Thinking strategically about your business? Use the MAP approach 📍

You're running a small business selling custom hoodies at school. Suddenly, another student starts selling similar hoodies for a lower price.

You start to lose customers and worry whether your business can continue. You can't really afford to lower your prices to compete with the other student...but you're about to do it anyway.

Before you make that move, now's a good time to start thinking strategically.

Strategic thinking happens when you take information about your business and the world around it, and turn it into intentional, logical decisions on the future direction your business will take.

Follow the 3-step MAP process to make the right business decisions, every time.

First things first: what's your vision?

Every business should know why they're in business in the first place, and a great way of demonstrating this to others is to come up with a vision statement. This is a statement that captures the big dream or ultimate goal of what your business is trying to achieve, and sets the destination that every business decision works towards.

Good Examples ✅

• To become the coolest hoodie brand for students

• To make self-expression wearable, one hoodie at a time

Poor Examples ❌

• To make money (too vague)

• To sell 100 hoodies this week (too short-sighted)

Now that your vision is clear, the next step is to look at the things that will help you get there.

Assessing the landscape is all about gathering as much information as you can about your competitors and the wider market so you don't make snap decisions you may later regret.

To do this, start by carrying out a competitor analysis, which involves looking up:

• Who are your competitors and what are they doing that you do/don't do?

• What type of customer do they attract?

• How do they position themselves in the market? (eg, what do they say in their advertisements?)

• How do they price their products or service, and why do they choose that price point?

• What do online customer reviews say about your competitors?

Action steps:

1. Make sure to write down all the things you find out and then repeat this process for the rest of your competitors.

2. Then analyze the information to spot patterns (where competitors are doing the same thing as each other) and gaps (something that no or few competitors are doing).

Imagine you're the student selling custom hoodies at school, mentioned in the introduction. Let's take a closer look at what you're up against:

Your Competitor's Business

• Product: Hoodies

• Customers: Students

• Market position: Cheap prices, fast delivery

• How they price their products: Thinner material is cheaper to buy

• Online reviews: "Orders are ready in one week", "Everything is done online"

Your Business

• Product: Hoodies

• Customers: Students

• Market position: Customised design, quality material

• How you price your products: Based on time spent creating designs

• Online reviews: "Friendly, personal service", "Great quality fabric that lasts"

Takeaways

• You both have the same business, selling hoodies to students. These are patterns.

• The other parts of your businesses are different: price points and material quality. These are gaps.

Knowing this helps you figure out what to start doing, stop doing, or continue doing in your business.

Great! You have your vision, you know what your competitors are doing, and what patterns and gaps exist.

The next step is to use all this information to make a plan of action that helps you reach your future vision.

A simple-to-use model for creating a plan is the Stop, Start, Continue model, where you look at what you want to stop doing, start doing, and continue doing — easy, eh? You can apply this to both short-term and long-term thinking too.

Let's see it in action with our custom hoodie example:

Stop ⏹️

• Short-term: Stop thinking that lowering prices is the only way to compete with similar businesses.

• Long-Term: Stop limiting yourself to a customized-only business.

Start ▶️

• Short-term: Start promoting the quality aspect of your hoodies in your marketing messages.

• Long-term: Launch a range of limited edition hoodies for customers who don't necessarily want a customised one.

Continue ➡️

• Short-term: Continue offering friendly customer service.

• Long-term: Continue working your reputation for good service into marketing messages.

Alex runs a small business making handmade candles. Most of Alex's customers buy them as gifts.

A new business opens nearby selling bath bombs, soaps and skincare gift sets. They aren't selling candles, but lots of customers who used to visit Alex are now buying gifts there instead.

What should Alex do next?

A. Start making soaps and bath bombs straight away to directly compete with the new business.

B. Find out why customers are shopping there, then decide whether to improve the candle range, expand into gift sets, or promote what makes the business unique.

C. Run a "Buy One, Get One Free" offer every weekend to improve sales.

D. Ignore the new business because it doesn't sell candles, so it isn't a competitor.

Whether you've already started your own business, or are just thinking about it, here are some top tips to start strategic thinking with MAP: