What we've learned about Business Strategy

A couple of weeks ago we attended a fascinating Strategy Day delivered by Rob Perks of Inspire Elite - it left us buzzing with ideas that we can put into practice at Artemis Clarke.

Here's a very brief summary of some of the key points Rob covered: 

• A successful strategy encompasses 6 Ps: proposition, passion, pipeline, people, performance & precision
• There are three roles to perform in any business: 1. Entrepreneur / Strategist 2. Manager 3. Technician. When you start your business you will perform all 3, but your business won't grow successfully unless you move towards performing predominantly 1. as soon as you can, leaving your workforce to perform 2 and 3. 
• It's important to take at least one 'Strategy Day' away from the day-to-day business every 6 months - to review where you are, where you want to be, and how to get there. 
• There are four fundamental strategies your business could follow: 1. low cost provider (not recommended due to margin erosion), 2. Differentiator (have something unique and different about your offering), 3. Niche market (highly targeted) 4. Process strengths (delivered through efficiencies of scale). 

The most valuable part of the day for us was when Rob asked us to draw a graph and plot a number of elements of our business offering against the X axis for how much clients value this, and the Y axis for how we compare to our competition. The top right hand quarter of the chart is the sweet spot to aim for - high value to client and high performance against your competitors - food for thought indeed!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on business strategy - any tips to share to help your fellow entrepreneurs?

#SmallBusiness #Strategy #Entrepreneur