Joe Abraham

Mmmm! Golden Corral.

Do you have a GC in your town? If not, you probably have something close to it.

I’m talking about the type of place where you walk in and grab a tray. Then you pile on as many plates as will fit on that tray, pay a grumpy cashier a few bucks and then head toward islands and islands full of food.

Think of the last buffet restaurant you visited.

It’s been a while for me, but the memory is still quite vivid. I can still smell the pungent odor of the deep fat fryers in the back cooking up everything from popcorn shrimp and chicken fingers to mystery dishes I don’t even know how to pronounce.

Golden Coral is an interesting buffet restaurant because you can walk in, pay your 7 bucks or so and then dive into a whole host of food types. From Mexican to Italian and Chinese to All American.

Oh by the way, don’t forget the enormous salad bar.

And just so you don’t leave disappointed, there’s the dessert bar (which shouldn’t even be called a bar. It should have it’s own zip code).

So think of the last buffet restaurant you visited.

Do you recall being just a bit overwhelmed about what you were going to fit on your miniscule plate during the “first course”?

Do you remember saying to yourself, “I’ll try a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.” “If I don’t like item #1, I’ll just go back and try item #6.”

45 minutes later, you had tried everything they had to offer. If you’re like me, you probably leaned back toward the end of the meal and rubbed your midsection in delight.

An hour after the belly rubbing though, do you recall how you felt?

A bit lethargic, somewhat groggy and ready for a long nap. That’s my guess because that’s typically how I feel after an experience like that.

Hey, think about this for a minute…

Could that be exactly what is happening in small business today? I happen to know this is the exact reason why most entrepreneurs are frustrated with their business’ growth.

They’ve been eating at the buffet. The buffet of business strategy.

It goes a little something like this. You attend your local chamber meeting and hear the local social media expert (essentially a web designer) tell you how to build a social network. You get excited and start working on that. (Okay, let’s call that the chinese food on your plate).

Meanwhile a friend in your networking group tells you how coupon mailers are working out really well for them. Italian food.

Then, you attend an industry trade show where they talk about the best yellow pages ads to implement in your business. That’s the All American food part.

So you combine the web designer’s strategy with the coupon mailer idea and toss in the yellow pages strategy. Not to mention a few other things you pick up along the way.

Do you see where i am going with this?

If you keep doing that, your business will feel the same way you and I did after the over-the-top buffet meal. Your business will feel slow, lethargic and sleepy.

A few months and years later, you’ll find the business really has no focused direction. It struggles to stay ahead of the competition and typically finds itself reacting to what competitors are doing rather than proactively marketing itself. Left unchecked, this “eating at the buffet” will hurt your business, diminish it’s market value and be a constant source of headaches for you, the entrepreneur.

So what can you do if you find yourself having over-eaten at the buffet of business strategy?

It’s simple.

Step 1: Take an intensive look at your current business development strategy and find the conflicting strategies in your business development systems. You can request a complimentary copy of our Marketing CAT SCAN. It will help you do just that. This process is not for the faint of heart. You’ll spend several hours over the course of an entire week going through this strategic process yourself. If you’re not willing to take this time to work ON your business, then stop now and go back to what you were doing.

Step 2: Once you’ve identified the conflicting strategies in your current plan, pull them out from the roots. The CAT SCAN will show you how.

Step 3: Replace the conflicting strategies with fresh and healthy ideas that are consistent with the rest of your business plan and entrepreneurial type.

If you need help along the way, there are lots of free and paid resources I can point you to. But no point talking about those until you do step 1 first.

I hope you follow these simple steps. Your business will be the better for it.