Do you ever feel like you’re running around in circles in your consulting business?

Like everything you’re doing doesn’t really connect — and you aren’t making the progress you want towards your goal?

Believe it or not, many consultants run their business this way.

They’re chasing the next shiny object, latest marketing tool without wondering how it fits into their long-term goals.

And that’s if they have a specific long-term goal in the first place.

Your long term goals and strategy come first.

Your tactics — which include tools, channels, technology, etc — come second.

By the end of this post, you’ll understand the critical difference between strategy and tactics — and determine your own strategy (and tactics) so you can get clear on your next steps to grow your consulting business.

Strategy VS Tactics: How To Determine Your Strategy

First, let’s define strategy.

Strategy: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

Your business strategy is your overall plan to achieve your goals.

Example: Leslie is a management consultant who specializes in serving manufacturing companies. The overall aim of her pricing strategy is to implement ROI-based fees which will help her raise her prices.

In consulting, you’ll need a few different strategies for different goals that you have.

For example…

• Do you have a strategy for your marketing?
• Do you have a strategy for building your consulting practice?
• Do you have a strategy for raising your prices?

These strategies cover different areas of your consulting business.

The way to determine your strategy is to ask yourself the right questions.

By answering questions like…

• Where do you actually want to go with your business?
• How are you going to differentiate your business?
• Who are your ideal clients?
• What’s the best way to reach them?
• What is the message that you’re going to use to get their attention and their interest?
• How are you going to package and position your services in a way that will resonate with your ideal clients?

…by answering these questions, you’ll learn if you have a strategy — and how clear and intentional that strategy is.

If you don’t have answers to these questions, you can’t choose the right actions to take — your tactics.

How To Choose The Right Tactics

Now, let’s define tactic.

Tactic: an action carefully planned to achieve a specific end. – Oxford Dictionary

Tactics are the concrete, detailed steps you take to reach that end.

In our example, remember that Leslie is a management consultant who serves manufacturing companies.

Her pricing strategy is to double her income without working more hours — and ROI and value-pricing is how she plans to do that.

Now that she knows her overall goal, she can think of tactics to implement and achieve this goal.

• What specific questions should she ask her clients? The question becomes: which questions help identify the ROI she can create for her clients?
• How should she structure her proposals? The question becomes: what is the tangible value her clients care about, and how can she make that prominent in her proposals to justify an ROI-based fee?
• What should she put on her website? The question becomes: what elements position her as the industry authority who’s able to command ROI-based fees?

Do you notice a pattern here?

Your strategy serves as a “filter” for your tactics.

Whenever you’re intrigued with a new channel, technology, script, template, etc — ask yourself:

“How does this help me fulfill my strategy?”

If it does, then it makes sense to implement that tactic.

But if it doesn’t, you can safely ignore it because it’s not helping you reach your goals.

Do You Help Your Clients With Strategy?

Strategy consulting is when you provide strategic advice to your clients on specific topics.

It’s one of the highest forms of value you can provide for your clients because it will help clients both define and reach their goals.

Example: Leslie has successfully positioned her consulting business as an industry authority by using a thought-leadership marketing strategy.

Now, clients are reaching out to her for help with their HR strategy. Her clients, new tech-startups, need her help with talent retention. They want to hire her for advice and an overall plan on how they can keep their employees happy.

Notice how they’re hiring her for advice and a plan on their strategy. They’re not asking her to implement specific tactics like conducting employee interviews.

Instead, they’re engaging her at a higher level. Leslie will be the one advising her client’s HR teams on what they should be doing and why.

And the higher the level of value you provide, the more value you can capture with your consulting fees.

It’s often the strategy that actually determines the tactics. The strategy you help create with your clients will determine which tactics they use.

As a consultant, you position yourself as their trusted adviser by advising on strategy, not by implementing tactics.

Imperfect Action: What’s Your Strategy?

It’s time to think about the strategy you’re using in your consulting business, and the tactics you’re using to carry out your strategy.

First, describe your strategy in 3-4 sentences. What are you trying to achieve? What is your long-term goal? What does your desired future state look like in your business?

Second, write a list of your tactics. What are you doing on a daily or weekly basis to fulfill your strategy? What different tools are you using? Is what you’re doing actually connected to your strategy?

Doing this exercise will help you get clear on your destination — and the steps you’ll take to reach that destination.

Focusing on tactics is easy. It’s fun. It’s immediate.

But if you get clear on your strategy first — and then focus on your tactics — you’ll make far more progress on your business goals.

And if you’re advising your clients on strategy instead of tactics, ensure you are capturing your fair share of the value you’re creating. Pricing models like value-based pricing will net you greater fees than charging hourly.

