During the past couple of years, what have you been doing in your business? Have you been a “rock skipper” or a “puddle jumper”? I know its a strange question to ask on a site dedicated to strategy, but its an important question because they speak to the mentality of a companies strategic approach. Consider [...]
One of the most dreadful parts of starting a business is writing the business plan. They can be incredibly boring, long-winded and often times end up collecting dust on your bookshelf. Joe Strategy’s advice to small businesses can fix that! Welcome to Business Plans 101, the most basic and uncomplicated understanding of what’s good and [...]
Strategic Planning Best Practices: It’s Good to be King
June 25, 2011 by fishertilton
Or Queen, of course. The point is that it’s important to look at small business strategic planning with new and fresh thinking and to develop new strategic planning best practices. Joe Strategy’s advice to small businesses that are either family-owned or managed by a dominant leader is to use the strategic planning tool developed by [...]
Continue Reading →New Strategic Planning Tools: C.O.R.E.
June 18, 2011 by deanna
Strategic planning best practices should never be static. After all, how many SWOTs can you stomach? While the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) exercise has been a useful part of many strategic planning models, the fact is that when you do the same thing too many times, you come up with the same answers. [...]
Continue Reading →The Ancient History of Strategic Planning
June 11, 2011 by deanna
“The way in which strategic planning is performed is a relic of the past, not reflective of our dynamic times.” — Joe Strategy My first strategic planning session was in 1996. I participated in one last year that was almost identical in process, exercises, and focus — as were the dozen others in which I [...]
Continue Reading →Good Strategy Should Make Your Competition Irrelevant
June 4, 2011 by deanna
Joe Strategy’s advice for small businesses is to learn about the strategic planning best practices embedded in the Blue Ocean Strategy concepts defined by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and to reject conventional wisdom. Incorporating these concepts and practices into your strategic planning model will enable you to make your competition irrelevant.
Continue Reading →Branding and Strategy – Get Them Together Fast
May 28, 2011 by deanna
In last Friday’s post, we talked about the importance of viewing branding as integral to your overall strategic planning. We defined branding as how your customers and the marketplace perceive you. We emphatically professed that brand equity is a real thing and should be an important strategic goal for any business. And we pointed out [...]
Continue Reading →Is Your Brand in Your Small Business Strategy?
May 26, 2011 by deanna
If you “google” on the word “branding”, you’ll get 50,900,000 hits in .22 seconds. You’ll find articles from academic experts, marketing gurus, design divas, advertising whizzes, and thousands of companies ready and willing to help you create a powerful brand. You’ll also find several definitions of the word “brand”, most of which sound something like [...]
Continue Reading →The Anti-Planning Hypocrisy
May 5, 2011 by fishertilton
I love to read about people and companies that have succeeded by being unconventional. 37Signals is one such company that has reached the pinnacle of success by doing things their own way. They have millions of users, have made millions of dollars and are revered by the technology community and thought leaders like Seth Godin. [...]
Continue Reading →Small Business Strategic Planning in a Downturn
April 7, 2011 by fishertilton
Yes, there are signs of recovery out there, and we have been officially told by our so called officials that the Great Recession is over. But the economy does not affect all sectors equally and many businesses are still struggling. Therefore I wanted to offer this blueprint for strategic planning during a downturn. It is [...]
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Fisher, Tilton & Vann, Inc. is a Vann Group Company. The Vann Group provides outsourced professional services solutions that help small & mid-size businesses create, maximize and realize the unlocked value in their companies.