Determining the best business decision is difficult.

This primarily is a result from being unable to consistently predict the future, and the constant change of the market.

Strategies are plans or approaches to achieving a desired goal. The order of steps is important, as you’ll quickly find it’s difficult to build a road when you don’t know where you want to go.

With that in mind, first start with identifying your goal then outline your strategy, the road, to get there. Once you’ve done that, here are a few strategies to consider.

Diversify revenue sources. Why? Minimize risk if there’s a drastic changes in the market or a growing competitor.

Build barriers to entry. This could be a variety of things. Anything that makes it harder for someone to provide what you provide. That could mean investing a lot in research and development to make something awesome or recruiting the best talent.

Being the one stop shop for ____. This establishes your company as more of a draw for a given market and could be accomplished by expanding products around a specific area or an acquisition to force out competitors, e.g. when Facebook bought Instagram.

Being the low-cost leader. Being the cheapest will cut profit margins but will also make it less likely that you’ll get competition. It’s worth mentioning this is referenced to a proactive strategy, not when you’re being forced to cut prices to compete, reactive.

Reducing reliance on a key buyer or supplier. This will mean that you are less catering to one specific client or depending on one specific supplier.

Testing a new market. Diversifying and testing where you might be able to meet additional customer demand.

These strategies can help decide on the best path to achieve your goal.

Although there are a plethora of strategies out there, hopefully kick start a few you might want to consider.

Photo by DAVIDCOHEN on Unsplash.