Over time, I find myself returning over and over to the 3 questions that guide any strategic plan I develop or use.
To cut to the chase, here are the 3:
- What value do I want to deliver to my customers?
- Who can use this value and will buy it?
- How do we reach them?
While the questions are simple, the answers are not.
Over time, the answers you give to these questions will likely to change.
Why are these questions important to visit and revisit?
Let’s think about this…
First, value.
That’s the basis of everything you do, value and impact.
The thing is that as you and your business grow and change, your idea of value is going to change as well.
In all of my work with clients and all of my mentorship programs, I talk about evolution and changing as you grow. This is the core of the value question.
Second, is about understanding your buyer.
This is important because we hear a lot of talk about giving things away free, inbound marketing, and guiding people along the buying journey.
All of this is often a dodge to hide from the idea that you need to identify and target buyers…people that can use your value and that are willing to buy it.
We fall in line with the idea that we should be giving away the goods until someone makes up their mind to give us a sale.
But the heart of sales is helping people make a decision to take action.
This is why the second question is so important, you spend some time thinking about who will buy your value. Not just who benefits.
Finally, the third question is all about using the right medium to reach your prospects.
I’ve been adding a content as a service program to my offerings.
In this program, we talk about going to the right places to reach our clients, not just where everyone else is going.
This is super important because there are so many places that you can put your content and that you can seem to connect with people, but are they the right places?
That’s the question we should always be asking.
Are we going to the right places?
Combined we have the 3 basic questions that guide our strategy. You should be revisiting these questions from time to time.
As an example, I’ve been transitioning my value from specifically revenue to focus on the impact that I create for my clients.
What are you doing?