Strategy … can it be that simple?

I was catching up with a long time friend this week about our respective businesses and we realised after about half an hour that a theme was emerging. We’d covered how the year was whizzing by, the challenges of juggling time and an increasing array of tasks and how it was easy to feel you were falling behind when it came to “new” ways of marketing – with social media taking centre stage.

How do you keep up to date, let alone put new ideas into practice? How to deal with sense of being out of your depth and overwhelmed?

Then she said an interesting thing. “Still, this is all right up your street – with your focus on helping us stand back, think and take time to work it all out before jumping in and running about in a mad panic – or just sit there paralysed by fear and confusion!”

I’m not the first nor the only one to advocate consciously setting aside time to think and plan, to reconnect with the big picture, tune into your intuition and see the wood for the trees. And I do understand that fizzing sense of panic when there seems just so much to get to grips with, so much to do.

However, the rapidly evolving digital world offers so much in terms of marketing, especially for the small business and entrepreneur, that it’s a shame if we start to see it as a big problem rather than a major opportunity.

More than ever, the principle of regularly tuning in to the big picture and taking time to start with the strategy before considering the tactics (what we will actually do to achieve our business goals) is key.

Where we currently are with our business is irrelevant because we can reclaim this space (and our sanity) at any time. 

Recently I was delighted to read a piece by the fabulous E-Myth team called Strategic Work Made Simple, so I’m including a link to that here because it’s one of the best explanations I’ve ever seen. I especially like the angle that strategic work is nothing fancy nor scary – just mainly about thinking …

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