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Entrepreneurship can be hard. It takes serious guts to put your vision into the world and a certain tenacity to keep showing up and serving your audience that is not for the faint of heart. As an entrepreneur, you may have found yourself running a business by making a few moves that really paid off, or filling a need you identified in your industry.
But what keeps your business success sustainable? Many may answer that question by outlining the importance of attracting new clients or diversifying your revenue streams. Those two things have a fundamental common denominator — they point back to your operations strategy. Here’s what that means and why you need one:
Strategic Planning & Growth
Where is your business going, and why? Your operations strategy has your mission at the centre of your focus. It helps you decide what opportunities to pursue and when to say ‘no thanks’. Understanding the trajectory of your business allows you to utilize the resources available to you (apps & programs, team members, mentors, partnerships) to create a synergy in all the facets of your business. Does your business model support your mission? An operations strategy helps you answer that question, and then actually implement the systems and framework required to get results.
It’s with this foundational understanding that you will be able to source partnerships that facilitate achieving your goals. This might look like developing an influencer marketing campaign to increase user-generated content and brand awareness. It could also look like joining forces with another industry leader with expertise that compliments your own to offer your audiences a joint powerhouse offering.
The key here is that you need to be able to determine if and how potential partnerships support your mission and help you attain your goals. Otherwise, these efforts end up being the ultimate time wasters.
Another aspect of your operations strategy is business development. What new opportunities should you pursue, and why? Your operations strategy will allow you to measure new markets and business models based on historical and industry trends and competitive assessment. Ultimately, you’ll want to be able to generate and evaluate opportunities for strategic growth as it pertains to your mission and values.
Data, Metrics and KPIs
There’s a really good chance that if you have no idea what KPI means, you probably don’t have any — at least not consciously. But that little acronym can paint an important picture of your business. Key performance indicators (KPIs for short) allow you to measure how your business is performing in relation to your organizational objectives. It’s a snapshot of your progress against your targets and this information can help you as a business owner make crucial decisions.
When setting goals for your business, using KPIs ensures that you will be able to measure what success looks like and keep a pulse on your progress. All KPIs have a target, a way to measure the progress, a data source and a reporting frequency. Your operations strategy can help to ensure that you are able to collect the necessary data required (and make decisions related to that data).
An example of a KPI could be to gain 100 new customers by the end of the current year. You’ll determine the performance of this KPI by consulting your CRM system (something as robust as a full CRM such as Dubasdo, Nutshell, Nimble or as basic as a Google Sheet or Airtable tracker) and populating related reports (on a predetermined frequency) based on this information.
By mapping out well-defined KPIs, you can own your role as CEO and use the data your reporting presents to make improvements to client experience, refine your offerings, assess risks in your projects (launches, partnerships, etc.) and streamline communication and collaboration within your team.
People, Programs and Project Management
It’s important to understand how your operations strategy impacts your key players and projects. When your mission and goals are clearly defined and your KPIs have been identified, you’ll be able to determine what needs to get done — and by who — to experience success and hit your targets.
People perform at a higher level when they are clear on their priorities and path forward. You’ll want to ensure that your targets, and how they impact your mission, are clearly communicated to the key players on your team. Most importantly, you will need to ensure that the structure of your operations is set up to create a culture that facilitates working toward a common goal.
Finally, your operations strategy needs to define how you address project management. In instances of special partnerships or launches, there are many items to consider that differ from your general day-to-day operations. You’ll begin by establishing the scope of your project and determining the schedule for completion and the key milestones you’ll need to hit to carry your project over the finish line. An operational structure will speak to risk management (what happens if your website crashes during a launch?) and resource allocation (who is responsible for what, and what costs will you incur?). Arguably most importantly, your operations framework will account for interdependencies such as when and how certain tasks in your workflow are triggered or if a specific task needs to be closed out before a process can continue.
How are you feeling about your operations strategy? If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it might be time to cut through the noise and define your mission and KPIs. CLICK HERE to download my KPI Blueprint and get crystal clear on moving the needle in your business where it matters.
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