Identifying ‘winning moves’ to build value

How do you set up your business for success? According to The Strategy Institute’s Steve Browning, it takes ‘winning moves’–activities and initiatives that impact future success.

While strategic choices are important in identifying winning moves, Browning said they are not the same because winning moves use an inter-connected framework to make success repeatable.

Speaking at a HUB24 Webinar titled ‘Managed portfolios: Your business’s next strategic winning move’, Browning told HUB24’s Head of Managed Portfolios Brett Mennie this framework is shaped by a practice’s responses to the following questions:

1. What is your guiding purpose or winning aspiration?
2. Where are you going to play?
3. How are you going to win?
4. What are the capabilities you need to continue to deliver your how to wins?
5. What management systems do you need in place?

This approach is different to the way many practices look to build value in their businesses, because rather than focussing on what the customer receives, they focus on what their CVP delivers the business.

Further, Browning said many businesses have a hard view on what value they provide their clients, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into a perception of value for the clients.

For this reason, Browning advocates the client value equation, a secret often used by leading businesses, and one he believes can make success predictable and repeatable. The equation itself is straightforward – fees create money in, cost to serve is money out and the difference is the profit.

“We need to think about what we can do to increase each client’s perception of value and reduce costs to serve so it’s a win for the firm and a win for the client.”

Browning said the current environment is providing practices with an opportunity to look into their businesses for ‘speed bumps and friction points’ and practices are putting their systems and processes under the microscope.

“It’s about reducing friction to gain efficiencies. If a business can do that, they will identify ‘winning moves’.”

Common in his consulting work is the practice to look short-term and to focus on putting out spot fires, which Browning likened to “putting Band-aids on a broken leg”.

However, if practices work through the above five inter-related choices and these are hitting the mark, the short-termism becomes less or the strategy overcomes these problem areas.

“It takes courage to step out of the tactical world,” said Browning. “It takes leadership and being clear on what success looks like.”

Did you miss our webinar?

In this must-see session for business owners or advice partners, strategy and business coach Steve Browning takes participants through a framework of strategic choice-making to grow a sustainably profitable advice business, with managed portfolios being a key winning move. Drawing on experience inside and outside the advice industry, Steve will showcase how to position your business for long-term success, delivering both benefits to your business and your clients. 0.75 CPD points available.

Watch the webinar here.