Good morning…
As I mentioned in my first post, I’m going to use this newsletter to be a bit more of a place to process my thinking.
That out of the way, I went through a little strategy session with myself this morning to make sure I was focusing on the things I wanted to focus on going forward.
A few reasons why I took the step back:
- One of my long-time partners had a merger, giving me freedom to think about how I wanted to show up in the market now.
- I had a battle with Long COVID that almost did me in.
- I took a certificate in corporate strategy from Cambridge University’s Judge School of Business.
- I studied up on Brand Management and Marketing Strategy during the lockdowns of COVID as a way to keep my head straight.
All of these factors are at play right now when I wanted to make certain I was investing my time in projects and areas that work for me, not that I’m just doing because that’s what is available.
This morning, I jotted down the pain point that my work addresses which is a lot of businesses problems creating and capturing opportunities in any market.
That’s a strategy problem that might show up in the form of lack of brand equity, poor marketing, or declining sales.
My way of addressing this point of pain is by using better strategy. Focusing on market focus, market fit, value proposition, brand equity, and other ways.
This morning’s list, I took a few moments to write out 10 ways that poor strategy expose themselves to my target customers.
That list:
- Declining sales
- Lower profits
- Fewer sales meetings
- More price sensitivity
- Fewer customers
- Lower brand affinity
- Less brand awareness
- Declining marketing efficiency
- More sales activity, less sales
- Less effective tactical execution
These aren’t all the ways that this shows up for people, but these are the 10 most common ways.
Later, I’ll break these down and share a few ways to tackle each of them, but for now…this list will be the starting point.
Do you see your business here?
How are you dealing with these challenges?