Strategy

Once upon a time, there was a man named John.

John was a small town guy with a free spirit and a passion for glass. He owned one of the most successful glass businesses in his entire county and had such a positive reputation he was the go-to guy for anything glass related. Everyone wanted to be John.

John came into work happy every day. He had built this business from scratch using his own money and his own hard work. He didnt have a boss, investors, or shareholders to answer to, and he was very proud of what he had built for himself. Like any great business man, John had ambition. He was never satisfied. He always wanted to grow, improve and of course, make more money. What John wanted was the American Dream.

Looking for ways to improve his business and increase his revenue, John turned to his friends for advice.

John set out to expand.

It wasn’t long before John heard his business friends talking about the good ol’ world wide web, so John decided it was about time he got a website for himself. He called up a web design firm and contracted them to build a brand new super shiny site. And build it they did.

A few months passed, and John again heard his business friends talking about the newest term on the block – Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short. John didn’t really show up in Google anywhere, so he went ahead and hired an SEO firm to optimize his site and work on his Google rankings. And work on them they did.

Another few months passed, and for the third time John heard his business friends talking about the next big thing – social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube were all the rage with the cool kids these days, so naturally John wanted in on the fun. He found a social media marketing firm, called them up, and hired them to create and manage his social media accounts. And manage them they did.

Always wanting to improve, John continued this pattern for everything he could think of including the following:

• Email Marketing
• Lead Acquisition
• Online Pay-per-click
• Print Advertising
• Reputation Management

Everything was Awesome.

John was on top of the world. Profits were through the roof, bank accounts were taking payments at an incredible speed, and his staff’s morale was on the edge of the atmosphere. John’s business got so well known it started exporting to wholesalers and repair shops all over the country.

John loved his life.

He had finally done it. The old Victorian house with the white picket fence, the sports car with more horsepower than he could ever use…he even had a cabin in the forest for vacations.

John loved his business.

Something he had built from the ground up was making and impact on the world. He had created something larger than himself – something that had its own message, ideals and mission. Impact was always more important to John, but he always figured the more money you have, the more impact you can make.

Things Didn’t last long though.

John’s success was short lived. Yes he was pulling in record profits, but because of the massive overhead he had taken on, he was also spending record sums. Johns vision was still there, but the business itself was nearly breaking even. There’s no money to be made if everyone breaks even. The thing was, the business was breaking even WITHOUT John’s salary. His private spending had to be cut down drastically or he would be facing bankruptcy.

John knew something was wrong.

In an attempt to clear his head, John took a walk. When he came upon a park, he wandered in and found a local little league football team in the middle of a game. One of the very few in the bleachers, John sat alone, blankly watching the game and letting his mind wander.

After watching a few plays, his mind was still blank, and he was ready to give up. That’s when something popped into his head. These little leaguer’s weren’t running around the field randomly. In fact, it wasn’t even remotely close to random. In the huddles between plays, the coach would go over the plan of attack against the other team and the individual role of each player.

Each player played their part with the aim of reaching a single goal – getting a touchdown. This wasn’t a field with a bunch of kids running around, this was a cooperative effort between two opposing forces, each acting as one. There wasn’t a quarterback, there wasn’t a running-back, there wasn’t a defense – there was just a team.

Every play made was a written out strategy and a deliberate attempt at scoring a goal using the unity of the team as a whole. And that’s when it hit him.

John Needed Strategy.

Strategy is what ties all of your marketing together. It’s what delivers a consistent message to your audience and it’s what makes sure all different types and methods of marketing are working together rather than against each other.

Strategy is what makes sure your design guy knows the colors and types of designs that are most appealing to the people that will actually be viewing your website. Strategy is making sure your Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign isn’t completely competing with your Search Engine Optimization.

Strategy is what pulls it all together.

All of the firms and companies John hired were top notch and the best in the business, and they all delivered on their promise. They all got him leads that were worth his investment. The problem was not any individual service or type of marketing. Instead, it was the lack of cooperation between them. They all did their own research, they had their own opinions on Johns target market, and they all worked independently with no contact with each other.

In business, not only do you need strategy to ensure that all the components of your business are working to supplement each other, but you need to make sure your marketing is working efficiently. You need it to plan out where and when things will happen and how they will transpire. Strategy is what allows you to slingshot the next campaign with the previous success. You can remain two steps ahead of the competition by planning your moves and making sure all aspects of your business are working together to their fullest potential.

Strategy is what the majority of businesses lack, and the lack of strategy is why they lose thousands of dollars to pointless marketing each and every month.

Strategy is what your competitors don’t have, and it’s what you need to give Your business the edge.

Be more like John.

John was not only able to solve his crisis, he was able to expand even further and create one of the single largest glass manufacturing companies in the northwest United States. John understood the power of strategy, and he had the mindset to admit he didn’t know best.

John’s receptiveness and problem solving skills allowed him to determine a problem, and solve it.

John gave me a call.

If John didn’t implement a strategy when he did, he would have went out of business. There is no middle ground in profit – you either make money or you don’t, and he was sharp enough to understand that.

Your business may not be struggling, and it may even be doing quite well, but that only means that you have even more to gain from a strategy then someone in dire need.

Strategy is something that should have been implemented from the start, but many business owners like to jump right into things and play it by ear. That’s fun, sure, but what happens when you become so consumed with your business that you go deaf?

I’m here to be your hearing aid. I’m here to be your coach. Most of all though, I’m here to make sure your business is operating to 100% of its fullest potential.

I’m here to give your business a pulse – with strategy.