Are you looking for help with your strategy to grow your consulting business?

In our services, not only will we help you define and develop your strategy — but we’ll coach you through every step with a customized plan.

Learn more about our services here — or, schedule your Consulting Success Growth Session where we’ll talk about you, your business, and your next steps to skyrocket your revenues.

Why marketing is so expensive, and what plan is right for your business.

Sooner or later, most entrepreneurs have to face the reality that marketing is expensive. In the course of planning a new marketing campaign or trying to grow the business organically, you discover that to execute a strategy could cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars, and to keep it going will cut into your bottom line.

Why is marketing so expensive? And is it really worth the cost?

What you’re paying for

Let’s start by explaining why marketing is so expensive. Generally, marketing costs account for things like:

• Salaries and human labor. According to Glassdoor, the average marketing manager’s salary is $65,834 per year. Most marketing strategies require extensive planning and execution, requiring many people coordinating together. Many of these people are highly skilled and highly paid.
• Limited resources. Some marketing campaigns depend on the use of finite resources, and at least some of these resources will be in high demand. For example, there are only so many billboards on the side of the highway; if a bidding war starts, it could drive up the price of advertising considerably.
• Risk, failure, troubleshooting, and support. Some marketers build in the cost of risk and failure; if their original efforts fail, they’ll need to double down and try again. We also need to consider costs for ongoing troubleshooting and support in addition to core marketing campaign costs.

Differences in price

It should also be obvious that different types of strategies will differ in price. Depending on your approach, marketing could end up being very cheap or ridiculously expensive, often based on variables that include:

• Strategy choice. Some strategies are more expensive than others. TV ads are often expensive because of finite supply and high demand. By contrast, search engine optimization (SEO) is often less expensive because there are unlimited opportunities for development; that said, even SEO can be pricey under the right conditions.
• Scale. Most marketing campaigns vary in scale; a small mom-and-pop business and a large corporation aren’t going to use the same tactics or the same number of resources. The larger your campaign is and the more people you’re trying to influence, the more you’re going to pay.
• Freelance, in-house, or agency. To execute a marketing campaign, you can do the work yourself, hire a freelancer, hire someone in-house, or work with a professional agency. Each of these options has different costs, as well as different strengths and weaknesses. For example, working with a freelancer can help you save money, but it might be hard to find individuals who fit your needs, and they might not be reliable. An agency is more expensive, but it’s often worth the money because of its reliability.
• Quality and experience. In marketing, you get what you pay for (at least most of the time). Individuals and agencies who have more experience and skill tend to charge more because of their abilities. Accordingly, in many cases, an expensive campaign is a good sign; it means you’re getting the quality work you need. Of course, there are exceptions, and it’s possible for high costs to be excessive.

The nature of ROI

One of the most important factors you’ll need to consider when budgeting for and planning your marketing campaign is your return on investment (ROI). In other words, how much value are you getting out of your campaign compared to what you’re putting into it?

In many cases, you won’t be able to concretely measure your ROI until you actually launch the campaign. However, you might be able to come up with a reasonable estimate that’s based on your past experience and the knowledge and experience of the professionals you’re working with.

Your ROI matters more than the absolute dollar amount you’re spending. For example, let’s say in campaign A, you spend $500 and generate $1,000 in revenue. But in campaign B, you spend $1,500 and generate $5,000 in revenue. Campaign B is objectively more expensive, but it also yields a much higher ROI, both proportionally and in total amount.

Because of this, you should never rule out the possibility of a campaign just because it’s expensive.

Operating with no marketing

We also need to consider the prospect of running a business without a marketing campaign. There are examples of businesses that have gotten successful without traditional marketing or advertising (including famous examples like Arizona Iced Tea). However, without marketing, you’ll be exclusively growing your business through word of mouth and reputation, which can take a long time and can be extremely unreliable. For most businesses, marketing and advertising are practically necessary for steady growth.

Is it worth it?

Is an expensive marketing campaign worth the seemingly excessive costs? The issue is far too complicated to reduce to a simple answer. However, in many cases, there are plenty of justifications for the high cost of marketing, and if you execute a reasonable campaign, you should be able to get a high ROI and more than make all your money back. Although some types of businesses can get away with little to no marketing, most companies will strongly benefit from a marketing investment — even if it looks costly on paper.

Credits: Entrepreneur

Portfolio management is different from project management in that it encompasses the entire lifecycle – from ideation through the realization of the benefits it set out to provide. Portfolio management includes project management as a phase of the project lifecycle which focuses on, and is best at, the execution phase of a project. But as we all know, projects are more than just tasks and issue solving. Projects truly begin at the ideation stage and although some do not make it through execution to the realization of benefits of the investment, portfolio management accounts for that entire process.

