Business Strategy Through the Eyes of Successful Leaders

If you only have one plan and you say we take step A, B, C, D, you get completely derailed when your plan doesn't have that. Whereas if you have strategy you're like okay, this has happened, let's just switch the degrees one and keep on heading in that direction. I think for me it would definitely be goal setting in a productive way and for me I need dates because otherwise my dreams are very big and I just sort of keep going. So for me I've worked out right, I need to be placed at that time doing that three months, that's six months, that's five years. Well I don't really know who I want to work with and I don't really know who I'm like, you're not ready to create a brand, you're not ready to make that visual. Until you get the strategy first. I'm Mike Harris and I help businesses to successfully grow their profit and turnover. In the last year alone I have helped over 20 companies at least double in size and I work with the mixture of phones for small, medium and large businesses including startups and multinationals. Strategy is at the heart of scaling your business, it's your own map for success. Not a surprise that I believe is after all this is the leading strategy podcast. Over the last year of last day I'm many guests what strategy means to them. They all have a unique and exciting insight on this topic. So this week sit back and enjoy some free strategy advice from their very special guests. I think it's fundamental, half my book's taken up with strategy. So before we start looking at colours and fonts. So you know, you see just showing the book again for anyone who's not listening on on YouTube. So yeah, strategy is the core. As I say I've got a background in marketing and in sales and so that came before before you do anything in the way that I mean I was talking about things in visual ways and with my you know kind of interest in property and construction and you know interior I qualified as an interior designer as well. It's like trying to choose wall paper, doing your branding before you've got your strategies like trying to choose your wallpaper before you've dug the foundations. Yes. And without that it falls over. So people who do rush straight into the branding work will often find that their direction less. They don't know they've got the logo and they don't know what to do but they don't know how to show up and they don't know what how they should come across in their messaging. They don't know what they should be talking about. They're not sure how to position themselves. So it's all about the positioning, the messaging, the getting clear on what it is that you want to achieve with the business with your own personal brand, how you want to be perceived before you start making that visual. Yeah, absolutely. Another analogy because I love me analogies is I like and brand to being like an iceberg. Yeah. So what you see above the iceberg is the visual part which is the branding and the messaging and the tip of the iceberg is the logo which is why everyone just kind of wants to rush to that summit and we'll get a logo done but what they don't realise is all the stuff underneath the water that's actually holding that you know that's actually supporting that and it's not seen but it's very much felt. Yeah, I'm going to client recently who brought me into work on their business plan and their strategy and that they are started there. They just started with a consultant to produce the website and I said well you've got to wait until we finish the business plan. You can't you can't produce the website because it will not represent your business plan. You've got to have the plan. Yeah, you've got to know what you want before you can. Absolutely and that's what I've had turned clients away before when they've gone well I don't really know who I want to work with and I don't really know. Exactly. You're not ready to create a brand. You're not ready to make that visual until you get the strategy first go back to your business coach. Yeah exactly. Get the answers and then come back to you. And the bottom they got is they went ahead with the website anyway and now they're going now they're going to have to go back over the website because we need all of this to be represented into the website. So yeah, so it's good to hear that you know from your point of view that the importance of strategy. You can't do one without the other they're absolutely intertwined because again when I talk about a leader but the whole point of whoever the leader is is they have a vision of something a goal and target something that they want to achieve that doesn't exist right now and to get from where they are now to what they want to achieve there's a gap and the only way you're going to feel that gap is to have a strategy. Now some people say you've got to have a plan and there is a difference between a strategy and a plan. So the the strategy is looking at all of the different routes and options and possibilities and being able to flex in you know if we are in a vukka world where things will change people will leave jobs and people will go off and have babies there will be a you know a war and force the oil prices etc. So if you only have one plan and you say we take step a b cd you get completely derailed when your plan doesn't happen whereas if you have a strategy you're like okay this has happened let's just switch the degrees one and keep on heading in that direction and so having yet that the strategy and the leader are intertwined if I would not follow anybody into battle if they didn't have a strategy. Yeah, yeah, it's having very clear goals having timelines that go with them because I have really big goals and what I tend to do is I'll think about those and actually I work backwards and I think might if I want that to be this goal let's go back let's do small steps where do I need to be today to have that in whatever that is. So I think strategy for me also has to be written down. It can't just be in my head because if I'm working with other people they need to understand what my strategy is I want input in my strategy if I'm working in a business with lots of other people I want to know what's there what's your goal how can we feed that into our strategy. So I think for me it