Strategic Planning
What is a strategic plan vs. a business plan?
Strategic planning is often done in order to solve a specific problem. For example, restaurants that have great nighttime business but no volume during the day would benefit from a strategic plan specifically focused on increasing daytime business. Small bookstores struggling to compete with neighborhood giants would benefit from strategic planning to help attract traffic to their shop.
Strategic planning involves a situation assessment of your business, whether just starting up or already in operation. In a strategic plan each ingredient (location, merchandise, design, marketing, inventory and technology) is carefully examined in order to detect room for improvement.
The strategic plan focuses on the overall picture and takes into account that everything you do is marketing and everything a customer sees and hears sends a message. When we work with retailers to develop plans, they often learn to transform their operation's approach from reactive to proactive while maintaining their goals and budgets.
Frequently, retail entrepreneurs, rather than suffering from a lack of ideas, entertain and act upon too many ideas. Without strategic planning, this spontaneity creates spending that is not connected to budgets, and also a confusing array of incomplete and unconnected ideas that fail to resonate with customers.
Are your strategic ideas:
Prioritized?
If you are an existing retailer and answered no to any of the above questions, consider our Store Assessment Package to help you meet your goals. For start-up retailers we encourage you to explore our Concept Evaluation Package.