Let’s take a look at the lifecycle of a project that is reflected in portfolio management: Ideation stage, creating a business case, prioritization of the initiatives that warrant investment, selection, planning the process and resources to carry out the initiative, execution of the initiative, and ultimately ROI. For each stage, there is a process, and IT leaders understand that while some projects are inevitable, others are strategic. And the strategic ones are the ones that make the difference.

Portfolio management is important in business because there are factors to consider that affect the success of the project, and thus the organization, as well as unexpected benefits from the investment. For example, sometimes it is what a Project Management Office (PMO) chooses not to do that is the most important. By prioritizing and consciously choosing not to undertake projects that do not benefit the business or take away from time and resource capacity from higher priority projects, PMOs become more efficient and are better able to focus on the projects that matter. This focus results in better and faster execution or project management.  

Many projects also begin by supporting overall business goals and for one reason or another, by the end they no longer serve that value. Either the business goals have changed, more important things have come up, new technology has come out that changes the project (this especially happens in product development projects), or the project has simply lost value because the main stakeholder is no longer a stakeholder. For any of these reasons or others, projects often change directions, and organizations need to adapt along the way. By managing projects as part of a portfolio, the dynamic changes because you enable the portfolio to be successful – even if some of the projects in it fall short – and help drive the desired outcome for your organization.

Here are a few benefits when moving to a portfolio management approach:

Strategic Alignment

Portfolio Management is an inherent way to strategically align your projects with the goals of the business. As you map out your portfolio and your resources that are to be assigned to certain projects, you make sure you they are the projects that support the needs of the business. However, we know this changes as you go along and you need to adapt. By managing a portfolio of projects, it becomes easier to identify the projects that are better suited to meet your needs, and reduce the investment or abandon projects that no longer serve the needs it intended to. In doing this, your business benefits from investing in projects that are the highest likelihood of added value and ROI.

Strategic alignment is especially strong in top-down portfolio management approaches. Top down is an “alignment-first” approach to portfolio management where requests are only accepted if they are aligned with business goals. Projects are prioritized and resources are assigned based on those prioritized projects, and executed from there. Essentially, planning and reporting are the critical elements where goals are identified and benefits are realized. Conversely, bottom up portfolio management puts the emphasis on the execution of projects, making sure tasks are executed, and thus increasing project success through individual contribution. In either case, by managing projects in a portfolio, you have the advantage of executing the right projects for the business.

Resource Management

Resources are an organization’s most valuable asset; and also the biggest challenge more often than not. Managing those resources in an effective, efficient, and optimized manner is extremely challenging. For most organizations, resource management is one of those things that may be done “well” but you always feel like it could be “better.” For better resource management, managing a portfolio is much easier to think about. You can see resources across the portfolio, utilization among various projects and across applications. By having a good understanding of what resources are actually up to and a realistic representation of what their utilization looks like, project resources becomes much more manageable from a portfolio perspective.

Planning and Reporting

We all want to know what we are getting out of our investments before we take the plunge. But there is always some degree of risk involved; if all projects were a sure thing, it would take the fun out of managing them. However, some level of predictability is comforting, and by having a systematic way of continuously improving the forecast of the projects with each new addition helps too. With portfolio management, planning for projects (and resources) is continuous and evolutionary as projects progress and people get shifted around. Reporting also plays a big role in this, as you are able to see the results of the plan after it is executed to adjust planning moving forward, and understand the benefits of the investment. Whether you are reporting on different metrics, gaining visibility, or arguing for more resources, having the ability to report on the portfolio as a whole as well as individual projects or programs is a major contributor to business success. According to recent Project Management Institute Pulse of the Profession report, organizations that are effective in portfolio management had 76% of projects meet or exceed expected ROI, compared with 56% of project success without portfolio management process in place. And success is what we are all about.

By including portfolio management as part of the project management approach, you can manage projects throughout their lifecycle, and against one another, to achieve benefits far beyond what you would get by managing projects in silos or in stages. For more on how portfolio management can give you end to end project management, take a look at our services portfolio management.

Different businesses have different goals and take different routes to fulfil those goals. These routes constitute the business strategies of these businesses.

While it is easy to understand the definition of business strategy, sometimes it’s an uphill task to form and execute a successful one.

Here is an article to help you understand business strategy to fullest by answering your questions and clearing your doubts about everything related to it.

• 

What Is Business Strategy?

A business strategy can be defined as the combination of all the decisions taken and actions performed by the business to accomplish business goals and to secure a competitive position in the market.

It is the backbone of the business as it is the roadmap which leads to the desired goals. Any fault in this roadmap can result in the business getting lost in the crowd of overwhelming competitors.

