Every Business Has One of Three Strategic Styles for Making Money—How to Identify Yours.Every Business Has One of Three Strategic Styles for Making Money—How to Identify Yours.

The book Discipline of Market Leaders, by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, describes how customers search for operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy as three sources of value.  Their premise is that the source of value you choose to build from defines your company’s strategic style.

 

Having a distinct strategic style creates clarity.  Not having one results in confusion.

When the leaders of a company fail to create clarity on the strategic style for their business, customers become confused.  It is particularly baffling to customers when their expectations are not matched or when their employees don’t know how to deliver the expected value.

The strategic style you abide by shapes your business culture and the behaviors of everyone associated with your company, from your employees to your customers.  No company in the world is a leader in all three disciplines: operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy.  Your goal is to be world-class in your chosen discipline and competitive in the other two disciplines.

The strategic style you choose to do business with defines the why for everyone associated with your company.  It’s best determined by how you define the who, what, when, and where for your business.  You can’t do it all, nor can you be all things to all people, so you must play to your strengths by doing what your business is modeled to do best.

Precise clarity on the why gives you the ability to teach your employees why what they do matters to the customer.  The hard reality is that if your employees aren’t clear on the why behind what they do, they will waste resources and jeopardize your ability to produce your products cost-effectively.  This is a particular killer if your strategic style is operational excellence, and you are competing actively on price.

If your customer service doesn’t meet expectations, your customers won’t keep coming back with repeat business, nor will they refer you to others.  This is a sure way to go out of business, particularly if you compete actively on customer intimacy.

Determine your strategic style, then use it to anchor your customer value proposition while helping your employees understand how to perform with excellence so you can maximize your business profits.  Employees want to be part of a winning team; they are looking to you for leadership and guidance; give it to them by helping them know your strategic style.

What is your strategic style for making money?

Click the link below if you are unsure what your strategic style is for a no-charge confirmation of what your business results tell about your strategic style.  Within forty-eight hours of receipt of the last four years by year of your P&L Statement and Balance Sheet, you will receive back by email your free confirmation of what your financial results say about your strategic style.

Use this report to learn what it has cost you by not having your employees understand the why that anchors their work to your customer value proposition.