However, just adding the word, “strategic,” in front of the word, “plan” does not make a plan strategic any more than throwing the word “friendly” in front of the word “service” makes your local cable company’s customer service friendly. It just doesn’t work that way.

In order for a plan to be strategic, it needs to answer strategic questions, not tactical ones. So, what’s the difference between the two? Here are four key distinctions to keep in mind as you work on your strategic plan for next year.

1. Strategy is about direction, whereas tactics are about action. Strategy seeks to answer the question, “What do we want to be?” Whereas tactics answer the question of, “How are we going to get there?” The first two words of those questions offer a good guideline for you to use in order to remember the difference between a strategy question and a tactical one. If someone uses the word, “How?” it’s probably a tactical question (e.g. “How will we generate more leads?”). Whereas if they use the word, “What?” it’s probably a strategy question (e.g. “What do we want to be different about our company by 12/31 of next year?”).

In other words, strategy points out a direction for an organization. It tells everyone, this is where we’re headed and here are the boundaries in which we’re going to play on our way there. However real strategic work doesn’t tell anyone, “Here’s what we need to do next week.”

2. Strategy focuses on the future, whereas tactics focus on the present. Strategy always looks at the future, and then looks back to the present, whereas tactics always look at where we are (the present) and then project into the future–which is a huge difference. For example, a strategic decision might be to completely cut off a line of business, not because it’s failing, but because it’s not where the company wants to go.

Whereas a tactical plan will always start with the current lines of business and figure out how to make each one of them incrementally better.  In other words, tactical plans usually only lead to incremental improvement, whereas real strategic formulations can/should radically change and accelerate the growth of a business or  organization because they’re not hindered by current “realities.”

3. Strategy is an executive function, whereas tactics are an operational function. In other words, strategy formulation is the big picture work that top level executives must be involved in. This is the work that determines the nature and direction of an organization. However, planning and tactics are operational responsibilities and therefore should be developed by those who are actually responsible for implementing them.

Or to put it another way, strategy is best done “top down,” whereas tactics are best done from the “bottom up.” Once the executive team has developed a business or organization’s strategy, then those who are most closely responsible for the results ought to be involved in selecting the tactics necessary for achieving the strategy that the executives set (i.e. authority and responsibility should always go hand in hand). Note: Boards should not create strategic plans, only refine and improve them.

4. Strategy is about perception, whereas tactics are about execution. Strategy is about defining how an organization wants to be perceived in the marketplace (as the organization that best provides the products and/or services that its market needs/wants/desires). Tactics are about figuring out how to best execute that strategy (i.e. how are we going to get there). Or to put it another way, strategic work is about developing and gaining clarity about an organization’s competitive advantages so that it can communicate those differences to its market. Whereas tactics are focused on the steps to ensure that those differences do exist.

That said, there is a strong natural tendency for executive teams (and boards) to jump right into tactical work. Why? Because they want action. They want to focus on what they can do tomorrow. It feels better. However, the problem with that kind of thinking is, “It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going, if you’re going in the wrong direction.” In other words, if the strategy isn’t right, tactics are irrelevant!

So, as you review the four differences between strategy and tactics that I’ve listed above, is your “strategic plan” really strategic? Or is it simply a long-range plan dressed up with a fancier title? If you want to accelerate your business or organization’s growth, then you’ll want to take the time to create a real strategic plan. Why? Because when everyone is clear on where you’re headed, the “how to get there’s” become obvious and you end up getting where you want to go faster, with less friction and more joy.

To your accelerated success!

Note: If you ever need help developing a  strategic plan that can accelerate the growth of your business or organization, make sure you contact me at bruce@acceleratedgrowth.org (or call me at 301-602-0448). This is what we do!

It doesn’t have to be that way. Henry Ford was absolutely right when he said, “Whether you think you can or you can’t you’re right.” It’s all about what goes on in your head. So, if you think the year is over, then it’s over–not because it is, but because you won’t do what’s necessary to create a great year end finish. However, if on the other hand, you believe that you can finish the year well, then you’ll do what’s necessary to finish well–and you will. It’s all about what you believe first, then what you do.

So, if you want to finish this year well, here’s what I’d encourage you to do over the next three days, Create a 100 Day Plan (or if you’re reading this later than September 24th–create a X number of days plan–a 90 Day Plan or 87 Day Plan or 65 Day Plan, etc. to reach the end of the year).

Now, to create this plan, there are a couple of guidelines worth remembering.

