Hello and welcome to another episode of Behind the Madness, I'm your host, James Roberts, founder, and owner of Method, a growth agency who are hell bent on unlocking company's potential through graphic design and branding, web design development, digital marketing, and lead generation and automation and time-saving techniques. Today it's not just me.
I'm joined by Jamie and Paul both have Method fame who will be joining me to talk about business strategy and why it's so important for business growth. Onto today's topic, why business strategy is so important to, for business growth. Today, as I mentioned, I'm joined by Jamie say hello, Jamie.
Hey guys Good to be here
and Paul.
Hi, it's good to be here.
Jamie and Paul have obviously been working with us as part of the team here at method. And I thought rather than you having to listen to me all the time on this podcast, it's about time I roped some of them in. So here they are. Jamie is generally pushing me to get the next podcast out anyway, Jamie is in charge of our social media and a lot of the strategy around that, which is why he is perfect for today's subject.
And Paul does about everything else within the business from looking after our HubSpot installs to making sure that again, I'm doing what I should be. So today let's start off with what we're defining as business strategy. So I'm guessing we're talking about the longterm goals for the whole business here, I guess, Jamie, not just sales or marketing or any divisions, we're looking at business strategy for the whole company.
Yeah, James, it's mainly about getting people to identify with a goal and then utilizing business strategy is often used as a word, but business planning, making sure they can have that plan in place to hit those goals long term. So like you said, we're going to talk a bit about goals, a bit about the strategy of how people may get that and some of the key components that we think would be really important to make up your strategy.
Perfect. Does a business strategy have to be something that's set in stone or can it be something which we can have as a working document that we can kind of come back to? How do you see that? Would we have a business strategy? That is a long-term goal that we can't shift or is that generally something that , will change over time?
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point because if there's anyone over there who has got a strategy that hasn't changed throughout that business then I'd love them to kind of get in touch because I want to make them the goals should stay pretty solid and foundational because that's kind of the vision of the business where it's pushing onto long term. So whether it's an increase in revenue and increase in brand awareness, whatever that goal is is your target.
So that should stay pretty solid. Like anything in business, it's going to be as agile as anything, but the flexibility within the strategy, the how you're going to get that is the really important stay agile stay flexible because, as you know, James, as a business owner, day to day, everything can be different. So especially in the times we've experienced in the last two years, staying agile is key.
Paul and I a couple of years ago now, I think, but went on a sales training with HubSpot, just so we could understand how their processes work and how they did a lot of their sales. They were very much a round setting these goals in place and certainly with, sales, making sure that people were, really adapting, these business strategies. And focusing more on the goals as a business.
For example, if you take the railroad, their goal was to transport goods from one side of America in this instance to the other. So the best way to transport goods from one side of the country to the other was via rail. But when other systems came into play that were better than the railroad. The fat cats who were making all their money, couldn't see that change and wanted to continue making all their money.
So their goal actually became the railroad, not to transport goods, as easily as possible. I guess here, we've got to be flexible enough to understand that change. And this is where you've got to understand and adapt as a company and not be set in stone that you are too stubborn to change, which can then be your downfall. And so I guess where the failing is and can come in.
So I guess we're looking at adapting, adapting that business strategy but also something which we can break down into smaller chunks, to kind of get that this business plan is very much, I guess it could be a five-year plan. It could be a 10 year plan, I guess, I guess the timeframe doesn't necessarily matter, but then we can start to look at smaller challenges of smaller tasks within that bigger goal and break those down for them.
in terms of breaking down these, these bigger business plans, one of the things that we obviously look at and it's very much a coined within a, a marketing sense smart goals. So, Paul, do you want to talk to us a little bit about smart goals?
So basically a smart goal is it's an acronym, so it's a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. With a smart goal, you're increasing your odds for success by verifying that was goal as achievable. You're identifying metrics that define the success and you're creating a roadmap to, reach those metrics.
Cool. So we've also just as a, as a little interlude, we have a download all about smart goals on our website. So if you go to the resources tab on our website, hellomethod.co.uk scroll down a little bit. You will find smart goals as a little template that you can follow. But what I want to do quickly, if I can, is just to give you, let's say an example of a smart goal. As Paul says, smart goals are something that's achievable that you can work to in a timeframe.
