Three signs that your plan is not really a strategy

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Last week we asked a question on our Facebook page to see if anyone was curious about how we do things at Capra and now we’re going to start answering these really good questions.

What’s the difference between a plan and a strategy?

Here’s my two cents: All true strategies are plans.  But not all plans are strategic.  What does that even mean?

When you’re working a plan that lacks strategy you’ll know it because….

  1. You don’t know WHY you’re working the plan.  Sure, you know what the end goal is.  Maybe it’s to build a new website.  But you don’t know WHY you needed that new website.  You don’t know what’s going to make that new website WORK for your business.

    When you’re working a plan to build a new website and you know that your strategy is to make this a revenue generating machine for you then you know that you need to build a store – that you need to have ad placements – that you need to consider alignment for potential sponsorships.

  2. You want to stop.  You’ll hit a road block and you’ll think things like “This isn’t working – I’m going to stop this now.” When you have a strategy your ability to persevere extends itself because it’s clear that you must in order to reach your BIG goal. If your strategy is really not working you’ll look for detours instead of throwing in the towel.

  3. You don’t know WHERE this plan is going to leave you.  When you finish a plan you’ve moved from Point A to Point B.  When you have a strategy you know what happens next – you know what your Point C is.  It’s good to know what you want next and that’s what a strategy gives you.  A plan tells you how to get there. A strategy guides you forward.

So the next time you lay out the plan think about the strategy – think about the reason – and clue people in to that reason.

CAPRA Behind the curtain: I think strategically but I’m not always the best at communicating that strategy with my own team. We’ve been starting an effort to bring on some craft breweries as clients. I think everyone @CapraStrategy was excited to hear about that effort because beer is fun.

What I don’t know that they knew is that strategically it’s really important to me that I have an excited and engaged team that wants to tell people about the kind of work that we do.  Every single one of our clients have either been a referral from a past client or someone that heard directly from one of us on the team.  I want this business to grow so that the amazing people that are a part of Capra can provide for their families and that we can give this kind of job to other people.  And the best way for that to happen is to do work that we love and we’re proud to talk about.

Talking about beer is something that two of our Capra team members do really really well.  So it’s not just that I want everyone to have fun and do great work for some craft breweries – it’s that I want Capra to grow and that means giving our team something to talk about.  Cheers!