1. Focus on your growth accelerators. In other words, what are the three to five most important things you need to get done before the end of the year that would have the greatest impact on your business. You can’t get everything done by 12/31, so what are the three to five most important projects/initiatives/tasks etc. that need to be completed by the end of the year if you want to finish well.

2. Focus on what can drive additional revenue and profits by year end. This is it. You’re now on the 20 yard line. You’re within striking distance. The 2:00 minute warning has been sounded. So get focused. Where can you quickly drive additional revenue and profits before the whistle blows on 12/31? Don’t let other items get in the way. The end of the year is too close.

3. Focus on a few projects that have been dragging along that “never” seem to get done. There are few more enjoyable moments then checking something off a to do list that has been hanging on there forever. For example, that website redo that was supposed to happen back in March–wouldn’t it feel great if you knocked it off before the end of the year?

4. Focus on what will set you up for a great next year. In other words, you not only want to set yourself up for a great year end finish, you also want to set yourself up for a great start to next year as well. Or to put it another way, you don’t want to be so short-term focused, that you hurt your first quarter of next year. So, what needs to happen this quarter to set you up for a great first quarter of next year?

Then, once you have your 100 Day Plan, you’ll need to push yourself and your team to make sure it gets done. Put your plan up someplace where everyone can see it. Create some key metrics. Keep them visible. Report on them daily or weekly. Put some incentives into your plan for your people. And keep talking about your 100 Day Plan ad nauseum.

You only have a few days left in this year to make it remarkable. So, don’t waste any of them. Create a 100 Day plan. Work your plan. Evaluate the results you’re getting. Then keep adjusting your plan until you get the results you want. Remember: January 1st is not that far away.

To your accelerated success!

P.S. This is a great exercise to do with your executive team!

Once you remember what your profit drivers are, you can then refocus your efforts on figuring out how to increase the percentages or numbers for each of these profit points. And once you do that, you’ll see the multiplying effect they have on one another and how they can rapidly accelerate your profits.

That said, here they are.

1. The Size of Your Funnel. In other words, how many total leads do you have. Business is a game of numbers so if you have a small top to your funnel, everything below it will limited by that number–which means that finding a strategic and systematic lead generation system that can predictably deliver an ever-increasing number of leads is critical to any profit growing initiative.

2. The Number of Conversations or Presentations Per Month. In other words, regardless of how big the funnel is, there is always a smaller number of legitimate viable prospects who will buy that month. So figuring out how to increase the number of actual conversations or presentations you make per month is another critical profit driver. Even if your conversion rate is 100%, your total amount of profit is limited by the number of actual conversations or presentations made per month.

3. The Percentage of Prospects You Convert. All things being equal, if you can increase your conversion rate from, let’s say 30% to 40%, you have just grown your profits by 33%.

4. Your Average Transactional Value. This is the MacDonald’s approach to up-selling, cross-selling, and packaging. Yet, most companies and businesses miss out on this profit driver because they don’t take advantage of intentionally increasing the average transactional value per customer–which could easily bring about a 20-30% increase in their profits.

5. Your Profit Margin. Either by increasing the perceived value or price of what you’re selling, or by reducing the cost of goods sold or overhead, you could make substantially more profit every time you sell what you sell.

6. The Percentage of Customers You Retain. Since it costs about six times more to acquire a new customer than to sell to a current one, it just makes sense that you’d want to develop a series of strategies and tactics to ensure that you keep an ever increasing percentage of your new customers.

7. The Frequency of Customer Repurchase. In other words, if you can get your customers to buy more often, everything else being equal, your profits will soar. For example, if a men’s hair salon can get their customers to go from getting their hair cut once every five weeks to once every four weeks, that’s the difference between 10 cuts and 13 cuts–or an increase of 30% in profits.

8. The Number of Years They Continue to Buy From You. Again, if you can increase the longevity of your customers (since they have no cost of client acquisition any more–and they tend to buy more frequently), you will automatically increase the amount of your profits.

9. The Number of Referrals Your Customers Provide. Since warm leads tend to convert at a higher rate than cold leads, if you can increase the number of referrals your current customers provide, you could radically increase both your conversion rate and your profits.

So, there you have it–the Nine Profit Drivers for your business. If you’d like a pdf of these 9 Key Profit Drivers, click on this link and you can put up this graphic in front of you some place to remember that when it’s all said and done, if you focus a fair amount of your time and effort on figuring out how to systematically increase the percentages and/or raw numbers of each of these nine drivers, you could end up making a whole lot more money.

Note: Figuring out how to systematically increase those 9 Drivers isn’t necessarily easy (choosing which strategies and tactics to use, test, adjust, systemize, etc.) but the framework is. So don’t make it too difficult. Just stay focused and work on increasing each of these by a little bit and your profits will begin to soar!.

