Unfortunately too many small businesses never think about strategic panning, just getting through today seems to be the goal. There are times when this is the right thing to do, but if you never take time out to manage where your business is going, and how you will take it forward; you will always follow the competition.
In many cases, businesses know where they want to go, but just don’t know how to get there and so avoid making a deliberate strategic plan. There is a government fact that 4 out if 5 businesses do not survive past the 5 year mark, unfortunately the reality is, that most business owners so not envisage how hard it is to run a profitable business, and therefore only the most dedicated and best run survive.
This can be good news for you though, look at the businesses that have survived past 5 years and discover what their strategies are. Businesses over 5 years have had time to make their mistakes and refine their operations. By doing this you can cut down on your mistakes that equal time and money and focus on doing things right first time. How do they market? How good is their customer service? What image do they portray? These are examples of what strategies you can borrow.
There is one more step though, why not focus some time on the businesses that also failed. Find out what their strategies were and see if anything relates to your business and of course avoid these like the plague.
It is true that some businesses are started on the basis of being different to everyone else. These enterprises need more thought and input at the early stages and even if the way you do things were different the outcome would probably be the same. To keep your customers so happy that they came back to you, time and time again.

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By Mark Flanighan