By Jolene Roelofse, Head Cyclist at Bludoor Market
To date I’ve had a couple of clients who seem to be confused as to the reason one should have a Business strategy or a Marketing strategy - do you need both or will one or the other suffice?
The reality within any small business is that there is in most cases neither of these strategies, mainly due to the fact that the business was started with an idea, given life with some funds and the person ran and implemented the idea based on gut instinct, passion, resilience and perseverance. A business plan was perhaps compiled which would have included both a business strategy and marketing strategy, mainly for funding purposes, but then forgotten about in some folder.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with not having a strategy in place that you can revert to every couple of months to check if you are still on track with your plan and milestones. Some entrepreneurs operate much better by instinct and the main objective is to get things done, right? Yes, but if you want to grow your business, it is always a good idea to have a plan for direction, a compass in place. A guideline for you to not only figure out what your next steps should be for growth, which areas to focus on to identify weaknesses in your businesses and which opportunities to capitalize on and which threats to negate.
This is essentially the role of the Business Strategy. It gives you clarity in terms of the direction you want to take the company in and the step-by-step guide of how to get there. The Marketing strategy/plan goes hand in hand with the Business strategy and often there is a dependency on each other to be executed. But they are still separate entities. Where the business strategy looks at the business in its entirety, from operations, to staff, to ethos of business, the marketing strategy focuses on the market – your customer. Both potential customer and current customer. So, the question is how do you reach them and retain them.
Given the above explanation, it is essential for you to have both, starting with a Business strategy. Because we all need a compass to ensure we are going in the right direction with our zeal, instinct, and passion, right?
Jolene Roelofse is the Head Cyclist at Bludoor Market, a MBA graduate from The Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, and the company specializes in Business, Marketing and Communications Strategy for SMME and start-up companies. The company’s ethos is that they provide the bicycle (strategy) to the client and assist the client to cycle the business in the direction they choose. www.bludoormarket.com