Written by: Tanja Malovrh, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Business comes in all shapes and sizes, but we all have something in common: we are all striving towards achieving results. What makes the difference is a structured plan with simple check points to follow.
Through this article, you will learn how to break down your business into basic steps and manage complexity without getting complicated. On top of that, you will learn how to pull out money-making activities to show better financial results.
YES, the world is changing, and so is business. When writing this article, we are still somewhere in between the Covid-19 situation, when there is no simple recipe to define your business's success. But what if there is?
There are five core elements you need to take into consideration when you are setting up your business to success. Whether you are a beginner or experienced entrepreneur, what you need is a working business model with a solid foundation for your future – the strategy.
Setting Strategy, The Right Way.
When we say strategy, we are setting our long-term goals and how we are planning to achieve them. It is like saying drawing a map from point A to point B and choosing what means of transport we are going to use. We then translate our bigger picture to tactics that represent smaller steps within a shorter time frame.
We are now going back to the basics of business. Losing all the complexity and theories we learned at business school, have read in thousands of books, and browsed over the internet. We are now keeping our minds off the daily assignments that are part of our tactics.
Develop your strategy through five core questions:
Where are we now? Manage complexity without getting complicated. Check everything that you have done so far and go back to your beginnings. We quite often get lost somewhere in between trying to do all at once. Find the core elements of your idea and business that are already working for you or somebody else.
Where do we want to go? Starting somewhere in the blue sky with no limits sounds great to brainstorm. When you are done put your ideas into what is realistic and what is aspirational. That will help you out with setting the priorities. Keep the “someday” ideas – you will come back to them later.
What changes do we need to make? Compare the current situation with the plans where you want to go. Ask yourself what is already working perfectly, what you need to stop doing, and what needs to be done to get to the results you want.
How should changes be made? Changes are work in progress. You can do things yourself, but it might take a longer time if you are not an expert. Ask yourself where you can get support to move faster towards your goals. You can always outsource or even hire someone in exchange for a referral.
How to measure progress? Do not get too hung up on the measurement. We tend to overcomplicate with all the planning. This is not going to be audited by a team of forensic accountants. You want to demonstrate progress that brings your strategic account plan to life.
Without a structured plan, there is a big chance we start losing time and money at important steps. This is just the first step of many to develop your business. Things can easily get too complicated when taking in other people or just adding new elements to the business. Therefore, having a clear picture of where you are going is a must.
Let us know what business projects you are working on by solving a short questionnaire. We will do our best to provide you fast solutions or suggestions on how to make your next steps.
Tanja Malovrh, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Tanja Malovrh works with professionals within different industries that need support with their business growth and setting strategy the right way. As a Business Strategist, her job is to assess the current set of resources, find the most effective way to use them, and build working business models for her clients. She gained her knowledge being part of the corporate world, holding different positions, building up her own diagnostic clinic from ground zero, and now supporting others with her expert knowledge to scale their business. She is active within European funded projects and having her own research team covering different scientific fields of work.
