S is for Strategy: Stop Trying to Win Every Battle
When I first speak to an owner, I’m rarely worried about whether they’re working hard enough.
I’m much more interested in where that effort is going.
What I usually find is a smart, capable person trying to win every battle at once:
Every client is important
Every idea has potential
Every channel “could” work
Every request feels urgent
On the surface, that looks committed. Underneath, it’s a lack of strategy.
What Strategy actually does for you
When I talk about Strategy, I’m not talking about a glossy deck or a lofty mission statement.
I’m interested in the answers to a very practical question:
“Given the business you want, and the life you want, what actually deserves your best time and attention?”
Until that’s clear, three things tend to happen:
You say yes too easily
To clients, projects, and opportunities that don’t really fit – then pay for it later in stress and margin.Your week fills itself
Your calendar is busy, but not with the work that would genuinely change your next 6–12 months.You feel oddly stuck
You’re not failing, but you’re not really moving. Lots of motion, not much progress.
Strategy, done properly, gives you permission to be selective. It’s the filter that lets you:
Protect the work that truly moves the business forward
Let go of offers, clients or activities that don’t fit where you’re going
Stop trying to fix everything at once
How I work with it 1:1
When I’m working with a founder, we don’t start by rewriting their whole business. We start by quietly tightening up a few fundamentals:
Where do you actually want this business to be in 2–3 years?
(And how many hours a week do you want to be in it?)Who, specifically, do you do your best work for – profitably?
Which parts of what you do are genuinely driving profit and momentum – and which are there out of habit or fear?
From there, we can begin to shape a Strategic Compass for their decisions. Not a 40‑page document; a handful of clear, agreed filters that we keep coming back to when new opportunities and problems appear.
That compass then sits behind everything else we touch: their capacity, pricing, systems, even how they structure their week.
For now, a small reflection
If you’re reading this and thinking about your own business, ask yourself:
“If I had to cut one thing I’m currently doing, because it doesn’t really belong in the business I want two years from now… what would it be?”
You don’t have to act on it today. But simply noticing the answer is a strategic act. It’s the beginning of seeing your business as something you design, rather than something that just happens around you.
In the next article in this series, I’ll talk about Capacity – and why even the clearest strategy dies if you try to run it on an already overloaded calendar.
