Crafting Successful Business Strategies

Business in a free market is based on competition. Competition is based on making your product or service seem different from the rest--different in a positive way. It can be cheaper, better, more effective easier to use or more prestigious. Crafting a strategy must take into account this all-important "process of differentiation."

• 1

  Plan for the long term. Short-term business planning can be profitable, but these profits can quickly disappear if the market changes. The only business strategy worth planning is one that can envisage radical changes in the market. Long-term planning is not merely a slogan. It centers around the creation of a recognized and prestigious position in the industry, a form of distinction having to do with quality of service and product reliability.

• 2

  Sustain the competitive advantage. This means that whatever it is about your product that makes it different, play it up. Make it the center of all ad campaigns and marketing techniques. But even more important is that this advantage cannot be quickly compensated for by rivals and competitors. This advantage must be sustainable over the long term, and that means substantial research and development to continue to improve on this advantage and make it more difficult to copy.

• 3

  Act aggressively. This includes both offensive and defensive strategies. You are not looking for quick profits but an accepted part of the market based on quality and service. In getting this position and keeping it, you must constantly try to predict the moves of your rivals. Never underestimate their abilities, and always assume the worst at all times. Act, in other words, as if the "worst case scenario" is already real. At the very least, this attitude will never put you in a position to be surprised.

• 4

  Craft a campaign that targets not merely your own strengths, but also the more clear weakness of your competitors. Assume that all rivals are stronger than you and will retaliate with equal force and vehemence. For example, you operate a small computer repair shop. You are surrounded by computer centers much larger than you, with many more employees. The main weakness of these people are their large size and ability to overwhelm customers with bureaucracy. Therefore, you can stress your own commitment to personal service that only a small firm can provide.