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you need help with this, feel free to contact me. It would be an honor to help you!

Yet, what do most owners and CEOs (and their companies) focus their marketing (and strategy) on? Exactly! Being better than their competitors. “Our technology is 10% faster than theirs.” “We have the best pizza in town.” “Our bank has the best customer service in our city.” “Our music rocks more than your church’s music.” “Our paper towels are the better picker uppers.” Etc. Etc. Etc. And yawn, yawn, yawn.

I don’t know if you read “Blue Ocean Strategy” or not, but the metaphor that Kim and Mauborgne laid out in that book is perfect for this point. Their main idea was/is that most companies attempt to compete in a red ocean (an ocean filled with competitors where each is extracting blood from the other) which leads to commoditization and low margins/profits. Instead, they argue, you want to create a blue ocean where you’re the only one who does what you do–which also leads to uniqueness and higher margins/profits.

In essence, it’s the same point I’m making here about marketing (and strategy). Whenever you’re focusing your attention on being better than someone else, you’ve automatically defaulted to a red ocean marketing strategy. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that strategy. Being able to claim that your product or service is better by some quantifiable measure (Zyrtex works two hours faster than Claritin) is not a terrible marketing strategy. But it doesn’t get the same attraction and attention that something new does (a la Apple).

Several years ago, Al Ries and Jack Trout, in their book on the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing brought this to the forefront, when they said,

“Everyone is interested in what‘s new. Few people are interested in what‘s better.” — Al Ries and Jack Trout

I can’t say it any better. In fact, you may want to write that statement on a wall somewhere (like in your conference room). Most marketing campaigns and strategy sessions are focused on being “better,” which isn’t bad–it’s just not great. What you want to focus on is “new, because ”everyone“ pays attention to the ”new“ and ”different“ or ”unique“ thing. Better just gets lost.

So, as you take a look at your company’s products and services, what can you add or change to create something ”new“ and ”different“ this year? What can you do to set your company apart from all the others in your market space? What could possibly create a blue ocean moment for you?

Once you identify that, make sure you make that the focus of your marketing (and strategy). Why? Because, ”Everyone is interested in what’s new. Few people are interested in what’s better.“

To your accelerated success!

P.S. Twenty minutes after (originally) posting this, I received an email from Apple with the following image at the top. Notice the key word.

My first question to him was, “You’ve started this by defining a process/product. But, for a moment, let’s forget about that and go back to the beginning and ask, ‘What’s your objective for this process?’ In other words, what do you want to produce when people are finished going through their experience with you?”

After he told me his answer I said, “Well, if what you want to produce is [X], then it seems to me that you have the wrong model.” In other words, he did what most people do, he created a model of what he thought people needed–and then set out to try to convince those same people that what they needed was what he was offering (which, of course, is the wrong way to do this).

Moreover, the model that he was using, was counterproductive. Because of the way the process was designed, it made it virtually impossible for him to attract the very kinds of people he wanted to attract. So instead of being able to attract the very best possible pool of customers, the reality was he was left with less than his optimal target market.

But he’s not alone. I find this same kind of experience in business after business. We design what we think customers’ need vs. what they want (and passionately want). We try to push marketing out to them in order to convince them that they have a need they don’t know they have. And we create processes that make it difficult for our optimal customers to use us. In other words, his story is often our story.

So, when was the last time you took a good look at your business model? Is it the right model? Does it really produce the results you want? Does it really drive the kind of outcomes you desire? Is it scalable? Is it still the right model moving forward? Remember, the world is constantly changing. The model that worked last year or last decade, may not be the right model for today–and even more importantly–for tomorrow!

If you haven’t done this recently, may I encourage you to take some time this week and evaluate your business model. I don’t know what the end result of your review will be–but I do know that the conversation I mentioned above caused me to go back and look at my own model–and yes, you guessed right–I had to make some changes to my model. My guess is that most of us do. So, when will you sit down and ask yourself the questions in the paragraph above?

To your accelerated success!

I remember, shortly after my board coup several years ago, the movie “Rocky Balboa” came out and in the middle of the movie, Rocky made the following comment to his son,

“It ain’t about how hard you’re hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward–that’s how winning is done!”

I immediately put that quote up on my credenza and still look at it to this day. To me, that’s the power of a great quote. In just a few words, it can say so much.

In light of that, over the July 4th weekend, I decided to create my own favorite quote site. As a consultant and professional speaker, I’m regularly on the look out for great quotes. So, rather than horde them for myself, in the spirit of Tom Peters (when you go to the site, you’ll understand that comment), I’ve decided to make them available to everyone.

