Business Strategies For Entrepreneurs
Do you have one?

English Vocabulary and Phrases to Learn:
Entrepreneur, Business strategy, business plan, MBA, corporation, implement.

Almost all successful businesses have had strategies for what they wanted to accomplish. Some have very detailed strategies while some have strategies that are mere guidelines to follow like a business plan.

Just what is a business strategy? A business strategy is nothing more than how you are going to accomplish what you want to accomplish. In a business plan you outline what you want to do. In the business strategy or strategies you determine how you are going to do it. There is no great secret to business strategies. You don’t need an MBA to figure out a strategy for your business. What you need to do is determine your goals; what are you doing in your business, who are your customers, how will you meet the needs of your customers, what kinds of products or services will you offer, how will you communicate or position your business, products, and services to show your customers that you have the best to offer? All of this requires some kind of strategy or strategies.

Business strategies don’t have to be complicated or difficult to understand. The most successful corporations that have billions in sales and revenue each year have some of the easiest business strategies to follow and understand. Yes even the complicated high pressure big business world requires simple easy to understand business strategies. Why is that? Because despite all the other complex factors that go into their businesses they need clear and easy to understand strategies to implement.

Companies that have large sophisticated plans and strategies never do what they plan to do because no one really understands what they have or need to do because the strategies are too difficult to follow or they are buried in some huge folder that some MBA whiz put together that has no real world significance.

GE, one of the largest and most successful companies in the world has some of the simplest business strategies that work for them. To be #1 or # 2 in every business they are in. Very simple? More complicated than that? Yes but not much. Smart businesses know how to make complex strategies easy to understand and implement. It should be the same for small businesses and entrepreneurs too, keep your business strategies simple not complicated, know your business and your business goals.

Tom Metts - Contributor/Consultant

Discussion:

Choose a business and discuss what strategies you think it uses.

Do you think that the strategies are effective? What suggestions could you offer?