A samurai has no goal, only a path, but business is not a samurai. If you do not know what goal to move towards, all efforts will be in vain and can lead to endless wandering without results.
Every company should have a goal and strategy, regardless of the product, team size or market share. A strategy session will help determine in which direction to develop the company. This article is a guide for business owners and employees on how to conduct a strategy session .
A strategic session is a format of collective work, a large-scale “brainstorming” for 1-2 days. Its goal is to determine the company’s development path, highlight especially important projects and find suitable tools for their implementation.
Signs that it’s time to have a strategy session
A strategy session is a flexible tool how to build phone number list that suits any business. Even if the market is transparent to you, the team is stable, and the target audience is predictable, everything can gradually change. In most cases, the purpose of the meeting is to find growth points to improve business performance, but sometimes the goal may be to maintain the current position in the market, despite rapid changes or the emergence of a strong competitor.
Strategic sessions are especially necessary if:
the company’s goals are not defined, or they are defined but it is not clear how to achieve them;
there is a sense of uncertainty due to changes in the market, business conditions, or competitive environment;
it is necessary to synchronize the work of teams and departments so that all work is carried out to achieve common goals;
the company has many new employees, in particular there have been changes in management positions;
there is stagnation in business;
the team has achieve previously set goals and new ones need to be set;
The company wants to reach a new level.
A timely strategic session will help to get rid of such a business problem when work is done just “for show”. Employees, including those in management positions, must understand that their work will be assesse within the framework of differences from mass market achieving the set goals, and not by the absence of inaction.
To clearly demonstrate the potential that lies behind holding a strategic session, we will give an example from the practice of the marketing agency “Tochno”:
Bastion-S is a market leader in Moscow selling high-end doors. They had a specific and tangible problem — competitors began to actively promote their products, which result in a decrease in the number of orders. As a result of a strategic session, it was decided to focus on a specific audience segment — not apartment dwellers, but owners of country houses and cottages. Having starte conducting marketing activities for this target audience, they manage to reduce the transaction cycle by 25%, increase sales by 3 times and increase the average bill by 2 times.
How to prepare for a strategy session
If you decide to conduct a strategic session au emai list on your own, without involving external specialists, then prepare thoroughly. It is important to organize everything in advance, because without the proper level of involvement and a detail action plan, there is a risk of wasting time and money. What should be done in advance?
Formulate a goal
It is important to define the goal right away. If you hold a management position, but are not the owner, we advise you to organize a meeting with him to understand the personal strategy regarding the business. Base on the goal the owner chooses, a common goal is built for the strategic session and the construction of the company’s plans for the future.
Determine the composition of the participants
All participants should be intereste in finding solutions to achieve the set goal. In addition to executives, senior managers, and company experts, consider inviting a facilitator. This is a specialist who helps build effective communication and maintains the pace of the discussion. He helps create a sense of cohesion and commitment to the common cause so that no one leaves feeling like their time was waste.
Of course, the leader of the strategic session can be chosen from within the team – even the initiator of the meeting can become the leader, but this is not necessary.
Collect data
First of all, you need to prepare a full analysis of the company: market, clients, competitors, product, sales and distribution. The analysis is compiled individually, so it may contain additional points. It will help to understand the current state of the company. As well as to build further plans measure in specific figures.
All data must be verified. Participants must be completely confident in its reliability. It is good if people responsible for collecting analytics participate.
After collection and verification, the data is visualize – as clearly and without fluff as possible. Participants should be able to easily read and understand it, without lengthy explanations.
Prepare a rough outline of a strategic session
Any strategy sessions use a plan – it can be call architecture. This is a set of blocks indicating topics and time allocate for discussion. If there are many participants, then the blocks indicate the formation of small groups.
When forming blocks, it is important to take into account. The nuances of perception and a person’s ability to concentrate depending on the level of fatigue. At the beginning of a strategic session, it is better to organize more creative work. Then allocate time for discussing deep analysis with numbers, and leave group work at the end. It is better to make breaks floating – sometimes the discussion is so active. That interrupting it would be a big mistake.