So, rather than bore you with more content, let me encourage you to go to the site and read some great inspirational business-oriented quotes. I think you’ll enjoy them! Oh, and the URL is pretty easy to remember

http://www.brucequotes.com

Note: I just created the site Saturday evening so some of the topics only have a few quotes, while others have quite a few. But over time, the approximately 400 quotes will grow. The site is still under 48 hours old. Just bookmark it and return to it whenever you either need some inspiration or you’re putting together a talk or training session and need the perfect quote to make the perfect point.

To your accelerated success!

http://www.brucequotes.com

In other words, before someone starts adding something to the mix to improve execution/implementation, they should first eliminate some of the things that are currently hindering successful implementation. As a typical INTJ, I had a list of 15 hindrances in my notes, but to encourage some more group interaction I decided to ask the leader/managers present to break into groups of three to four people and come up with their own lists of items or issues that hinder execution in their company.

Without betraying confidences, I’m going to combine some of their ideas with some of mine to help get your brain kick started. For example,

• Too many “priorities“ (or conflicting priorities)
• Lack of specificity on the details of who’s responsible for what
• Not enough communication (or unclear communication)
• Lack of trust
• Interruptions
• Poor prioritization of what matters
• Departmental conflicts
• Lack of accountability
• Fear of accountability
• Limited people/resources
• Lack of personal responsibility/commitment
• The complexity of a project (or its size)
• Lack of executive attention
• A tendency to over-analyze (analysis paralysis)
• Lack of ownership
• Lack of excitement about the project, etc.

Now, think about this. If some of these issues are present in your organization, what do you think the probability is that your people are going to execute well? Probably somewhere between zero and nil. It just isn’t going to happen.

Therefore, one of the first places to make changes, if you want to make sure that your team executes better, is to eliminate some of those hindrances. And what I’d recommend is to take this question to your team,

”What hinders us, as a team and company, from executing better and faster?“

Have them brainstorm, while someone writes their ideas on an easel pad (my guess is that ideas will come rather fast and furious–after all, they’ve been thinking about these for years :-). Then, once you have a list, discuss what are the top three hindrances that, if eliminated, would have the greatest impact on increasing our ability to execute.

Then I’d take that list and work, as a team, on creating a plan to eliminate your top three hindrances from your company/organization (i.e. don’t try to fix everything at once. Start with a few items and then expand as you eliminate the current “three”).

Remember, execution doesn’t have to be rocket science. But it does have to be done. So make the list, reduce the list, and then start eliminating the items on the list. Because it’s going to be difficult to create an environment/culture of execution when there are a number of hindrances competing to ensure that execution doesn’t happen.

To your accelerated success!

P.S. You did make that list, didn’t you?

Now, if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I don’t write about technology, I write about what leads to growth. And my audience isn’t techies, it’s owners and CEO’s (or other execs at the top). So, as I listened to Steve’s responses to the questions of Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the All Things Digital (D8) Conference, my ears were tuned into Jobs’ comments related to strategy and leadership, marketing and R&D. And the following would be, IMHO, the most important things he said on that front.

Note: Thanks to Macrumors and Engadget for tracking the conversation.

1. Never Underestimate the Power of Vision.

- On his return to Apple in the ’90s: “Apple was about 90 days from going bankrupt. It was much worse than I thought back then. I expected all the good people had left, but I found many of them still there, and I asked them, “Why are you still here?” They said it was because they believed in Apple.”

In other words, Steve and crew had done such a great job of establishing the culture and vision of Apple, that even when things were going bad under different leadership, great people stayed on. As I say over and over again, you can’t cast vision too much.

2. It’s Okay to Zig When Everyone Else Is Zagging

- On the Adobe Flash controversy: “Apple doesn’t have the resources others have, and we have to choose which horses to ride. We try to ride those that are on the way up. If you choose wisely, you save yourself an enormous amount of work.”

As proof of this strategy, Steve pointed to Apple’s moves over the years (ahead of almost everyone else) to moving to 3.5-inch floppies, to discontinuing floppy drives, to removing serial and parallel ports, to adopting USB, to the current removal of even an optical drive in the MacBook Air. In “typical Jobsian” fashion, Steve concluded by saying, “Sometimes people call us crazy.”

In other words, just because ”everyone“ has something or does something in a certain way, doesn’t mean you have to do it that way. All trailblazers at some point realize that have to break with what ”everyone“ is doing.

