StrategyDriven Enterprises

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StrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC

StrategyDriven is dedicated to providing executives and managers with the planning and execution advice, tools, and practices needed to create greater organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results.

We help our clients create and execute a clear, forward-looking strategy – translatable to the day-to-day activities of all organization members – that’s critical to their realizing success in today’s fast paced market environment. Not only does a compelling, well executed strategy align individuals to a common purpose, it ensures that purpose best serves the company’s mission.

The StrategyDriven website provides access to a wide array of best practice business planning and execution tools, streamlined process flows, how-to articles, example-rich podcasts, and customizable ready-to-use program management templates. Premium Members receive access to over 200 members-only articles, whitepapers, models, and tools and templates; providing an in-depth look into critical business performance areas; placing specific focus on the alignment of organizational standards, programs, and behaviors to the optimal achievement of mission goals. Sevian Business Program purchasers receive fully implementable business performance improvement processes out-of-the-box, enabling the acceleration of business growth and heightening of operational efficiency needed to significantly improve bottom line results.

Collectively, our products offer business leaders the opportunity to access the knowledge of a highly educated and experienced staff without the associated overhead expense.

At StrategyDriven, our seasoned business leaders deliver real-world strategic business planning and tactical execution best practice advice – a blending of workplace experience with sound research and academic principles – to business leaders who may not otherwise have access to these resources.

Contact StrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC

Phone: (770) 765-3692

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.strategydriven.com

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How to make a business plan and actually stick to it

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Whether you are a long-term small business owner or just starting in a complex market, then there’s no time like the present to start penning your latest business plan. However, writing a plan and sticking to it are two very different elements. No matter the size or nature of your business, it’s always good to get something down on paper to help drive your business decisions and check that you have all bases covered. From generating more sales, to getting those ideas off the ground, read on to find out why you should be making a business plan, and more importantly, how simple it is to stick to it.

Check out the competition

Whether you are opening a coffee shop, a new bookstore or even a consultancy, be sure to undertake a full and in-depth market analysis. Now, this doesn’t have to cost you too much – you can do the groundwork yourself if you know what you are looking for. Café owners will want to scope out competitors’ prices, unique selling points and even range of snacks and goodies on offer. Whereas if you are offering higher-end services or products, then you will want to make sure that your range has a serious wow factor. Be sure to include this step in your business plan to ensure that you are fully aware of how you want to direct the future of your company and roll with it – remember, it’s best to do your homework rather than blindly entering an established market.

Get your finances in order

Drawing up a business plan, no matter the size of your business, and actually sticking to it, is going to require having a solid financial base. Getting your application papers in order and lengthy approval times can spell disaster in today’s fast-paced market. However, times are changing. Companies such as Betterfunds offer a range of loans to meet your business requirements. Not to mention, you could be the happy recipient of some much-needed funding in a matter of hours. Having a solid cash income is key to getting your business plan off the ground – don’t cut any corners.

Marketing and sales

Be sure to include marketing and sales as key priorities for your business plan – after all, generating new leads and acquiring new clients is essential to you, and your business, to succeed. If you haven’t already considered it, then make sure to explore how digital marketing can help propel your company into the future. Social media is increasingly becoming essential to the success of companies worldwide, so don’t get left behind and do go digital. Secondly, you will want to check that your marketing and sales teams are working effectively together – just like two spokes in a wheel, these departments are key to helping you gain and keep new business opportunities. Finally, have another look at your business plan. If you’ve stuck to it – congratulations! You are well on the way to business success.

How to Grow Your Strategic Mindset

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Article | How to Grow Your Strategic Mindset“It just completely caught us off guard.”

That’s a statement you never want to hear as a business leader. But today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world makes it incredibly difficult to plan and predict the future. At the same time, we’re all under pressure to move faster and get more done. So while thinking – and strategic thinking, in particular – is a key leadership responsibility, it often gets pushed aside in the midst of the day-to-day challenges of running the business.

In fact, there’s almost a universal resistance to long-term thinking in many organizations because we’re so focused on today’s problems: Are we making our numbers? Did the products get shipped? Did we resolve the customer issue?

