your value to the right prospects.

The Final Boss: Positioning

Aligning your vision and mission with your niche expertise and competitive advantage uncovers your unique position in the marketplace. This is the cornerstone of building a solid marketing and business development strategy, helping your team pinpoint the right audiences to go after, maintain consistent messaging on everything from social media to proposals, and select the most effective tactics and channels to boost your visibility.

This comprehensive ecosystem forms your strategic foundation. Your team now has a clear north star to pursue, with a unified understanding of your mission and the steps to achieve it. With this clarity, they can turn cold calls into warm leads and gain a competitive edge when crafting proposals or presentations by highlighting your expertise, passion, and deep understanding of your clients’ needs.

Of course, this is a simplified version of the full process (you can read a more comprehensive version?HERE), but hopefully it gives your team something you can work with to kick off a productive September strategy session soon.

The four quadrant approach is a small snapshot of the services we at Rusty George apply when working with companies in the building industry—strategic, thoughtful, and tailored to your unique strengths. Let’s start building something great together.

Read Full Article Here >

Written by Rusty George, with no help from Artificial Intelligence. The 4 part diagram was not originally invented by the Rusty George team.

Rusty George leads a branding, website design and marketing agency serving Seattle and Tacoma area construction companies, subcontractors, engineering and architecture firms, material fabricators and suppliers. His goal is to help the building industry become more attractive to the skilled workforce of the future.