would definitely be goal setting in a productive way and for me I need dates because otherwise my dreams are very big and I just sort of keep going so for me I've worked out right I need to be placed at that's what I'm doing a month that's three months that's six months that's five years so I'd say that would be the key once for me. Brilliant I think you've summed it up really well. I think strategies having a clear or not is having clarity or vision with a clear roadmap of the household knowing the why and also at a high level the how it's going to get done but I think in addition to that is then having the flexibility to pay attention to the environment so there's a lot of experimentation that goes with strategy and I think this is why it's not just the you can just put in chat GPC and chat GPC will tell you right so that might be a good starting point if that's what you're going to for but I think the real skill is to sharpen up that vision like be very clear on your what your why is have a very high level how mapped out and the courage really is courage to put out your not so good idea how simple well and see you know how the world reacts to it take all of that data back and then go back to the drone like it's a rating because I think strategy for me is very iterative I think the days of having like this five years strategy that we sit down once and we do and we lock it up I think it's more it's we can kind of have a direction but I think done well your strategy really should at least be reviewed quarterly it's kind of how I chose it because like yeah strategy really having the right processes and whatever behaviors whatever it is you know to succeed so in terms of the business marketing strategy has helped me yeah then there's a social strategy that helps then you've got your style strategy yeah and then your overall business plans strategy yes so that might not very fluid and they change and sometimes I haven't looked at them I've just made a decision but I think that's how business where you know when people say that's my business plan I don't know how that works because there's a plan and then there's a plan yeah yeah I use my plan yeah it's because things are constantly evolving but they are you they keep you on track and it makes you accountable as well so if you know that you know this is what I've got to do do it yeah I'm accountable what are the results that I've received so having those plans in place help help and in terms of behavior I have a strategy as well staying positive no matter what happens within the business keeping my business I think we touched on this my business separate to me yeah yeah because it can you know it can be so turbulent it's not always happy glory everything's going just fine they are times when you think what have I done you know it's it's not working out how I want it to be but you can't let that get into your personal life either so there's got to be coping what do I do well you know you've got to find a coping mechanism and again that's a strategy because that's going to help you to succeed anything that's going to help you to succeed I think it's a strategy coping mechanism and something you've just you said a minute ago which I think is really important is that you have a plan and then you kind of have the plan how how you what comes up day to day but but actually if you know where you want to get to and you have that overarching strategy much easier to make day to day decisions are my way because you know what if we're trying to do if you don't know we're trying to get to is that you know your doctor or doctor and that but if you know we've got to get to you kind of know which is probably the better room so it's easier to make those day to day yeah yeah it's like a road closure isn't it? You've got a guide, you know where you want to get to, but that road is closed. So how else can I get there to try something else? Exactly right. Exactly right. So the correct definition, we all know you look up the dictionary, whatever, is going to be something like something in the zone of a plan to achieve a goal or something like that. That's the kind of thing that you'll normally get. And of course, this is true. But this is also incredibly unhelpful when it comes to actually doing strategy because it doesn't give you any guidance as to what a good strategy looks like or how to go about the challenge because when you say, oh look, all you need to do is come up with a plan to achieve a goal kind of thing. You're like, well, that's like, it's a bit like saying, well, strategy is just a really good idea, isn't it? Yeah, or you know, playing football, all you've got to do is kick the ball in the net, you know, exactly like that. And you say, oh, yeah, cheers for that. So no wonder people are left floundering. Now the reason that that definition, of course, is so broad is because that is for strategy writ large because that could be the strategy to win an election or to get six pack abs or whatever, right? You can apply that definition strategy everywhere. We're talking about strategy and business here. And so what we can get away with is a much more narrow definition, a definition which is actually fundamentally incorrect if you think of it as being a definition of strategy, but despite being incorrect, hell of a lot more useful. So my sort of business specific definition of strategy, which I think starts to put people in the right direction is, well, if we think back to what actually is a business, what do all businesses have in common, all businesses and nothing more than systems that are designed to deliver some form of value to the market and receive value and return. So the way that a business grows and succeeds is just to maximize the amount of value it puts out there. So that fundamentally is the job of any strategy is purely to maximize the amount of value you create because then you're going to maximize the amount of value you get. And the crucial and that's a kind of two part process because on the one hand, it means you have to create something that people want, something that people value, but just as important and much harder is you have to create something people want, but that they can't get anywhere else but you. And so if you imagine, if you managed to tick those two boxes, if