Structure vs. Strategy: Are You Focusing on the Right One in Your Business?

Hand to God. This was my exact conversation last week during a strategy call . . .

“Kendra,  I’ve made so much money. I don’t know what to do. I need your help. I need your help because now I need to understand the operational part of my business.”

And you know what? It’s my favorite type of problem-solving session with clients.

Here’s why.

Because instead of waiting for all the i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed on business documents to create a business, this client went out and made money. They knocked on doors, generated sales, and tested and built a popping revenue-generating strategy. #securethebag

And now, with money flowing in, they’re ready to tackle big-girl problems like building a structure to handle the revenue and growth coming.

That, my friend, is an excellent problem to have, don’t you think?

I share this story for one reason: If you haven’t talked about your strategy, you’re not focusing on the right thing!

I’m going to throw in some extra tough love in this blog post because it’s important to me that you understand the difference between structure and strategy.

But first, doesn’t building my structure make me an actual business owner?

Let me drop some hard truths right now. 

Your LLC does not make you a business owner. Building credit does not make you a business owner. A website does not make you a business owner. Are they essential structural components? Absolutely. But they are not what makes a business a business.

So if not structure, what makes a business legit? You become a business owner when you are generating revenue consistently, and to generate income, you have to have some type of strategy.

That’s why it’s essential to understand what strategy is and why it needs to be top of mind when you’re looking to transform your business into an actual commercial entity.

Your business needs BOTH structure and strategy.

Strategy is HOW you’ll earn revenue. It’s your offer and your marketing strategy working together to make you money. 

But what happens a lot of the time is that instead of focusing on how to make money, the focus gets shifted to building the structure of the business. The thinking is, “I cannot generate revenue until I have everything I need for the structure.”

Raise your hand if you’ve followed this same type of rationale? Or raise your hand if you’re currently busy trying to line up your ducks in a row but haven’t talked about your revenue-generating strategy? It’s okay if your hands are high in the sky right now. You’re not alone. It’s the reason why I want to spend this time differentiating between structure and strategy.

Now that you know more about strategy, what is structure? Well, think about the credit you need to grow your business. Or the infrastructure you need to expand your services. To attain both growth objectives, you need structure. Structure helps you accomplish the strategy you want to implement.

Remember, you need both structure and strategy to transform your side hustle into a financial powerhouse.

In the beginning, you will ideally want to build some system and work on your revenue strategy simultaneously. BUT this is the point where you need to be careful that you don’t get so engrossed in creating structure you forget to build strategy altogether.

And the result? You guessed it. Evenings wondering why your business isn’t making money.

How to know if you’re hiding behind building your structure?

Knowing where you stand on the strategy versus structure discussion will help you determine what type of help you need right now to transform your business. 

So here are two questions to consider.

1. Are you making any money right now in your business?
2. What are your plans to bring in money for your business?

If you’ve got no clear answer for either question, my advice is to revisit and reassess what you’re spending your time and attention on. Chances are, you’re investing way too much time on structure and not nearly enough (or any) on strategy. #truth

Ok. That’s business church for today.

Going from Dreamer to Doer with Structure AND Strategy

So where to next? Like I mentioned in the beginning, structural problems are good problems. They’re the kind of big-girl problems that you want to have as a Big Boss (with a capital B) SMB owner. 

They’re precisely the type of problems I love to help my clients navigate and build solutions because #1, it tells me you’re ready to be your own superhero. And #2, you’re ready to do the dream and build your thriving commercial empire!

It’s the type of work that fuels my mission here at The Boss Architect. Because even though you’re a small business owner, I don’t believe you should settle with running your business without the big, beautiful structure you need to build your empire. 

Nor should you be without access to the same bold and innovative business strategies and know-how you’ve seen Fortune 500 companies implement. (‘Cause if you’re bold enough to dream it, then you deserve it!)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, you’ve got to learn how to crawl before you walk. In this case, I want to make sure you understand and recognize the difference between structure and strategy for your business, so you make the right moves right now.

So now it’s your turn. I want to hear from you!

Maybe you’ve got your structure all set up, but your strategy looks like it could use a bit of work. Or vice versa. Comment below and let me know what you need more of right now structure or strategy.