Remove your strategic barriers for growth

Question:

Is there anything holding you back from obtaining the results you truly deserve?

Answer:

At The Alpha Group we make certain that you draw up and execute a plan to remove any strategic barriers that affect your business. Don't you just hate it when you don't get the results you truly deserve? Identifying and removing strategic barriers is probably the single most important important thing that any business owner can do, and so we have made this the first project you undertake. Overcoming obstacles and turning them into opportunities will lead you to amazing business success.

So, how exactly does this happen?

Easy, its a five step-process using the power of your peer-to-peer advisory board.

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Firstly your peer-to-peer advisory board will help you identify exactly what is the strategic problem.

The Alpha Group Membership, together with our FastGrowth™ Workbooks and Workshops assist you to:

1. Create a clearer direction and stronger commitment.

2. Gain and retain more profitable customers.

3. Increase your profit and market value.

Thus overcoming the challenges that business owners typically face. We find that a usually a strategic barrier impacts the most on your profit and market value, in fact a strategic barrier can seriously depress your profit and market value. In some cases, a strategic barrier can completely block your business sale. Most entrepreneurs want to improve, grow and then sell the business so it it is important that the peer-to-peer advisory board helps them to do this as efficiently as possible.

We find that four common examples of common strategic barriers within successful companies include:

• The business can be too reliant on one person.

• Profits can be erratic from lumpy revenue streams.

• The business can suffer from an occasionally indecisive management team.

• The business can suffer from poor customer retention from inconsistent service quality.

There are other strategic barriers that otherwise successful companies face.

Where do you see yourself in five years time? What could possibly stop you from getting there?

Your peer-to-peer advisory board will help you adopt the right mindset to identify and evaluate your current strategic barriers.

Strategic problems are like icebergs, 20% of the problem is visible above the water line, and 80% is hidden below, and it is this hidden 80% we need to explore. Unfortunately the human brain has a clever survival mechanism known as confirmation bias, we form an opinion and then seek out evidence to support our opinion, and discount evidence that undermines our opinion.

To make things worse, entrepreneurs also suffer from optimism bias, without it you would never start out on the path to becoming an entrepreneur. While optimism bias is essential for business, and must usually be nurtured, for the first part of this exercise, optimism bias is dangerous, and so you must work hard to overcome this bias as well.

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To adopt the right mindset, and to set aside your confirmation bias and your optimism bias for the duration of the exercise, you need to mentally “step away” from yourself and your company.

Think of someone you know who is:

• Cautious

• Calculating

• Painstakingly careful

• Risk adverse

And mentally become them. Try to look at your business as someone from the outside looking in seeing your business for the first time, with no preconceived notions or ideas. This will be different for every business.

This is where the power of your peer-to-peer advisory board helps. By explaining to others you help clarify your own thinking. By listening to others you gain insights into your own situation. By looking at how other businesses perform this helps you create a vision for your own company. When you learn together, and when you gain insight together, and take action together, you have the accountability to keep you on track to get the massive results you deserve.

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Secondly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you identify and evaluate your current strategic barriers.

This involves a detailed examination of the following factors:

• Strategic planning and strategic management

• Financial control and financial management

• Sales expertise and market potential

• Operational controls and operational systems

• People skills and resources

Points to consider when you are evaluating your current strategic barriers:

• Is it stopping you grow?

• Is it costing you money?

• Is it preventing resources from working at their best?

• Is it distracting or time consuming?

• Is it demotivating?

• Is it preventing you from taking advantage of an opportunity?

Do you love your business, your staff, your customers, your suppliers? Do you love your marketplace, your economy, the regulations under which you work? Do you love every aspect of your business? Identifying your strategic obstacles can sometimes be an emotional experience for you.

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Thirdly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you identify and evaluate your future potential strategic barriers.

We explore various areas where we can expect change, such as.

• What changes can you foresee in the economy?

• What changes can you foresee in regulation?

• What changes can you foresee in technology?

• What changes can you foresee in the workforce?

• What changes can you foresee in customer expectations and trends?

• What changes can you foresee in your competitors and the market?

There will often be changes that other members from other industries see that they can feed back to the group; none of us is smarter than all of us.

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Fourthly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you devise a plan to remove your strategic barriers.

The peer-to-peer advisory board help you evaluate your barriers in terms of financial payoffs, what are the results of removing the strategic barriers on the bottom line? Specifically we look to see if they will have a High, Medium or Low impact on on sales growth, a High, Medium or Low impact on on profitability, and a High, Medium or Low impact on on your value multiplier. This lets you select the right actions, refine your plan, and engage your team in the plan.

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Lastly the peer-to-peer advisory board help you take massive action.

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The profound impact on you and your company of removing strategic barriers for growth is that as a result, you will transform your profitability within 2 years.