Business Strategy with a Side of Unicorn

One of my favorite conversations this month happened when a potential new client trusted me enough to ask the real question on his mind.

This wasn't someone I needed to convince of the importance of community engagement or the impact on business; this person understood that an effective strategy could increase revenue and decrease costs by engaging talent, inspiring customer loyalty and driving new innovations.  

Most of the  obstacles and challenges through our conversation were pretty common (and easily addressable):

"How do I ensure our plan drives impact to the community and the business?"

"How do I determine what to do -- and what NOT to do?"

"How do I make sure our plan engages all of our team members in a way that's meaningful? 

And then he dropped the hammer:

"How do I convince my peers that this work is about business strategy and not just rainbows and unicorns?" 

I was thrilled because I had a direct, proven answer.  Building an Aspirational Business is an intentional, actionable business strategy that creates proven advantages in Net Income, EBIT, and ROE.   

As we begin to face 4th quarter planning, I know many of us are wondering how we even begin to prepare for the upcoming year.  How will we find a new competitive advantage? Continue to attract and engage our talent? inspire customer loyalty? Find new markets?  Rebuild our financials? Take our organization to the next level.  The list goes on.

For most of us, what's worked in the past probably won't get us to the next level in 2021.  We need a different strategy to help us understand and address both long and short term business challenges.

It's true that when I facilitate sessions or speak about the Aspirational Businesses, people do tend to feel a bit more optimistic, encouraged, enthusiastic.  So maybe there is a little rainbow in this business strategy - but there's also a pot of gold.  

And couldn't we all use a little unicorn at the moment anyway?