Strategy, written down and short enough to use
Where the business is going, which customers it is for, what it will not do, and the two or three moves that matter this year. On one page, not in a bound document.
Most strategy problems are decision problems
Businesses rarely fail for lack of ideas. They stall because nobody ever decided which customer the business is for, what it charges and what it is going to stop doing, so effort gets spread across everything at once.
- Pick the customer. Being for everybody is the most expensive position in any market. Choosing costs you some enquiries and wins you the ones worth having.
- Name what you will not do. A strategy with nothing excluded is a list of hopes. The exclusions are what free up the capacity to be good at the rest.
- Check the price. Pricing is the fastest lever most owners have and the one they touch least, usually because nobody has worked out the real cost of delivery.
- Choose three moves, not thirty. Three things done properly beat a plan that reads well and never survives contact with a busy month.
What this work involves
Where the money is made
Which customers, services and jobs are actually carrying the business, and which are quietly funded by the others.
Positioning
What you are genuinely better at, said in language a customer would recognise rather than in marketing words.
Pricing review
What you charge, what it costs you to deliver, and what the market would carry if you asked properly.
The one page plan
The direction, the three moves, who owns each and what would tell you it is working.
Business strategy questions
Is strategy not just for big companies?
No. A large company has room to absorb a bad year. A small one does not, which is why choosing where to point the effort matters more, not less.
We already know what we want to do. Is this useful?
Often yes, because the value is in the sequencing and in what gets excluded. Most owners have a list of good ideas and no agreement on which three come first.
Do you write a big strategy document?
No. You get something short you can actually run, plus the working we did to get there if you want it.
What if the honest answer is to stay the same size?
Then we say so. Growing is a choice, not an obligation, and some businesses are better off being more profitable rather than bigger.
The rest of what we consult on
Business operations
How a job moves through your business, who owns each step, what gets checked and where the time disappears. Most owners are not sh
Read more →Business growth
More of the right customers, and keeping them. That means the offer, the price, where enquiries come from and what happens to one
Read more →Business development
New services, new markets, partners and referral relationships. The work that widens a business rather than squeezing more out of
Read more →Start with the free consultation
Thirty minutes, no cost and no obligation. You will leave knowing where this sits against everything else the business needs.
- The first consultation is free and there is no obligation to go further
- An honest read including when the answer is to fix something before you spend
- Scope and fees in writing agreed before any work starts
