What is strategy? And why does your business need it?
A strategy should be simple, and make decision-making and business-running easier.
Strategy is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot in business. Brand strategy. Marketing strategy. Growth strategy. Social media strategy.
But what does it actually mean?
Many business owners think they have a strategy when they really have a plan. Others think they don't need one at all.
And it's no wonder. The words strategy, tactics and plans get muddled all the time, even in big agencies with experienced marketers.
But here's why I think the distinction matters.
Whether you're starting a business or running an established brand that's growing, you're constantly making decisions. New products, marketing campaigns, partnerships, retailers, agencies, people to hire. The opportunities (and demands on your time) can feel endless.
A strategy helps you work out which ones are worth pursuing.
Because strategy isn't about doing more. It's about knowing what matters, why it matters and what deserves your focus.
So let's untangle what strategy actually means, how it's different from a plan, and why having one makes running a business a whole lot easier.
So, what is a strategy?
There are loads of definitions of what a strategy is, and even more definitions once you start adding words in front of the word ‘strategy’ — business strategy, brand strategy, content strategy, social media strategy, product strategy. The list goes on.
Small businesses are always doing. Head down, bum up, trying to do all the things. A strategy is putting a framework around the doing, so you don’t fall for everything.
A good small business strategy, is a framework for making the ongoing, daily decisions about how you will play the game of business.
It consists of two clear parts:
Who you are (as a brand).
Where you are going.
Without this strategy or framework to guide everyday decisions, a business can run in too many different directions, find itself saying yes to every opportunity without thinking about whether these opportunities are going to help achieve their overarching goals, or stretch their valuable resources too thin. Ultimately, this can lead to confusion and discord, often culminating in burnout and/or overanalysis paralysis.
When thinking about strategy, I like this simple explanation: A strategy is zooming out and thinking about the big picture of what you’re setting out to do. A plan is zooming in and focusing on the specific steps you’ll need to take and the tactics you’ll use.
In the words of Seth Godin:
“Tactics are great. Execution is essential. But a smart strategy is like having the wind at your back. It makes everything easier.”
— Seth Godin
Think of it like a game of chess, suggests strategist and author Mark Pollard:
“Strategy is an informed opinion about how to win. It’s separate from tactics or activities or groups of activities that make the strategy happen. Without strategy, tactics are things that might look flashy in the short run and maybe if you’re against weak opposition, you’ll win. But without a strategy, the tactics might actually mean you lose.”
If you relate that to chess, tactics can help you win if you have a strategy like a 4-move checkmate. Otherwise you’re just using play-by-play moves or tactics, trying to outsmart your opposition with your fingers crossed behind your back.
A human approach to small business strategy
For small businesses, without the huge marketing and advertising budgets to broadcast our marketing messages to the anonymous masses (aka “spray and pray”), I believe we need a human approach to strategy. Whereas big corporates are laser focused on numbers and margins, often at the expense of the human experience, small businesses put humans at the centre: we’re focused on the needs of our staff, our needs as founders, and the needs of the humans we're serving – our customers.
There are so many different approaches to strategy, but after years of crazy, unwieldy strategy documents and strategy formulation processes that sometimes went for 18 months (yes, not even kidding) in the corporate world, I now keep it simple — much like this philosophy of Simon Sinek’s:
“When we have a clear sense of where we're going, we are flexible in how we get there.”
— Simon Sinek
As small businesses, we are more nimble and agile than the bigger players, and have passionate human founders at the helm.
Bringing a human approach to strategy means we understand that both plans and people can change. Our needs as founders, our staff’s needs, and our customers’ needs, can fluctuate in response to any number of big or small factors. But if we’ve got our overarching strategy in place, we can respond to those changes with flexibility and still have that clear sense of where we are headed.
So, while we can’t predict the future, we can make sure we have direction and clarity, while remaining nimble and open to what our people want. Here are a few of my key fundamentals for mapping a human-centred strategy:
Who are the humans you are for
What is the change you are trying to make for those humans
What is the simple offering of your business in one sentence
What is it about your business that is unique and valuable for your humans
Why do you do what you do
What are your short and long term goals (beyond the numbers)
What is the problem you are trying to solve based on what is getting in the way of you and your goals
What’s the overarching framework for solving the problem and achieving the goal, in a way that is aligned with your why
Strategy is a decision-making filter
One of the most valuable things about having a clear strategy is that it gives you a way to assess opportunities.
Should you launch that new product? Invest in another marketing channel? Say yes to a partnership? Expand into a new retailer?
Instead of assessing every opportunity in isolation, you can come back to two things: who you are as a brand and where you're trying to go as a business.
Does this opportunity align with both?
Some ideas might be brilliant, just not right now. Others might be exciting but have very little to do with what you're actually trying to achieve.
And that's okay.
A good strategy doesn't just help you decide what to do. It gives you the confidence to say no to the things that don't deserve your time, energy or money.
Strategy isn't a one-off exercise
For an established business, the challenge often isn't a lack of ideas or opportunities. It's having too many.
Your marketing team has campaigns to run. Agencies have recommendations. Retailers have requests. There are new products to consider, partnerships to explore and a constant stream of things that could be done.
Before long, your inbox and diary are full, everyone is busy, and it's hard to tell whether all that activity is actually moving the business closer to its goals.
This is where having an independent strategic consultant in your corner can be incredibly valuable.
Someone who understands your brand and business goals, can work alongside your marketing team and external partners, challenge recommendations, help prioritise opportunities and keep everyone focused on the things that matter.
Not another person creating work. Someone helping you decide what work is worth doing.
Because a good strategy isn't just a document you refer to once a year. It's a filter you use every week.
What does good strategy look like in practice?
As so many of my small business clients can attest, having a clearly defined strategy in place has a very tangible impact in terms of your bottom line and (just as importantly) your enjoyment of your business.
Often, we can lose sight of our overarching goals, particularly in times of change and all the day-to-day tasks that small business founders find themselves buried under. One of my clients, the wonderful Susie McIntosh from Comma (a modern Australian massage experience in Byron and Melbourne), came to me when her business was in a stage of transition and growth. Together, we developed an overarching strategy to guide her business through this period of change and ensure its sustainable growth, giving her the confidence to know which products to press go on, and which to press no on.
When reflecting on the value of nailing down her strategy, Susie states:
“We could move forward knowing what we stood for, what products and services best represented our brand, and how we were going to sell them. Sometimes I’d get too busy working in the business and forget to work on it, Katie inspired me to work back on it!”
Slow down the thinking. Get clear. Then move.
Ultimately, I don't think a good strategy needs to be complicated.
It should give you clarity on who you are, where you're going and what matters most. It should make decisions easier, help you prioritise and give you the confidence to move forward.
And it should be something you can keep coming back to as your business grows and changes.
Because the goal isn't to spend more time on strategy. It's to spend less time second-guessing what to do next.
Slow down the thinking. Get clear. Then move.
If you're ready to get clear on your brand, business goals and priorities, take a look at my Mini Strategy Sprint. I also work alongside established businesses that need ongoing strategic support.
Katie x
Special thanks to Mark Pollard (strategist, author of Strategy Is Your Words) and Steve Tighe (business strategist, scenario planner, author of Rethinking Strategy) for your input in helping me untangle the word, strategy.
Originally published in 2019. Updated October 2026.