Troubleshooting your Business Strategies

Chances are that at some point of time as you go about in your business, you have asked yourself if your strategy is working. Chances are that someone other than yourself developed that business strategy.

Well, as the business owner, you cannot just rely on a specialist or a consultant to do the strategy for your business. More often than not, since they are not very familiar with the ins and outs of your business, something may go wrong. Perhaps the strategy is not achieving the desired results, or worse, a misguided strategy can put the entire business at risk. Regardless of the severity of your concern, it is up to you as the business owner to make the necessary changes along the way.

Take this for example. If you realized that your posters are not achieving their purpose, will you pull the fire alarm right away? You can do this, but will it help the business? It is important to find ways to express your concerns in a manner that will not adversely affect the reputation of your business. By acting cautiously and thoughtfully, you can address your concerns without alarming the general clientele and your team.

Admittedly, business strategy development is a challenging task because it is time-intensive and often involves a messy process. The result is never perfect. Far from it! However, as the business owner, you have the obligation to act if you see that there is something wrong in your business strategy. You have to, as experts suggest, nip it in the bud. You have to act decisively before the problem becomes a disaster. You have to face the obstacles squarely to ensure that it does not get out of hand. Waiting and dilly-dallying will not help your business; you have to admit that there is something wrong and then do something about it. Remember however the earlier suggestion that you do this cautiously and without much fanfare.

To get the big picture, do not just rely on your team. Often, your team has been so immersed in the business that they fail to see the big picture. Ask around. Talk to your clients. Discuss your observations with colleagues in the same network. The more people you talk to about these apprehensions, the better. If the image in the poster printing for example is an affront to the values of some people, is this a general sentiment or there is just one noisy sector complaining about that particular image? You might even consider the noise about the image as a welcome distraction so that your print posters are being highlighted. Bad publicity is still good publicity, isn’t it?