you sort of solve that equation, right, I'm selling something that people want, but I'm the only option for that thing, you're going to make money hand over fist without any real effort and everything else in your business effectively becomes kind of academic. That is the kind of the challenge at the top of the pyramid for any business is answering that riddle. So my definition of strategy, I would say in order to start pushing people in the right direction is a strategy is just your way of figuring out how you can give people something they want that they can't get anywhere else. And that then lays down the gauntlets, I think, for the challenge that the business has to undertake. And I think if you look at every business on the planet, the number of businesses who've actually solved that riddle, i.e. who have got an amazing strategy that delivers on that, vanishingly rare. I mean, like we're talking like less than 0.1% who've actually done that. Every other business, they basically managed to succeed on one side of the equation, but fail on the other. And I can almost look at any business and I can tell you which side of that equation they're succeeding on and which side of the equation they're failing on. And then you can predict the challenges that those businesses are going to face based on which side of the equation they are succeeding on failing. So you know, we can get into all of that, but it's a very simple, I think, way of understanding the health of any given business. Yeah, yeah. As I mentioned earlier, you put a lot of strategy behind the podcast. You're not just taught through some of the things you do when you're launching your podcast or you're advising people on start with their own podcast from a strategic point of view. Yeah. And I think, look, some of the first questions I was having this conversation yesterday with Dave before with a prospective client who, again, it seemed one of my posts on LinkedIn about the event, funny enough, and then started looking at my stuff about podcasts. And the questions that I was asking her, right, look, okay, ultimately, if you want to start a podcast, what does podcast success look like for you? What is your goal? What is it? Because people that I want to start a podcast, yeah, but why? If you have no idea what you're looking to achieve with it, how do you know if it's successful or not? So getting super clear on that before you decide to take any next steps is really important. I think finding out exactly who you want to listen and watch that podcast, because again, I know the audience that I started with ended up being a very different audience because I changed tack. And I always remember Rowena Bird from Lush saying to me, I've interviewed her before saying, you know, when we started the business, we thought Lush's product was aimed at kids. She goes, now it's lit you from nine years old to 90 years old because everybody would buy a bath bomb, whether it's a gift or for themselves. I feel like I said earlier, I thought my business was going to be big culprits and it's ended up being mainly startups and so on. So it's getting super clear on your ideal listener is super important. I think something that most people miss is talking about what's the next action you want somebody to take once they've listened or watched your podcast. Most people would just go, you know, rating review my podcast. Thanks for listening, share, go to my Instagram, go to my LinkedIn, go to my website and you're like, you're not going to take any action whatsoever because you've completely banned booze or something. Oh, that's not the same. Not me too. But you just want, you know, one thing and you've got a captive audience. It's not like they're on social media and they've seen a banner ahead or there's a pop up. You know, you've got their attention for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. How long your podcast is? You've got their attention. So it's a voice in their head. So what do you want them to do next? Make it super clear what action do you want them to take? And then, you know, when it comes to, you know, the actual strategy for the launch for me, you know, taking leaf out of the successful media companies that are out there, you know, look at a Netflix, look at an Amazon, etc. When they launch something, they usually launch with a series, a limited series, okay. So you hook someone in, but instead of them watching that and then going, oh, there's nothing else. And going elsewhere to, you know, the competition that you hooked them in and you've got a whole library of content that they can dive into and fully immerse themselves because you want to take them from a casual listener to a follower of its audio or a subscriber if it's really wanting to click that button. So for me, it's, you know, launch with that. And again, look, they still say 50% of podcasts are found through organic search. So it people can't find your podcast by searching online and you're missing 50% of your potential audience. So if you're, if you've got, for example, 100 followers and you send them and there's one piece of content there, what's the maximum you're going to get 100? If you send them there and you've got 456 episodes, you're 456Xing your potential downloads, meaning you could gate crash the podcast to get in the charts for your category. Yes, there's a bit of ego in there as well because everybody likes to take a screenshot and look at my number one, look at my top 10 podcast or whatever. But more than that is that you'll, you've then got visibility, right? You will then start attracting other casual listeners viewers who you can turn into super fans for your podcast. If you haven't got that visibility, if you hadn't launched with more than one episode, it's not going to happen. Getting things achieved through others is probably the key thing is building people up to achieve things. That would really be where it all fundamentally sticks. Whether it's in any venture where you get teams together, whether it's on the pitch, whether it's on a court, wherever teams interact, you really get the best out of people when they're all going in one direction and they have a clear objective that is a meaningful purpose. So I think that's another layer of leadership and establishing that clear purpose