The problem is, when you’re not thinking strategically, not only is it hard to see what’s coming, it’s hard to know where you are. A leader I spoke to recently put it this way: “When I’m mired in the swamp, it’s hard to see anything, much less the future.”[wcm_restrict]

Get Outside Your Thinking Confines

Hockey great Wayne Gretsky once said, “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

Similarly, a strategic approach preempts problems and seeks out opportunities before they become obvious to the entire industry. Some think you need a crystal ball to ‘see around corners’ and plan for the future – not true! But you will need to think ahead to where you want to be, imagine the possibilities, and possibly even disrupt today’s business to get there.

Ultimately, being strategic is a process that requires all of your thinking resources:

  • Analytical: Evaluating key business indicators
  • Tactical: Moving the pieces to get where you want to go
  • Interpersonal: Getting and keeping the right people
  • Visionary: Looking at the big picture and taking risks

Although we each prefer certain kinds of thinking over others, we all have the ability to stretch outside our thinking comfort zones. In other words, seeing around corners is within your reach – you just need to exercise your strategic mindset.

Your thinking preferences will act as filters that create ‘blind spots,’ though, so start by stimulating new thinking around the key elements of your business. Try some of these activities to promote a strategic mindset:

  • Disarm your brain by looking for situations outside your world view and talking to people with different backgrounds. Explore different industries and businesses. What can you learn from trends that impact them?
  • Read books, blogs or magazine articles on topics that may affect your business in the future (but not necessarily today).
  • Use metaphors to shift your mindset. Ask yourself, “How is this situation like…” and see where the possibilities take you.
  • Play strategy games like chess to practice thinking several moves ahead.
  • Remove self-imposed limits, even just for a moment, to discover new options.
  • Visualize where you will be in the future, then work backwards to determine how you ‘got there.’
  • Use storytelling to build different scenarios about the future so you can imagine what the implications might be.

While strategic thinking used to be considered a planning process relegated to those in the executive suite only, it is now, more than ever, a critical part of day-to-day decision making, precisely because the environment keeps changing all the time. To avoid getting caught off guard, make it a priority to expand your strategic mindset.

Watch this video for additional tips on becoming a strategic thinker…

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About the Author

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi, CEO of Herrmann InternationalAnn Herrmann-Nehdi is CEO of Herrmann International, the originators and trailblazers of Whole Brain® Thinking and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®). A thought leader in her field, Ann has worked with many hundreds of organizations around the world of all sizes and industries, helping them increase their thinking agility to improve profitability, leadership, productivity, innovation and overall business results. She is an AthenaOnline management expert and a faculty member of the Institute of Management Studies.

Business Plan Development Best Practice 1 – Plan the Plan’s Development

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Business plans are more than just words on an otherwise blank piece of paper; it is a statement of the company’s future. The business plan is meant to provide direction and inspire action among executives in the C-suite and employees on the shop floor. Subsequently, these plans are often elegant design and creative in their layout; being fully illustrated and capturing through pictures the essence of the workforce. Consequently, it takes time to develop this creative publication.[wcm_restrict plans=”90523, 25542, 25653″]

The complexities associated with bringing a business plan to life demand that the effort be appropriately planned for in order to ensure an on-time delivery. Key activities associated with developing a completed business plan, in addition to authoring the plan itself, include:

  1. Identifying the business plan’s theme
  2. Hiring graphic designers, artists, and photographers
  3. Creating meaningful illustrations, graphs, and charts
  4. Capturing formal and collecting candid workforce pictures
  5. Developing the plan’s customized layout
  6. Creating the business plan’s initial mock-up
  7. Conducting initial executive and board subcommittee reviews
  8. Finalizing the business plan
  9. Printing and binding the final plan
  10. Distributing the plan; including the development of accompanying communications devices such as newsletters, personalized workforce release memos, and work group briefings

Experience shows that the many actions needed to develop the final product business plan can take weeks and even months to perform. Some of these actions should be taken in parallel with the business plan’s development. Once the relationships between actions is established, the develop plan scheduled can be created anchoring the delivery of the final bound plan to the Board of Directors for approval and working backwards.

Final Thoughts…

When engaging the business plan designers, graphic artists, and photographers, it is often helpful to have them translate the color and graphics schemes into memo, letterhead, and presentation templates that will be later used to communicate and execute the plan. Branding of business plan activities reinforces the need to align the organization’s ongoing decisions and actions to the plan.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”90523, 25542, 25653″]

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