May does suggest you go back to where you started and recreate the environment you once had with fewer resources. I’ve seen many companies be successful with innovation as a discipline but that does take a company that is willing to test, retest and experiment.I’ll continue this discussion each week.

This week’s choice may seem off topic since I blog about marketing and digital marketing but as mentioned earlier innovation happens at all levels. I am particularly inspired this week by Delancey’s Underground’s new project, “LowLine”, in New York City. The Delancey Underground project is attempting to take an unused trolley terminal below Delancey Street and turn it into a subterranean park. What is so tantalizing about this effort is the cutting edge design and use of green technology, not to mention, the reuse of an existing space. The solar technology LowLine draws on makes use of innovative fiber optics to reflect light underground and imitate photosynthesis. Beyond the technology LowLine is employing, smart creative reuse of public space is what makes this project so unique. Delancey is funded by KickStarter, a new way for non-traditional projects to get funding. KickStarter allows artists, non-profits and just about anyone with a creative project to post their idea online and allow people to donate.

There are so many creative people executing their ideas today. Whether you are at a company or sitting at the kitchen table I hope this inspires you to take your idea from paper to reality.

After reading Dave Lavinsky’s article in Inc., “Crucial Keys to Business Success in 2012” I decided to write this post. I’ve spent most of this year proving why strategy is so important and having multiple conversations about the importance of strategy and marketing. Business owners often do not see the value in utilizing all areas of marketing and strategy is, well, something they don’t seem to have time for, or think about as a non-essential part of their business.

In order for businesses to succeed in today’s environment, they are going to need to look at strategy and marketing holistically rather than myopically. I wrote a series on how to think about strategy and how to formulate your plan. These are the key areas you should focus on:

1. Analyze the competition. This is one of the most obvious steps a business owner should take. I don’t mean just conduct an analysis for your plan and then leave it. Buy research, find organizations that can help you with industry findings and conduct a proper analysis. Look at verticals, product development, and find areas that give your business the advantage. I recommend a condensed monthly competitive review. This will help you prepare for the next step.

2. SWOT Analysis. A SWOT review (business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) will provide you with everything you need to formulate your strategy. For those who haven’t conducted this it’s really very easy and something you should be doing on a quarterly basis. As a business owner you should know what your strengths are and know what threats can be turned into opportunities.

3. Marketing and Distribution. In today’s environment you are going to need to be creative and look at marketing in its entirety.  You cannot just conduct public relations or simply build a website. You need to be doing everything in tandem. Distribution and marketing are vital to your success.

4. Goal Setting. My series on strategy also included a blog about goal setting. It’s very important to set goals and revisit them throughout the year since you won’t know what worked and what did not. Don’t worry if you have to change your goals – this is very common and means you have your eyes on the finish line.

5. Be nimble. My previous post focuses on how to move fast in today’s ever-changing environment. Give yourself permission to innovate, to move fast but be thoughtful. Pull back when you have to and move fast when it’s appropriate.

These are just a few suggestions on how you and your business can move ahead of the competition and be successful in 2012. Take the time to formulate your strategy, figure out your secret sauce and marketing strategy. Take the reins and become successful. The competition won’t know what happened.

My prior posts on strategy focused on how to think about your strategy , how to formulate a plan and how to set goals and objectives. Many companies struggle with how to be nimble, think fast and act quickly. It’s a struggle when your company grows and the decision tree is no longer just 2-3 people. Making decisions and getting buy-in is not as simple as it used to be.

Once your plan and strategy is set you should also think about when you’ll review it. A bi-annual review used to be the sufficient but companies today have to move much faster to stay ahead of the competition and keep their edge.

What’s the right formula?