So you might have a number of smart goals to reach your business plan, but let's say you're looking at blog traffic. So blog traffic is your goal. So to be specific you want to boost your blogs traffic by increasing your weekly publishing frequency from let's say five to eight times a week. Then measurable would be something. How can we measure that? What we're looking for let's say an 8% increase in traffic. Attainable, your blog is increased 5% last month.
So when we increased our weekly publishing, we could actually see that increase in blog, traffic. Relevance, well, we want to increase our blog traffic. So we want to boost our brand awareness by generating more leads. So it's massively relevant to increase those blogs and the frequency of our blogging, and time-bound where we want to get it done by the end of this month. So we have a nice little smart goal that has all of the ticks that Paul mentioned earlier.
So now we understand a little bit around kind of some elements which are within the our business plan. I think Jamie, you mentioned earlier about the Goldilocks point, which is being able to find a balance, which is something that's just right, where you're not spending too much time planning and you're not spending too much time just doing, you have that middle ground where you've got a business plan that has had enough around it to formulate something that you can actually do and stick to.
And you, haven't also rushed ahead to execute that plan without having enough kind of foresight beforehand. So Jamie, if you would, let's have a look at some of the things that we might include in our business plan. What steps would we take?
So there's three main steps. James I'd make sure any businesses trying to really now, when they're looking at that business strategy, first one is making sure that they're identifying the problem. So a lot of companies fall in love with their solutions, but it's making sure that they are identifying what problem they are solving.
So whether it is to alleviate a pain point or to add value into someone's life, through delight, making sure you're really clear and have clarity on that is pivotal because that's your offering. That's your value. Then it's about who for, so this is where tools like a buyer persona and customer journey mapping are really key because they allow you to identify and emphasize. Who you are creating that value for.
That will then lend itself to your sales strategy or your marketing strategy and gives you and your team a big picture of it. And then the last one is about the brand. Making sure you have your core values identify the culture you want to address with, and also the USP. So whatever makes your brand different, because that will influence the how so you take those three elements. So your buyer persona, problem, and the value creation and also your core values as a brand.
And you work out how you are going to address where you are now to where you're going next. So with the strategy, we can use something called a bridge model, which is where you've identified, where you want to be like Paul discussed with the smart goals. You now know where you are, and then it's about drawing that bridge across to identify how you're going to get from a, to b.
And using your bridge analogy, I guess if we don't have any parts of that, then your whole business plan falls over because you don't know who you're targeting. You don't know really the problem then that you're trying to fix for somebody and your values. I think values are something that we come back to all the time where we help businesses. We help businesses grow. We help the business become the best versions of themselves.
That is quite a wide scope that we have, but our skillset is obviously through more creative services or marketing services and obviously the design, et cetera. That's where we can help an ad the most, the most benefit to kind of companies. I guess in turn, those steps, Jamie, that you mentioned, the buyer personas the problem, the core values are almost the other way. Round people generally know that their kind of core values, they know the problem that they're trying to solve.
And the buyer personas then can be created alongside that problem that they're trying to solve, they will then realize who those buyers are for that problem, is that the way you would kind of break that down.
Yeah, absolutely. I think those three as you've identified are really key. Making sure a business does what a business needs to do. And having that breakdown just allows you to build that bridge and build out the house because everyone's going to do a different house.
If we look at some really good examples of business strategy and we'll take a local brand, Gymshark, they built out the strategy on sending t-shirts and sending gym gear to YouTubers, others, and people on social platforms that they admired. And those people then wore them on their channels and the inception of influencer marketing kind of really kicked on. But these guys were doing that as part of their strategy, part of their, how, before that was kind of labeled a term.
So that's how they identify the USP that they wanted to do and it really worked.
Are we trying to get Gymshark to send us a load of merchandise? Is that they start that plug there? Jamie, we were all should we just give the address as well while we're at it?
with that in mind, I would like to just say make a comment about under Armour.