3. Be Clear on What Drives Your Company–And Stick With It

- On the future of Apple and “platform wars” with Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc.: “I don’t see it. We never saw ourselves in a platform war with MSFT, and maybe that’s why we lost. We think about the competition, but we’re focused on building a better product.”

Steve is clear on what drives Apple–they’re a product-driven company. They’re not a services-driven company or a knowledge-driven company or a market-driven company etc. They are a product-driven company. When they lost sight of that in the late 80’s and 90’s, they got into trouble. Once they got clear on that again (under Jobs), everything began to change.

4. What You Think Has to Be in a Product/Service Doesn’t

- On tablets: “We did something similar to what we did with the iPhone. We started from scratch and threw out the existing paradigm of handwriting recognition.”

In other words, sometimes, you have to start by deconstructing what you believe to be true. In other words, you have to start from scratch, with a blank slate, and question every part or thing you want to put in to it.

5. Be Willing to Change Your Plans in Response to New Information

At one point, Steve acknowledged that the tablet project (what’s now the iPad) actually came before phone, but realized that phone was more important.

In other words, strategic plans need to be flexible. I’m shocked at how many leaders stick by a plan long after the market is telling them something different. I’m a strategy consultant, and I’m forever reminding leaders that the plan we created last year needs to change as we go through this year. Things change, and what seemed right in October last year, may not be what’s best in June of this year.

6. Stick to Your Values Even When It’s Not Politically In Your Favor

Regarding rejected political cartoon content, Jobs said, “We had a rule that said you can’t defame people. By definition, they defame people.”

Similar to Google’s, ”Do no evil,“ creed, great leaders stick to their values even when it’s not convenient. To me, that’s the real test of a value. For example, are you willing to fire your best producing employee because they’ve broken (and usually consistently broken) a core value? If not, then it’s either not a core value or you’re not doing your job as the leader.

7. Price Aggressively and Go For Volume

During his comments on newspapers, Jobs noted that iPad opens up a way to offer much more than print or static webpages. But he also noted that newspapers should charge less for the online content than their print content … “The biggest lesson Apple has learned is price it aggressively and go for volume.”

So, which of Steve’s lessons do you need to take to heart and apply in your business? Playing out of Jobs’ playbook isn’t a bad strategy to start with. It’s clearly worked for him :-)

To your accelerated success!

In light of that, I decided to practice what I preach (find out what people want … and give it to them). Therefore, today is the first of a number of video blog posts I’m going to put together for you that will go into more detail about each of these terms.

Today’s edition is focused on answering the most common Google query that’s linked to my site, “What’s the difference between mission and vision?” Most organizations I’ve interacted with have gotten this wrong, so pay attention. The difference is significant. Enjoy!

P.S. The link to the previous post can be found here >>

Moreover, he states that when his company loses a bid or contract, he simple throws away any vestige of that client in their offices and moves on as if that client or bid never existed. In his world, they’ve never lost a bid because if they didn’t get the contract then it isn’t a client they would have wanted to work with.

Besides the fact that I find it hard to believe that his company actually works this way (like they’ve never fired someone for underperforming or they only evaluate based on successes), I find it just bad advice. The reality is that most businesses need to do more learning from failure–not less.

As a consultant, I spend my life walking into companies where problems exist (and they exist in every company, including Bogusky’s). And I have yet to find any company that is really great at evaluation and learning from failure. Most business leaders are so busy trying to stay on top of all their work, that they rarely ever take time to stop and learn from their failures/missed opportunities/mistakes etc. Therefore, they tend to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. As the saying goes (slightly altered),

“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Now, if a leader or manager is a blamer (i.e. a bad leader or manager) then that is a problem–but not with the idea of learning from failure. Rather it’s a failure of the leader/manager to carry out their job well. Likewise, if they’re creating a culture of fear vs. trust, then that’s a leadership issue, not an evaluation problem.

Great leader/managers know that learning from the past, both positive and negative, is essential to improving and optimizing the future. They understand that if there’s a problem, it’s not a person who’s the problem, it’s the system. And the only way to fix the system is to debrief and make sure that they and their team have learned from what happened so that the same problem isn’t repeated. No learning = ongoing problem.

So don’t listen to Alex on this one. Increase your learning from failure (and success). Invest more time in evaluating what happened so that you can both eliminate/minimize any problems and optimize/leverage any successes. It’s not an either/or. It’s a both/and. And in most cases, there’s not enough learning going on. So I’d argue that you need to increase your learnings so you can increase your successes!

To your accelerated success!

P.S. If you want to know the five questions you should always ask when evaluating, click here>>