Have you thought about your strategy recently? We have and sat down with the strategy expert, Eric Kurjan, to get expert advice on how you can give your business the advantage and set it up for success long-term.
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About This Guest:
Eric Kurjan
President of Six Disciplines Consulting Services
Eric Kurjan is the president of Six Disciplines Consulting Services, based out of Toledo, Ohio. Six Disciplines is a consulting firm that specializes in the long-term development of its strategic vision.
In our conversation, we took a high-level look at what Eric does and how a business should approach its strategic vision and decision-making. This is especially important now, as businesses shift and change due to the impacts of the pandemic, and companies are facing new areas of growth and potential.
Podcast Transcription
Why Address Strategy as Soon as Possible
A strategy is a thing that ties everything going on in your cleaning business together. It is the backbone of everything you do and with a solid backbone, things are prone to falling apart, as we’ve learned within the last year.
One of the most important reasons to focus and work frequently on your strategy is because your cleaning company will not do nearly as well, and may even fail if you are only thinking short-term and operationally.
You want to be able to see long-term and pull together your operations to create growth, a strong brand, and competitive success.
That isn’t to say that your strategy can’t change. A large external shift can cause your strategy to have to shift in a matter of days or even hours, but overall it acts as a guiding light and gives you a better understanding of how your business is doing and what it can do.
Be More Intentional
One reason to nail down your strategy, besides the obvious, is the chance to become more intentional with your operation and decisions. This means knowing the appropriate level of staffing you need so you’re neither under nor over-staffed.
You also want to make sure that you can better project how much inventory you need for each job so you’re not running short or carrying unnecessary stock of something.
There are obvious reasons for not wanting to be underprepared; disappointed customers, unfinished jobs, lost revenue, and more, but some might wonder why you don’t want more staff or inventory. You want to be prepared, just in case right?
Being prepared for some potential uncertainty is good, but there is such thing as being over-prepared and everything has a cost. If you have more than you need, then it is costing you money that you don’t have to spend.
Expanding Your Horizons
Expanding to a new location or opening up your service and product offerings is extremely tempting if the opportunity arises, but should you? The answer is that it depends.
This is where defining your strategic vision and keeping in touch with it comes into play. You must know whether the expansion fits your strategic vision and your brands. If it does, then is the expansion something that your business actually has the capacity to handle.
When looking at your capacity start by considering the following; drive time, staffing needs, inventory needs, cost vs. profit to be gained, time commitment.