Importance Of Business Strategy

A business objective without a strategy is just a dream. It is no less than a gamble if you enter into the market without a well-planned strategy.

With the increase in the competition, the importance of business strategy is becoming apparent and there’s a huge increase in the types of business strategies used by the businesses. Here are five reasons why a strategy is necessary for your business.

Planning

Business strategy is a part of a business plan. While the business plan sets the goals and objectives, the strategy gives you a way to fulfil those goals. It is a plan to reach where you intend to.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Most of the times, you get to know about your real strengths and weaknesses while formulating a strategy. Moreover, it also helps you capitalise on what you’re good at and use that to overshadow your weaknesses (or eliminate them).

Efficiency & Effectiveness

When every step is planned, every resource is allocated, and everyone knows what is to be done, business activities become more efficient and effective automatically.

Competitive Advantage

A business strategy focuses on capitalising on the strengths of the business and using it as a competitive advantage to position the brand in a unique way. This gives an identity to business and makes it unique in the eyes of the customer.

Control

It also decides the path to be followed and interim goals to be achieved. This makes it easy to control the activities and see if they are going as planned.

Business Strategy Vs Business Plan Vs Business Model

The business strategy is a part of the business plan which is a part of the big conceptual structure called the business model.

The Business Model is a conceptual structure that explains how the company operates, makes money, and how it intends to achieve its goals. The business plan defines those goals, and business strategies outline the roadmap of how to achieve them.

Levels Of Business Strategy

The business goal is achieved by the effective execution of different business strategies. While every employee, partner, and stakeholder of the company focus on fulfilling a single business objective, their activities are defined by various business strategies according to their level in the organisation.

Business strategies can be classified into three levels –

Level 1: The Corporate Level

The corporate level is the highest and most broad level of the business strategy. It is the business plan which sets the guidelines of what is to be achieved and how the business is expected to achieve it. It sets the mission, vision, and corporate objectives for everyone.

Level 2: The Business Unit Level

The business unit level is a unit specific strategy which differs for different units of the business. A unit can be different products or channels which have totally different operations. These units form strategies to differentiate themselves from the competitors using competitive strategies and to align their objectives with the overall business objective defined in the corporate level strategy.

Level 3: The Functional Level

The functional level strategies are set by different departments of the units. The departments include but are not limited to marketing, sales, operations, finance, CRM etc. These functional level strategies are limited to day to day actions and decisions needed to deliver unit level and corporate level strategies, maintaining relationships between different departments, and fulfilling functional goals.

Key Components Of A Business Strategy

While an objective is defined clearly in the business plan, the strategy answers all the whats, whys, whos, wheres, whens, & hows of the fulfilling that objective. Here are the key components of a business strategy.

Mission, Vision, & Business Objectives

The main focus of a business strategy is to fulfil the business objective. It gives the vision and direction to the business with clear instructions of what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, and who all are responsible for it.

Core Values

It also states the ‘musts’ and ‘must nots’ of the business which clarify most of the doubts and give a clear direction to the top level, units, as well as the departments.

SWOT

A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a rundown of the company’s current situation. It is a necessary component of a business strategy as it represents the current strengths and opportunities which the company can make use of and the weaknesses and threats which the company should be wary of.

Operational Tactics

Unit and functional business strategies get deep into the operational details of how the work needs to be done in order to be most effective and efficient. This saves a lot of time and effort as everyone knows what needs to be done.

Resource Procurement & Allocation Plan

The strategy also answers where and how will you procure the required resources, how will it be allocated, and who will be responsible for handling it.

Measurement

Unless there are no control measures, the viability of a business strategy can’t be assessed properly. A good business strategy always includes ways to track the company’s output and performance against the set targets.

Business Strategy Examples

Creating A New Market

Hubspot developed an executed a perfect strategy where it created a market that didn’t even existed – inbound marketing.

It created an online resource guide explaining the limitations of the interruption marketing and informing about the benefits of the inbound marketing. The company even provided free courses to help the target audience understand its offering better.

Buying The Competition

Facebook’s buy the competition strategy has been successful ever since the company was launched. It focuses on buying the pioneer or the competition instead of creating the technology of its own to compete with it. So far there have been many notable acquisitions by Facebook like Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus, etc. to increase its reach and user base.

Product Differentiation

Apple differentiated its smartphone operating system iOS by making it really simple as compared to Android. This differentiated it and built its own followership. The company has been following a similar strategy for its other products as well.

Cost Leadership

OnePlus launched its flagship product OnePlus 6T with similar features to iPhone X but at a price which is less than half a price of iPhone X. This strategy worked for OnePlus making it the top premium phone brand in India and other countries.

Credits: feedough