Kara Duffy
As a business coach, I’ve noticed the various camps that businesses and business owners fall into when it comes to creating business strategies. There is the “It Must Be A 50 Page Beautiful Deck” camp, which focuses on wowing and dazzling in all the wrong ways while leaving their team, and often themselves, totally confused about what they’re actually going to do. There is the “I Would Never Say This Out Loud, But I’ve Never Created a Business Plan” camp, who are, to no surprise, usually creative, free spirits getting by through relationships, instinct, and unknowingly building their own glass ceiling. And then there is the “One Page Plus a Spreadsheet” camp. This is the camp I fall into, and it’s the camp that sees growth, sustainability, and even evolution with businesses.
So how does the “One Page Plus a Spreadsheet” work? This plan is also called a Financially Supported Go-To-Market Strategy. Go-To-Market is the plan that takes an idea from concept, to being in the hands of a buying customer. Its simplicity and minimalism make it clear, easy to follow, and easy to delegate. Supported by a financial spreadsheet that shows how the math works and provides alternative scenarios, it changes business strategy from a hope and prayer to “of course this can work.”
The effectiveness of this business strategy is in its extreme simplicity. When someone sees my magical business strategy template, they often think it’s a joke. It’s a simple Google Doc with the following questions:
- Provide a short summary.
- What are the goals & ROIs?
- Why are we doing this?
- Who are we doing this for? Which customer?
- Who do we need on our team to make this happen?
- What are we actually providing at a transformational and emotional level?
- Where will we do this?
- When will we do this?
- How?
“How” includes the products and services, distribution channels, pricing, marketing, sales strategy, etc. What makes this scandalously simple document so effective is the following. First, most business owners don’t have any plan, so simply writing anything down would be a vast improvement. Second, if most business owners do have a plan, it’s way too complicated, confusing, and set up to impress someone, not make money. Third, when business owners do make a plan, they jump to the “How,” skipping over all the gold!
The “Why” are you doing something is the most important. For example, are you launching a new product because you know it will change everything for your customer and is needed? Or are you launching a new product because you always have and someone asked you to, but you actually don’t want to? There are a million ways you could make a million dollars, so why not stop, pause, and make sure that way is actually in alignment with you? If not you, is it in alignment with the brand’s soul?
The “Who” is the second most important. Does the product or service align with your dream customer? Do you know who your dream customer is anymore? Do you even really know what they want? In the hamster wheel of day-to-day business operations, it’s inevitable that we lose sight of who we’re doing it all for. The first person we’re doing all of this for is ourselves, the business owner. The second person we’re doing this for is our dream customer. Not our existing customer. Not our loudest customer. Not our highest paying customer. Our dream customer.
The “What” is the third most important. Your “What” is not just T-shirts, business coaching, or social media management. Your “What” is the magic you do and give someone. It’s the transformation you provide to a person or business. It’s what you’re really selling, and it’s almost guaranteed you never talk about it. If you’re a beauty brand, your “What” may be confidence, self-love, and attraction. In my business, our “What” is often giving someone access to thrive and live their dream life through their dream business.
In most businesses, the abandonment of the “Why,” “Who,” and “What” as priorities reveals we are building businesses based on how we think money is made, rather than aligning with what lights us up.
So this year as you’re building your business strategies, please don’t copy and paste last year’s plan with a 10% increase. Take the time to get reconnected with the business. Take the time to listen to what the data, your customers, and your heart are telling you. Take advantage of the opportunity you have, which is to revolutionize your business and evolve it into something that excites you and is successful.
Kara Duffy is an entrepreneur, business coach, and consultant who uses her Have It All Method™ to help business owners become Extraordinary CEOs and organizations to scale. She’s worked with over 100 businesses and brands across the world to show them how business can be more successful, more fun, and more impactful. Her unique background from streetwear, skateboarding, and saving misfit product categories means she knows how to build something from nothing and where to borrow from best practices for your unique business. Her other businesses include media company Powerful Ladies and fashion brand Olivet.