1. Set a review structure  – Determine how often you and your team will review the plan and strategy. There’s no silver bullet here. Your industry, product and services will most likely influence your decision. For example, software companies move more rapidly and could re-visit strategy every few months. While healthcare and financial companies will move slower given their nature.  Whatever you decide establish a schedule and stick to it.
2. Tweaking the plan – You just spent all that time formulating the plan and now you may need to change it. Every company has to do this, so don’t sweat it. The fact that you have a plan to tweak is better than not having one at all. Innovative companies do this all the time. Changing course, holding back a product or speeding up development are what keep your company ahead of the competition and forward thinking.
3. Making decisions faster – This is the most challenging part of being nimble and innovative. It’s inherent to your leadership team and culture. If your leadership team doesn’t move fast this is not an overnight change. There’s a fine line between proactive quick decision making and reactive decision making. Remember you’re trying to be proactive and nimble—don’t react just to act.
4. Establish a fast-track decision group/process - Being nimble means you’ve got to throw out the committee way of making a decision. Establish a group that meets solely for the purpose of being fast decision makers—that team will already be in the mind-set of thinking rapidly and acting upon it.
5. Create a test lab – Some companies establish teams with smaller budgets and specific timelines so they can work outside of the norms and move quicker to get things done. These teams are set-up for the purpose of faster decisions and  anticipating what’s next.
6. Everyone creates the next idea – A start-up  I know has each employee post their idea on a post-it each month for everyone to consume and see. The CEO visits the board and chooses ideas he thinks fits into their current strategy and structure. This company bypasses the meeting and committee process and everyone feels part of how strategy and innovation get implemented.

As I said earlier, there’s no silver bullet to being nimble but you can establish a structure and framework for how your company operates and becomes more agile. Writing that plan, formulating strategy and tweaking does make you and your company smarter and more adapt. You’ll also find your own way of making the process more efficient as you get a few under your belt. Who knows, you might even wonder, how did we operate without this framework in place before?

Personally, I like the longer plan with a shorter version for your executive team. Depending on your audience your short version can be one page. The one page style works well as you start to socialize the plan. Whether you’re working with external or internal stakeholders the one-pager is a teaser to the larger, detailed plan. It also shows you are being respectful of someone’s time. Always remember, no one is as interested in your strategy or plan as you are. Executives will appreciate the fact that you’re able to communicate concisely and quickly.

How to write the plan

Writing a plan is daunting so the best way to start is to draft an outline. Think about the core parts of your plan and start there. I’m not a fan of writing a long-winded plan. I like the executive summary to be written traditionally and then the remaining parts of the plan in bullets, lists and tables with short summaries.
Key parts of a plan:

1. Executive Summary – Anyone should be able to read your executive summary and understand the core parts to your plan.

2. Previous Year Recap – Illustrating a recap of your previous years’ successes explains what you’ve done and lays groundwork for future plans.

3. Goals and Objectives – Remember those goals and objectives? You should summarize and relate to strategy and tactics. This demonstrates that you’re thinking ahead. I like David Sacks approach, C.E.O of Yammer, (MORPH—Mission, Objectives, Results, People, How).

4. Strategies and Themes – Articulate your strategies and try to assign themes if possible. This will make it easier to consume and understand.

5. Tactics – Tactics can be written in a table or list. Assigning priority and a high-level budget is an excellent way to show what you’re doing and how much it’s going to cost.

6. Budget – Everyone wants a detailed budget so there’s no way to avoid formulating. You can attach as a separate sheet or refer to in your appendix.

7. Appendix –If you conducted market research or have any other details you want people to reference the appendix is the best way to include. This gives people the option of consuming and shows you did your homework.

Allow yourself time to write the plan. A day or a week will not suffice. The best executives and leaders do hire consultants or experts to help them formulate their plan. My next post, which concludes this series, will talk about how to be nimble in your planning given our fast and ever-changing environment.

Jim Collins  stresses the importance of goal setting and measurement. It is a thought process and a way of thinking that you have to adopt. If your organization has always been #1 it’s not easy to start thinking this way. Successful companies and CEOs know the right balance for their company. They will often ask before a project or idea gets approved—what are the goals and what are our objectives? Marketers, business owners and executives need to be able to formulate and articulate those goals easily. Goal setting is a way of proving your strategies and poking holes in your ideas before you get to execution.

