Why it is critical that business leaders take a strategic approach to their business activities.

Over the years, I have had the privilege of working with hundreds if not thousands of business owners, from those who are starting up to those that have been in business for many years.  Every time we work together, they desire guidance on their goals and often have ideas for how they will accomplish it.

One of the questions I ask people is ‘why?’  It could be as simple as, “why do you want to accomplish this goal?” or “why is this goal important?,” or it might be, “why do you want to take these particular steps?”

I ask because sometimes we have beliefs about what we do or should do that may not actually be the best for us or for our businesses.

For example, I remember someone who would regularly tell me how she was, “rising and grinding” and she was, “getting in early to get the work done.”  She believed sincerely that the more she worked and the earlier she started, the more successful she would be.

Well, she certainly did gain wealth, but it was at the cost of her mental health. She completely burned out and ended up changing her line of work altogether.

Truth be told, that has happened to me as well.

Interestingly, someone asked me a question the other day: “Tell me please, do you think it is getting harder to get noticed on social media?” which is a great question.  It made me stop and ask myself the question, “Why am I on social media?  What do I hope to accomplish?”

I have certainly invested a lot of time in it, published a lot of content, and have built a number of relationships with it. But if I am doing it through my business, what is the purpose and how do I measure success?

While certainly not an Aepiphanni, (see what I did there?) without a “why” or a purpose I could not establish a goal.  Without a goal, I could not determine if I was being successful or how successful I was going to be.  Furthermore, I could not determine what the best approach would be, nor determine if those approaches were successful.

Essentially, from a business perspective, I was participating in social media “just for the sake of it.” Perhaps at one point I was more strategic about it. But I have to be honest and say that: a) I didn’t have clear, measurable goals and b) I wasn’t consistently tracking anything other than end results (how many meetings I was setting up). As a result, I don’t have enough information to make any adjustments in my approach to improve our performance.

Bottom line: investing in initiatives – whether time or money – just for the sake of it is wasteful.  There simply aren’t two ways about it.  Even if you have a good “gut feeling” about something, without taking a strategic approach about how to do it, even if you are successful, I’ll bet dollars to dimes that it won’t be as successful as it could have been.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.  I’m in the business of helping business leaders build companies that stand out in the marketplace, so strategy is the cornerstone on which we work. We have built a proven framework, known as the Aepiphanni Strategic Framework, that we use to guide our clients successfully through both strategic planning and implementation.

If you’d like to learn more about what we do and how we help companies streamline, expand and grow, register to meet with me at https://coffeeandaconsult.com. Or join us on Aepiphanni Off the Cuff, our regular podcast, to talk about your entrepreneurial journey and what uniqueness you bring to the world.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.