17 Strategic Planning Tips For Your Business, Part 1

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Launching a company takes time, dedication and hard work. It also takes strategy, a “high view” strategic plan from which you select your specific tactics for marketing and sales. Here are 17 tips from The Way to Wealth Workbook, Part III: Blueprints for Success by Brian Tracy.

1. Do as much free research on your market as you can.

Market research doesn't have to cost a dime; especially with all of the tools available on the Internet. You can also seek out professionals in similar lines of business. Make some test sales calls, as if you had the product or service ready to go and see how prospective customers respond. Approach your competitors as if you were a customer and learn everything you can about them. Most of these things are free, and now is the ideal time to do them.

2. Know your company's exact context in your industry.

Many new companies fail because they offered a product or service that wasn't really needed, or that was too similar to an existing one. Even if you've already worked in the industry, or work in it now, it's still essential to read everything you can about your industry, from newsletters to websites to online message boards. Attend trade shows and talk to industry experts. Find out who's launched similar companies to yours, why those businesses failed, and what you can do better. Be sure to check online review sites to see what customers are saying about your industry and your competitors.

3. Get specific when you define yourself, your offerings and your target customers.

Before you launch, you need to know what you're selling, what you could and should be selling, who exactly your target customers are, and how you help them more effectively than the competition does. As Brian Tracy says, “A business plan forces you to think honestly and objectively about every part of the business before you begin.” And next time you talk to your FocalPoint Business Coach, be sure to ask them to walk you through “how to define your ideal client.”

4. Develop different rules for handling different types of customers.

All customers are different but not completely different. If you try to sell to all of them in essentially the same way, you will fail to tell many of them what they want to hear; by the same token, it's not realistic to develop a unique marketing strategy around each individual customer. That means it's crucial to divide your customers into categories, so you can develop a marketing and sales strategy around each of those groups.

5. Know your competitors as well as you know yourself.

You need to know why your potential customers sometimes buy from your competitors instead of from you.

  • What value do those customers see in your competitor that they don't see in you?
  • What are your competitors promising, that you aren't?
  • How did your competitors initially gain an edge in the marketplace?

Answering these questions will give you ideas for upsetting that balance.

Don't forget to think about web-based and international competition as well. For example, one of our clients made parts for a textile mill machinery. His grandparents had started the company in the Carolinas, and it's grown and prospered for three generations. Still, Asian competition has absolutely crushed them despite many but not all Asian products in this space are inferior. This client worked hard to become an expert on sourcing quality textile mill machinery parts from Asia, because he knew his Asian competitors couldn't compete with him on quality. Strategies like this can help you distinguish yourself from your competitors.

In the next article in this three-part series, we will get deeper into the list, and explore more of the strategic planning tips presented in Brian Tracy's book The Way to Wealth Workbook, Part III: Blueprints for Success.

A FocalPoint Business Coach can provide you with tips like these, along with others which you will find throughout the FocalPoint Business Coaching and Training website. Our professional global Business Coaches will assist with making your customers and employees into passionate supporters of your business. All it takes is a little kindness, and a lot of attention to detail. Contact a FocalPoint Business Coach today.

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