I asked myself, “How do people get what they want?”
I then took up paper and pen and listed the ways I had gotten what I wanted out of life.
That was the start of the “Sixteen Off the Shelf Strategies” I created when I became a management consultant thirty years ago.
There are two steps to achieving goals. Step one is to write down what you want to achieve. Step two is to write down HOW you are going to achieve that goal.
How you achieve a goal is called “a strategy.” And there are about sixteen strategies I have been able to come up with over the years.
I’ve broken these strategies into two groups: inside strategies and outside strategies.
Inside Strategies
Inside strategies are strategies that you have complete control over, meaning you don’t have to do anything other than choose one and execute it.
Here are the 7 inside strategies:
1. product strategy, 2. technology strategy, 3. organizational strategy, 4. ideation strategy, 5. human strategy, 6. marketing strategy, 7. financial strategy.
Outside Strategies
Outside strategies are those that require you to externally take on the competition. They are harder to execute because of this, but can bring about larger than normal results.
Here are the 9 outside strategies:
1. niche strategy, 2. value add strategy, 3. fortress strategy, 4. copy cat strategy, 5. strength against weakness strategy, 6. bold surprise strategy, 7. buy the competition strategy, 8. dumping strategy, 9. milk and maintain strategy.
Financial Strategy
I highly recommend these 16 strategies. I have worked with hundreds, if not thousands, of executives over the past thirty years in using these strategies to accomplish goals.
Over the next months, I want to share examples of each of these sixteen strategies with you. We’ll start with one of the inside strategies – the financial strategy.
Most all of us can benefit from understanding the mechanics of a financial strategy, whether it is used in business or in one’s private life.
Simply stated, a financial strategy works on two principles. The first one is to be EFFICIENT when working with expenses and improving the quality of your product or service. The second principle is to ensure GROWTH by giving your clients or customers more of what they want, and to be ever persistent at expanding your business.
grënx
I am one of the owners of grënx, but for the past five months I have put my ownership hat to one side. Instead, I have worked as a management consultant in helping the top two grënx executives in implementing a successful financial strategy. They have succeeded and I want to share their example with you.
Efficiency
They have controlled COSTS and improved QUALITY.
On the cost side, they have worked at ensuring that the cost of running their corporate retail business has not ballooned. If fact, over a five month period, they have pulled the cost of running the business down while growth has continued. A rare event in business! !
On the quality side, they have worked to improve the training of their sales associates on a daily basis, DAILY basis. When a business engages in daily training, and follows up with systematic supervision, the business will become very strong at its core delivery point.
Growth
grënx’s repeat business has picked up, in large measure because they have worked hard at establishing a personal relationship with each customer. In addition, grënx continues to add more GreenTeaHP flavors. Existing customers want more products, not less. Right now grënx has introduced 36 different flavors. This has become a key strength that is virtually impossible to match by competitors. This is called market PENETRATION.
In addition, these executives continue to expand the business. grënx retail outlets have grown by 50% this year, and will grow another 25% by the end of the year. Next year, it will expand another 100%. Executives do this in an extremely cost efficient manner. This is called market EXPANSION.
Execution
grënx executives have executed a very successful financial strategy, the results of which are gratifying to me personally. People are healthier because of what we sell. More people are employed in the process. And, the company makes (manufactures) the product from the ground up. This helps the American economy become more manufacturing oriented.
I expect that over the years grënx will employ others of the sixteen strategies. They’ll continue to set goals, and pick and choose strategies “off the shelf” to accomplish these goals.