What is Small Business Strategy?

Strategy is a very important topic for small businesses. Oxford’s dictionary defines strategy as a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. There are a couple of aspects to highlight in this definition:

1. Strategy is a plan of action. Strategy must be applied. You don’t have a strategy if you just think a crazy thought in your head. By definition, you must take action on your thinking. It needs to be set in motion with a plan.
2. Strategy is a policy. A policy is a way of responding to a certain situation. It is a pre-defined thought process ahead of time that helps you make a decision. A policy is a way of thinking that helps you in specific circumstances so that you can respond real-time to adjust your plan to continue to make progress.
3. Strategy is designed to achieve a major or overall aim. You need to have a longer-term goal that your strategy is helping you work towards. You don’t have a strategy by just taking action. Your action needs to be in the context of an overall aim that you have decided ahead of time.

Now that we understand a basic definition of strategy, the important thing to consider is how to use strategy to achieve our aim. The key is that strategy must be used within the context of our small business.

The next step is to apply this thinking in your business. Interested in learning more? Read my article about applying simple small business strategy.