Strategy starts with a vision, a vision of your company in the future. Picture your company 5 years from now and describe it in great detail, how many employees, what do they do, what are your revenues, how many clients make up those revenues, from where does your company operate, what is the culture of your organization and what are your day to day tasks. Include as much as possible.
This vision becomes your destination. In order to get to that destination you must follow a road. The road you must follow is made up of milestones which are reached through accomplishing tasks. Tasks are the essence of strategy and the DNA of all success stories. Each task must lead to a goal and each goal to a milestone, therefore the tasks must be well defined, measurable and realistic. Constant measuring of your tasks will determine if they are realistic and if they’re not you must re-adjust the formula. Tasks that are not repeatable or sustainable make for a poor strategy.
The vision is your beacon, every decision you make must be looked at through the prism of your vision and evaluated in terms its consistency with reaching it. Your job as the owner is to convey the vision to your employees and make it part of your company’s culture.
When you start with a vision and follow a well defined and measured strategy you end up with a very detailed road map of of the path taken to your success. This road map is what buyers pay big money for. Business are purchased because the buyer does not want to carve out the paths on his own so the more well defined the map is that you have, the more valuable and desirable your company becomes.
Success is achieved through strategy or luck. Only one is transferable.