Yup. Apple let's mention a few others. So that's just, I mean, the more we can open ourselves up to the more, the more we can get, everybody knows that we love Lego. So let's let's mention a few more brands and then we'll, and then we'll move on to to kind of the reasons that people fail. Obviously what we're talking about as well with this, with this brand plan, this grand brand business plan. We're not excluding anybody.
And this is what people often think with certainly with buyer personas is that, well, hang on a minute, if I'm focusing so much on this buyer persona than what about the others who come about? Well, we're not saying we're going to exclude anybody here. This is what we're going to use to meet this big goal. This is what we want to achieve, and this is the best way of doing that.
Other people are still going to come along and have touchpoints with your brand or with your business and still buy from you because you're not excluding anybody. This is just the best route forward for that long-term goal. And again, those smart goals might break that up a little bit more.
My main point, there again is, was not excluding anybody from buying it's just more targeted towards the bigger mass where these people are and we're putting all of our effort into that and then over time, the goal might change. The persona might change. We might add an extra buyer persona, but you don't have to have one. But you know, you, we're trying to maximize your effort here and we're trying to focus on the best plan to get those results.
And if you're focusing on 5, 6, 7 buyer personas, that's a lot of work. So prove one, then look at automation of how you might be able to keep that moving while looking at maybe then the next buyer persona. Once you've proven that journey, the first time.
I'm going to jump in there James, because I think that's a really important point because an analogy I'd like to use is a toolbox. When you have a toolbox, you may have a project in mind, whether it's building a shed or just putting up a shelf and you'll have different tools in that to tools take on the task at hand, but that doesn't mean what you have in your toolbox won't be good, like future projects, but also you may not have the tool when the future project comes along.
And so therefore you need to replenish that toolbox. And so as James says, if a new persona becomes your demographic and that is whether the value is better suited, and that doesn't mean you can't get rid of some of the old tools and bring it to the new one. It's about staying flexible, but making sure that you do have something that roadmap that you can follow throughout
Buyer personas that are an ideal customer, essentially. Like james said, the you're not excluding everyone else. But they're the ones that you want to target. They're the ones that you want to put the money into advertising to, you'll catch other people along the way. But they're, the target market essentially.
So now we've got that kind of outlined we've all know companies, big, small who have failed to really change or look at their business strategy and change that business strategy. And I think that is where most businesses will fail is not being able to adapt.
And if you don't have the business plan in the first place, then obviously you, you can't revisit that and see what's going wrong, but also having a business plan that you are so stubborn too, that you can't see what is changing around your marketplace, or even in the wider net, new tools, new ideas might come into the mix where people are buying on different platforms. They might be visiting you in different ways and sticking to that I think is going to, it's going to cost you.
Yeah. Blockbuster Video is a great example of this So with Blockbuster video, they had shops where you'd go and select to video or DVD to rent off the shelf. After spending half an hour or so deciding what you wanted to watch, then you'd go and buy some of their expensive popcorn, take home and watch it. After you'd watched it, you'd drop it back off at the shop. There are a few online DVD rental companies that merged to create a blockbuster through the post.
You'd go onto their website, select a film within a day or two. You'd get the DVD through the post and you post it back when you'd watched it? No, there's no late fees. But you couldn't rent another one until you sent that one back. that fairly quickly turned digital through streaming services like Netflix emerged. Which were instant, the monthly fee thousands of films choose from.
It's a great story because I think Mark Randolph and Reed Hastings, who are the founders of Netflix really identified that problem that we're identifying earlier. Like, I dunno if you remember Paul but Blockbusters use have extortionate late fees and also going in and kind of being like, oh, I want to watch the new Avengers film or something like that. If Joe down the road had it out and they only had one copy, so straight away you're out of luck.
So I think especially with the sort of the top new films that had several sort of five or six copies, like you say, there was a popular film they're out you had to find something else to watch where blockbusters went wrong is that they didn't think that the digital age would take off as much as it did.
They thought people liked the experience of walking into their shops, spending time, trying to find a film, and didn't adapt to a mail order or a streaming service, they could have quite easily have done that. They had the ins with the film industry. There were a massive customer, so they could quite easily have set up a streaming service themselves, but they just didn't have the foresight to do that others did and sort of became the standard.