Setting Objectives

Before you set objectives define what you’re doing. Most companies fit into one or many of these categories:

1.       Establishing a new business
2.       Bringing a new product or service to market
3.       Creating a market
4.       Loss of market share

Think about objectives as a slightly more detailed way of conveying your strategy. You should be able to talk about your strategy in 2-3 sentences. If you cannot articulate it in 25 words then go back to the drawing board. Nobody wants a +20 page PowerPoint on your strategy.

Find common themes – Divide your strategies into areas that share common themes. This will help you determine the goals. Sometimes it’s easier to boil your strategies down to a theme or a word—those are your objectives.

I like working backwards and establishing strategy first and then setting goals and objectives. Some people like to start with the objective and then go deeper. There’s no right way to do this, so do what you’re comfortable with.

How to set goals – Ask yourself how you’re going to achieve that strategy. Remember strategy is what you want and goals are how you’re going to achieve what you want. For example, if one of your strategies involves bringing a new product to market, you’re going to want to raise and build awareness around that product.  Awareness is most likely going to be an objective.

What does that look like?

Like many businesses you’ll have multiple objectives, goals and strategies. The most difficult part of setting strategies and goals is boiling everything down to a few objectives. Remember, keep it simple.

Measurement is the toughest part of defining what success means to you and your company. You can get very detailed and define by time period, use percentages and real numbers.  For example, if media mentions and coverage are one of your success measures how often will you measure that?  What do you define as a press mention? How many mentions and for what time frame? How many full articles do you expect? What publications do you define as successful media outlets? What influencer mentions matter? How many? You get the idea….

Measurement, setting goals and objectives is just that: a guide, a way to see, if what you’re doing is reaching the bottom line.Will you have to go back and tweak? Of course, you will. In today’s fast moving environment companies of all sizes must continually revisit goals and refine. I’ll talk about establishing a plan in my next post and how you have to be nimble in today’s environment.

You must give yourself permission to innovate—to think ahead. Tim Brown of IDEO talks about innovation and how it relates to a sense of purpose. Innovation and strategy are closely woven together.

Let’s get to the heart of it and talk strategy.

Why do I need a strategy? – Every business regardless of size, assets and competitive landscape needs a strategy. It is often rare to never that a business is one-of-a-kind, that it has no competition and is a leader in its’ space. Companies that fit in this category must also be strategic and plan. Regardless of where your company is, strategy is crucial to keeping your company ahead of the competition, maintaining an edge and knowing where you’re going.

How do I formulate a strategy? – A lot of business owners tell me they did not go to business school and they don’t know how to create a strategy. At the heart of any comprehensive strategy lies a good competitive analysis. One of the first things I do is analyze the competition. Once your competitive analysis is complete you’ll want to conduct a thorough market analysis. Establishing goals and objectives play an important role on how a company will succeed. Kathy Savitt, CEO and founder of Lockerz talks about measurement in her interview with Adam Bryant of the NY Times. There’s not an exact science to how strategy is formulated—everyone has their own approach. You must give yourself time and set realistic expectations. No one creates strategy and vision in a day or in a week.

I’ve got it–now what? – You, your team or a business consultant have now formulated the strategy—what do you do now? Before getting to a plan think ahead and map out where you want to be in 5 years and even in 10 years.

The  1/5/10 approach –Where do you want your company to be in one year? What about five years?  Ten years? Some business owners will counter we don’t know where we’ll be next week much less in 5 years. Regardless of how fast you’re growing, you should think about next year and the following year. Ask yourself these questions:

• What will we accomplish this year vs. next year?
• Who is our competition and what are they developing?
• What unique products or services are we creating?
• What is our unique proposition?
• Who is our target? What are their buying habits?
• Define your market. Is our product or service local, national or global?

I’ve only scratched the surface on questions you should ask yourself and how strategy is formulated. How should you think about strategy? Strategy is how you, as a business owner, are approaching your product or service. It’s the heart of your innovation and creativity as a business. It is your secret — your edge on the competition. Strategy is sometimes referred to as vision–it’s where you see your company going, progressing and moving ahead of the crowd. I’ll talk about how you can take your strategy and set goals and objectives in my next post.