I’ve seen strategy voids form several times over the years. The type of void and exact combination of reasons will vary. Like a weather system for a hurricane requires a set of conditions to form, voids require a certain mix of different variables to come together. Through experience and conversation, I have found that voids tend to have one or more of the following conditions present.
Condition 1: Growing Pains
Whilst the three conditions below are suggestive of business failings, this first condition is a result of success. In smaller businesses, it is natural that selling is done by the Founders. This strategy of relationship selling ‘in the room’ will work to a point beyond which there is a desire to scale to grow the business that cannot be met by 1:1 meetings and direct outreach. Expansion is throttled back as these businesses find they do not have the specialist skills to build a marketing strategy or to organise activity in a manageable and meaningful way. Melissa Horton at Investopedia cites these ‘marketing mishaps’ as one of the four most common reasons a small business fails. She says, “Businesses that do not understand these aspects of sound marketing strategies are more likely to fail than companies that take the time to create and implement cost-effective, successful campaigns.”
Condition 2: Lack Of Focus
Lack of focus can come about because of lack of strategy resulting in a sales free-for-all, lack of focus within a strategy (“we are all things to all people)”, or from being so client-led as to say yes to anything. Lack of focus and resources as one of 10 reasons for strategy failure was acknowledged by a Forbes contributor way back in 2011. As they put it “fewer and focused is better than numerous and nebulous”.
Lack of focus can be evolutionary. It is not a problem initially. Many businesses tend to evolve in earlier life before they have truly achieved product market fit. They experiment, test, refine and revise their offer. However, if this continues for too long, the organisation becomes comfortable with being a custom business. The result is that business builds into its DNA that saying “yes” to whatever the ask is the right answer. Scalable growth specialists, Nettlebed Insights, describe this as a Limitation of Being Driven by Customer Needs.
Condition 3: Rushing At The Answer
Businesses can become myopic in their thinking. They become focused on short term achievements. When problems occur, the tendency is to rush to the nearest answer. Knee-jerk tactical responses drive open the void and push the operations of the day-to-day business further from the long-term strategy of the business. There is nothing that ties these actions back to the strategy, nor is there any accountability. Business unit leaders within an organisation will tend to address an issue through their own lens, fixing something in one corner so that it no longer affects their line of business, whilst being unaware of the impact elsewhere and on business strategy overall. Yet checking in is low on the list of priorities for CEOs and business leaders. According to Michael Mankins at management consulting firm Marakon, in this Knowledge at Wharton article, “Less than 15% of companies routinely track how they perform over how they thought they were going to perform”.
Condition 4: Lack of Coherent Positioning
The importance of a concise, clear, and consistent story cannot be over emphasised. I have seen first hand the difficulties created when businesses are unable to articulate a consistent story that is told and understood in the same way by all stakeholders. The result is myriad of unique interpretations from every corner of the business that spill out to customers. Strategy Hacker, Troy Sandige, sums up this impact of this problem on strategy failures as the ‘3 Cs’: complexity, confusion, and complications.
Strategies To Cross The Void
The advantage of understanding the conditions that can result in a void is that you can plan to deal with how to cross it. Like the weather systems required for a hurricane, you cannot stop nature, but you can better plan for it if you understand the signs well ahead of time.
A strategy to cross the void must include a marketing strategy bridge that links business strategy with effective implementation and activity. This bridge should include the key elements of clear positioning, a plan that aligns business strategy goals with those further down the organisation and a programmatic approach that is in line with the capabilities and resources of the organisation.