and getting the whole team pulling together in a certain way. And that is very much leadership rather than management. Management strikes me as stopping people doing things. Whereas leadership is helping people do things. And what do you need to do this? How can I help you do this? Yeah. Rather than you shouldn't be doing that, you shouldn't be doing that. What are you doing that for? I think we're. When you walk around a shop floor, when you walk around a business, it's very difficult to tell who has the capabilities of being a great manager, but it's quite easy to see the leaders. Yeah. Well, good and ill. Sometimes it can be the moaners that have a level of charisma that people get around a moan to. Sometimes it can be the introverts that don't say a lot, but when they say it, everybody listens and they can be leaders. It's quite, I would say, it's much easier to find your leaders than find your managers. And I do feel that managers don't, the primary thing isn't to facilitate others' growing doing, and the organisation taking off, it's to stop and put barriers in the way. I mean, you've identified it there as a separate thing, and certainly there needs to be an aligned business development approach with strategy, but it can't be a separate thing. So you can't really have a business development strategy without the overall company strategy, and you can't really have the company strategy without input from the business development strategy. So there's a kind of this meeting in the middle. What structure and approach and processes in place to make that effective, and that's really where the strategy comes in, in terms of positioning, whether it's with the customer relationships that you're looking at. So I think you said in a previous question or a previous point, seeing your mates, the people you've always spoken to, always worked with sometimes, won't necessarily give you what you want here. So being able to challenge that, identify the gaps in terms of that process, in terms of customer relationships, which again can be quite difficult. Sometimes you've got customers who are very stand-offish, or you're going through a very formal tender process. What is a strategy? So I'm going to take you back in time to when I first really had to think about this. I've just finished a major project in Edinburgh. I'd come down to do a job in Birmingham. I wasn't particularly keen to do it. I felt I'd been there and done that, but I decided if I was going to run the project in Birmingham, I was going to learn about leadership. I wanted to be different. I wanted to progress my thinking and progress my career. And one of the first things I found when I was looking at leadership was importance of strategy. In fact, it's very hard to be a leader if you don't have a strategy, if you don't have a vision of where you want to take people. So that was my first experience of strategy. So like most things, I went off to find a definition of what strategy actually means. Back then, I don't think Google existed. I went to the Collins English dictionary and looked it up. The art of planning and directing, large military movement, and operations in a battle war. And I thought, that's not really applicable. That's not what I want. So I went off and did research on a lot of other definitions. But I kept coming back to it. The one I just mentioned. And the reason I kept coming back to it was because I decided with a bit of tweaking, it actually could be used for my purposes. And the tweaking I did was I took it from the art of planning and directing, large military movement and the operations in a battle war and changed it to the art of planning and directing, large business movement and operations in the competitive environment. So tweaking it a little bit, it actually worked for me. And I've used that now ever since. And that must be about 15 years now. So it's a definition I found really helpful. I do get a lot of people saying, actually the original definition is not far wrong actually. When you're in business, it certainly feels like you're in a battle in a war. So they kind of see the connection. And that's quite useful. But the one I use as I say, the definition I use is about businesses and competitive environment. And the reason I really like it is because it keeps it loose. It can actually be used and adapted for different situations. So if you're running and heading up an HR department, it's the art of planning and directing, HR operations, a movement in say a manufacturing company. If you work in sales and marketing, it's the art and planning and directing of sales and marketing and movement within a sales environment. If you're on a project and quite often I work with clients who are looking at project strategies, it's the art and planning of directing, project operations and movement on a large say infrastructure contract. So it's adaptable and usable in different contexts. And that's why I like it is that you can replace the part of the business or the operation you're doing into the actual overall definition. So that's my definition, which is great. But what does that actually mean in practice, I'll hear you say? A strategy should describe the general direction set for the unit and its various components to achieve a desired state in the future. It should determine the basic long term goals for that unit. Contain a plan of action designed to achieve a long term or overall aim. Also, the actions should be those taken to attain one or more of the unit's goals. It should make sure that you're looking at the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out those goals and actions. And normally it results from a detailed strategic planning process. So that's kind of what it is in practice. Hopefully that all made sense. If you've got any questions or comments again, if you're watching on YouTube, let me know in the comments below or contact me on LinkedIn. I can come back and hopefully give you some more information, either again in future podcasts or maybe directly on a one-on-one. Thank you everybody for watching. I hope you've liked it today and you've got a lot out of it. And I'll see you all soon on the Leaders and Strategy Podcast. And we'll be talking about Strategy, Leadership and all things business. I'll see you there. Thanks.