I'm going to jump in here and put James on the spot to there for you guys as a business owner why do you think people wouldn't look to adapt when the technology is evolving, what would be the barriers? Would it just be arrogance or would that be stuck in your ways? What kind of things do you think.
Was there a too big to fail aspect to it?
So I think in terms of blockbuster, I think there was an arrogance. I don't think they thought that everybody who had video players or anything in their homes were going to really just abandon them overnight I think they would have probably thought that the, you know, the internet streaming services weren't up to speed or people wouldn't be streaming it that quickly in their house as it happened it was very, very much overnight. The infrastructure was there.
So I think in their terms, I think they believed that it would have been around for a lot longer. And didn't have their eyes fully open, I mean, that is going from something which is very much a physical product into a digital world when they were very, very analog. Everything that they did was very analog. So it was a little bit of the unknown for them. We, we've always been very lucky that we are. Small as well.
They're a large organization, which to be able to pivot like Ross from friends will let you know isn't just a nineties pun. Wouldn't be able to, to move as quickly as say we can, we're a small company. We don't go to a board to make decisions. We pretty much all get on a slack call and decide which route we like and which route we think we're going to go for. And we can change very, very quickly and adapt very, very quickly.
And we do, we are constantly changing how we operate to stay up to date with that. Now it's harder the bigger the company is because there's a lot of decisions to be made which can impact that bottom line and a huge amount of staff very, very quickly. If you take for example, all of those shops and all of the staff, which initially was shut down anyway, there is a, probably a due diligence of care there as well.
They are probably thinking about their staff who, if they all went online are the jobs there? Certainly not to the same degree. So I think it is. I mean, we'll never, we'll never really know. We probably could find out, but I think from my point of view, it was harder to make those decisions then then it is for smaller companies to adapt, but again, it will also come down to the owners. We are very, we're very changeable. And I'm very, open-minded, yes.
A business owner has to make the final decision because it's got a rest on his shoulders. And I think that we do, if it fails, it's my fault. It's nobody within the company's fault. But at the same token, if anybody comes to me with an idea that we maybe should be going down this route or going down that route, they can come to me and it will certainly entertain it. Again, yeah, it's easier being a smaller company though. So in summary, our business plan or strategy has to be adaptable.
It has to have a long-term goals that we can stick to and achieve those goals through smaller Smart goals or smaller little tasks that we can run alongside this overview, which is really for the whole business. I think we've also said that we have to find that nice Goldilocks point where we can spend a good amount of time to build up a business plan or a business strategy, but also have something that we can act on, but not running into that, into those action points.
We want to not be fixed or set on a particular plan. We've got to keep going back to our goal. Let's think about the, the railroad and keep going back to, what are we trying to achieve and what do we want to do?
But as a whole, I think, you know, really focusing down on your core values, your problem, and your buyer persona will help massively, your buyer personas are going to change over time their needs, their challenges, the way they want to get information from you or buy your products is going to change. So I think as a key takeaway, focus on them and learn from them, listen to them. No matter the size of the company, speak to your customers.
If you're right at the top, take the time to go and speak to your customers. Then you're going to be more ready to change and not fall into the trap that blockbuster did. So once again, it's been nice to have the boys with me to help me through another podcast and, to push me through, to recording another one.
Thanks, James.
Thanks for having us.
And remember we have some downloads on some smart goals. There are some other really interesting things around business planning as well, which are there as a resources from our website. So do jump on there. hellomethod.co.uk, and then the resources tab will be available to download again, we're across social media.
We've put a few new, slightly different tweaks on our Instagram, which is definitely worth a follow because it's basically me making a fool of myself, which is always worth a watch so go and follow us on Instagram, which is hello, underscore method where we're also sending a lot of tips and business strategy, marketing strategy out on that as well.
Again, if you have any questions, if you have any feedback, if you want us to to slightly adapt what we're doing on the podcast, if you want to get in on the podcast, then drop me an email at james@hellomethod.co.uk until next time take care. Bye for now.