Hope is Not a Strategy

A few months ago, I met a woman who left a lucrative (though unrewarding) job in another city and moved to Oklahoma City to pursue her dream of opening her own business. She told me that after a particularly bad day at the office, and one more frustrating episode with a miserable boss, she took off early, drove home, dropped down on the sofa and turned on Oprah. During that show, Oprah said the magic words: “Do what you love and the money will follow.”

The woman quit her job the next day. Within a month she sold her home and moved. Trouble is the money didn’t follow.

I know a lot of people who do what they love, and the money has not followed. I also know many people who are miserable with what they do, and the money flows. So surely there’s more to it than an oversimplified catchy phrase.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I met a sales trainer and coach who likes to say, "Hope is not a strategy." The first time I heard him say this I couldn't help but remember the woman who, on hope alone, decided to risk her life savings and do what she loved, believing the money would follow.

So if hope is not a strategy, what is? As I began to make notes for this article, I realized it’s a word we use often but it’s a hard word to define. Do a quick thesaurus search and you’ll find the synonyms for strategy include: action, approach, blueprint, brainchild, design, game plan, grand design, program, system, and tactics.

Strategy is more than a list of tasks that outline our plan of execution. When we talk about business strategy, we’re usually referring to our overall approach. Strategy is the higher thought, idea or philosophy that comes before a plan or a to-do list. It’s the combination of WHY, WHEN, WHAT & HOW. Your business strategy will be a description of how you approach to the unique combination of the key factors you compete on in your industry with regard to you products, services and delivery.

Sam Walton had a strategy: put large discount department stores in rural communities. That was his simple strategy. It clearly worked. Amazon.com had a strategy: use new technology to sell books on the internet for less than retail prices. Southwest Airlines had a strategy: combine frequent point-to-point departures with speed and fun, friendly service to make airline travel more attractive than driving for short trips.

Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, tells us that a real strategy has to pass two tests: 1) what we’re planning to do must really matter to our current and potential customers, and 2) it must differentiate us from our current competition.

In their thought-provoking book Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne draw a distinction between red ocean strategy and blue ocean strategy. Red oceans are the bloody battleground of competition in an existing market, where strategy is developed around cutting prices or tweaking value to gain an incremental edge. Blue oceans are found by creating an uncontested place in the market and making the competition irrelevant, by driving costs down while simultaneously driving value up for the buyers.

Has it been a while since you’ve re-examined your business strategy? See if these few questions help you gain insight:

• What are the factors on which your industry competes? Price, quality, ease of use, speed, convenience, relationships? Get specific to your industry.
• What’s the one thing that really matters to your current & potential customers? What do they really need?
• Have you asked your customers what’s most important to them?
• What differentiates you from others in our industry? Do you have a completely new product or service? Or do you have a newer, better, different, faster way of providing our product or service?
• What one thing would make you more productive?
• What one thing will make your business more profitable?
• What one thing will make you have a great, loyal team of employees?

The answers to these questions, and more, all add up to your strategy.

We may know what we love to do – that’s a great starting point. Then we have to follow that idea with market research, competitive intelligence, & information analysis. We need a strategy, an articulation that defines our unique approach to business. We need to know in our core what will distinguish us from all the others out there.

Hope. Esperanza! It’s one of my favorite words. It's the energy and the passion behind all things good and great. Hope has cured disease, provided compassion, built communities and businesses. Hope & faith provide the energy and inspiration to carry us through difficult times. Hope is an important part of the process, but it’s just the beginning.
When hope is accompanied with strategy, the possibilities are limitless.

Do we need hope? Of course. And then we need a lot more.