The end result of your strategic planning should lead you directly to PARADISE!
Not the kind of paradise with umbrella drinks and suntan lotion, but the business kind…which is the place where your ideal market huddles and is reachable.
If you buy into my premise that all strategy boils down to 3 simple questions:
- What is our value that we deliver?
- Who can use it and will buy it?
- How do we reach them?
You will know that the key to the whole operation is making sure you are clear about your market and your buyers because so much time can be wasted, if you aren’t careful, talking and meeting with people that can only tell you no.
That’s why the biggest end result of your strategic planning is actually the identification of a target market and one that is specific to your organization.
To clarify, what we need to see to make sure we have reached the right market let’s walk back through a few questions.
1. What is the value we are creating?
This is basic. But too often overlooked.
You need to begin with your value proposition and be clear about what it is.
You need to know this to reach your target market because you don’t want to waste a lot of time building products and services that no one is interested in and that no one cares about. Or, that no one will buy.
Think about the great products and services that didn’t create the necessary value at the time for their market.
You want to make sure that your value is representative of the needs of your market.
2. Who benefits from this value?
This is really a part of a two part question.
The person that benefits might be an executive and it might be an end user.
The key for all of us is to make sure that we have an idea of who benefits from the value we are producing. So we make sure that, again, our value lines up with their needs.
3. Who is the person that can authorize a purchase of your product or service?
This is why it is a two parter.
Because a lot of times, the buyer isn’t the person that is benefiting directly from what you offer.
That’s okay.
You just need to understand who will authorize the payment and explain why the investment is wise.
That simple.
Don’t confuse the user with the buyer.
Those 3 questions will help you find and identify the specific buyers that are best for your organization. That’s pretty simple, yeah?