Art of Growth
You can know all the latest and great tactics in your industry. You can have your finger on the pulse of what’s hot in your field. But if you don’t have a clear picture of your overall strategy for business, those tactics are worthless.
(And you’ve spent too much time, money, and energy learning them to render them useless, right?)
You want to set your business up for strategic success so that you can put those tactics and trends to use—and better yet, start to develop some of your own.
In a Harvard Business Review article by Roger Martin, strategy is defined as knowing Where You Want to Play and How You’re Going to Win. And while the essence of that—that business is a game and that there’s a clear path to winning—might have resonated with MBAs and corporate big wigs before the dawn of the New Economy, I don’t think it resonates with today’s new wave of entrepreneurs who are building communities and movements as much as they are building revenue streams and management systems.
So what do you need to know to set up your business for strategic success? Try these 5 questions I’ve adapted the framework that Martin poses to capture our context of creation and connection.
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#NewEconomy Strategy: Where to Create & How to Connect
- What is your vision for making life meaningfully better for your business community and what are the metrics of success by which you’ll measure that vision?
- What conversation is your business a part of and what voices in that conversation are your best prospects looking for an alternative to?
- In the greater conversation your business is a part of, how will you represent your unique point-of-view to engage customers who are excited about your businesses strengths, skills, and passion?
- What are the unique strengths, skills, and passion (your Onlyness) your business can invest in to attract your best prospects?
- What product, marketing, sales, and management systems can you put in place to support and enhance your business’s unique strengths, skills, and passion?[/thst_alert]
Martin, who developed the strategic questions my adaptation is based on, argues iteration is the key to better strategy. You have to be willing to make an initial wager on the answer to your first question, then be willing to evolve that as you answer the second question, and so on.
There’s a dual imperative: to both be committed to your strategic thinking and be willing to iterate when the facts change.
This dual imperative holds true for the New Economy. With communities and conversations constantly evolving, your strategic vision also needs to be constantly open to change.
So while it’s always a good time of year to think strategically, I find that summer presents some great opportunities. As we wrap up the first half of the year, I challenge you to consider how your market, its opportunities, and your plans have evolved in 2014 and how you can evolve your own strategic vision for the second half of 2014 to make the impact in the world you’re here to make.
Download a copy of the 5 #neweconomy strategy questions.
Big Thinking, Business Brainstorm
Warning: What follows is a lede you probably never expected to see in a business publication…
In the last 4 months, I’ve found myself in a position to give online dating a go. I’m merely a dabbler, but the process has left me wondering about what lurks in the murky depths below the “matching & winking” at the surface.
When I initially wrote my profile, I made it big and bold. I used words like “ambitious” and “driven.” And I reasoned, if a guy is turned off by that, he’s not the right guy for me.
And that’s not untrue.
But it’s not the whole truth.
The whole truth is that ambition and drive are characteristics that don’t often lead to attraction. I don’t just say that because I’m a woman. Those same qualities in a man might mean he’s prone to workaholism or keeping relationships at a safe distance. Not exactly sexy.
Four months into this little personal experiment and I can say I’ve come to one conclusion.
I put “ambitious” and “driven” at the front of my profile for 1 reason: I wasn’t as serious as I thought about trying to attract attention. It made it easy for me to say “There are no good men on this site!” or “Men just can’t handle a woman like me.”
This week, I came across two resources on online dating that piqued my interest. First, a book by the founder of eFlirt Expert, Laurie Davis, called Love at First Click. The second was a Wall Street Journal article called “Hacking the Hyperlinked Heart.” Both are about online dating strategy. They’re based on loads of personal experience and gobs of research.
Last night, I adjusted my profile. I followed the advice in the WSJ article and toned down the work stuff, concentrating on what I like to do when I’m not working. I talked about being driven by curiosity instead of ambition. I led with my love of travel, lattes, and wine. I talked about cooking and eating out.
It was true. It was sincere. And it felt attractive.
Then I messaged a few guys, winked at a few more, and ate dinner. In the span of a few hours, I had more activity on my profile than I’d had in 4 months.
It’s a good (re)start. No telling where it will go from here, but I feel like I’m taking myself and my goals seriously, all the while not allowing myself to blame anyone else.
“What does this have to do with business?” you might ask.
I’ll tell you. Many business owners nowadays do and say a lot in the name of sincerity, authenticity, and transparency. Sometimes this takes the form of blatant over-sharing, but it can also take the form of not following through on a big idea, not polishing their sales copy, or simply ignoring solid practices because they want to do it “their way” in an effort to be different for different’s sake.
Just as I wrote my dating profile in a way that allowed me to blame the guys, many business owners choose to operate in a way that allows them to blame their potential customers.
“They just don’t understand the value of what I do.”
“If they can’t handle my honesty, I don’t want their business.”
“No one is looking for what I create.”
When you choose sincerity without a care for strategy, you set yourself up to lose. Click to tweet. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for. Though, I’d put my money on the cause being your fear of true success. It’s not that you’re trying to lose (who does that?), it’s that you’re fearful of succeeding.
You’d have to serve the big client. You’d have to write the book. You’d have to create the life-changing program.
You’d have to put it all on the line despite the uncertainty of the outcome.
Sounds pretty much like dating to me…
Strategy and sincerity are not mutually exclusive. The question is: Does allowing sincere communication to fit within a strategic framework make it less true?
I wholeheartedly believe it does not.
On the contrary, allowing strategy to be your framework for relating sincerity means you have a much better chance of actually communicating in a way that allows your customers to see the whole picture, understand how your business can serve them, and make a true impact in their lives. Best practices, tried & true techniques, and definitive strategy work because they shed light on what we share as human beings.
When you inject your own personal truth into a framework of strategy, your truth comes in contact with our most profound sources of connection. You can do the good you’re meant to do through your business because you give your potential customers the best chance of being attracted to what your business has to offer.
Like so many aspects of business today, it’s both/and, not either/or. Choosing to engage both sincerity and strategy is a winning combination.
But, business owner beware, if you start combining sincerity and strategy, you might actually have to go on a few dates.
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More praise for The Art of Growth
“What I appreciate about Tara’s work is that she smartly, succinctly, and intelligently lays out a path for the entrepreneur to leapfrog some of those steps that can lead to burn-out and abandoned dreams.”
— Jennifer, via Amazon
“…the value here is not just in the amazing concepts and philosophy Tara describes, but in the practical how to that’s woven in.”
— Anne Samoilov, Launch Strategist
“Your new book #artofgrowth is jammed packed w many layers to digest, consider + work with! So, thorough and thoughtful!”
— Teresa Capaldo, coach for the creative and soulful
“…truly opens your mind to what is possible.”
— Tat, Mum in Search
Click here to grab your copy.
