Business isn’t as cut and dry as it used to be. Especially now that we’re all waking up to the fact that work isn’t just work anymore—it’s part of our lives. We want to find balance, live with purpose, and make sure the time we spend working is aligned with what actually matters to us.

That’s why a business strategy is only as good as how it feels. You can have the smartest, most detailed strategy on paper but if it doesn’t feel doable, if it’s not aligned with your purpose, if it doesn’t reflect who you are and where you want to go—it’s just words.

We don’t believe in cookie-cutter business plans. We believe in strategies that feel human, because business is human. You're not running a business in a vacuum—you’re balancing work, family, community, and life. So your strategy needs to work with that reality, not against it.

Why a small business strategy is important

Business strategies are usually reserved for the big corporates, with fancy plans that take forever to create and end up in boring presentations. These documents are often over-complicated and there to make them look good. But when done properly, a small business strategy is actually a great tool for real conversations, getting buy-in, building trust, and creating a roadmap for you and your business. It’s not just about what you do—it’s about why and how you do it. A small business strategy helps you plan your resources, activities, and manage your time, making sure the hours you invest into your business are actually taking you somewhere. And when you pause to reflect in the future, you won’t suddenly realise you’ve gone off track. It’s a navigation tool that keeps you on going where you want to go and what you want to achieve.

When you use your small business strategy beyond something you have to do, it becomes something you check in with regularly and it can be really helpful. It helps you pivot when surprises come up, keeps you aligned even when life throws curveballs, and reduces the risk of you feeling lost. Your small business strategy should be a living, breathing, easy-to-change document . There’s no such thing as a “set and forget” strategy. Life happens—whether it’s personal like having a baby, getting married, or getting sick or unexpected events in your community like natural disasters or a thing we like to forget — called COVID. Small businesses can be shaken up in an instant, so it’s crucial to have a strategy that can will actually help you when these things happen.

Steps to creating a small business strategy

Step 1: Start with purpose

Your small business strategy begins with clarity on why you’re doing what you're doing. It’s not just about the services or products you offer—it’s about the bigger impact you want to create. Ask yourself: What’s your promise to your customers? What difference do you want to make? What impact will your business have on their lives? We do this when we work with clients on their values, purpose, promise and impact. Which we do instead of mission and vision (which is outdated and a bit crap). If you have done your values, purpose, promise and impact these will underpin your entire strategy making sure that no matter what you do, your activities and successes align. This is key to finding work-life balance and actually liking the work you do. After all, if you're spending 40+ hours a week on your business, it should be for something that aligns with who you are and how you want to show up in the world.

Step 2: Do your research

Now that you have your values, purpose, promise, and impact, it’s time to gather insights to guide your strategy. Don’t skip this step. Research is fundamental to understanding where your business stands and where you want it to go. You will start with desktop research, looking at industry trends, your competitors, customer complaints and gaps you can fill, and then any other external factors influencing your business.

Then you will do research by interviewing other people like your partners, your team and, most importantly, your customers. At listen + do we are pretty pro when it comes to this, since a big part of our experience is in customer research. Nothing we do is without insights, making sure that we are making evidence-based, data-driven decisions.

There is a little art to doing customer research well, and often it is better for someone else to do it (like us) because people are much more honest. But if you are doing it yourself, create a discussion guide, leave your own unconscious bias at the door, and explain you really want to hear the good, the bad, the ugly. As a small business owner, it can hurt if someone doesn’t like your ideas, but remember, hearing honest feedback is key to growth. Ignoring it almost always leads to failure. You are not building a business for you as the only customer. You want all the customers you can get.

You can do the interview over the phone so you can take notes. If in person, record it so you can take notes later. Doing the research involves documenting data with integrity — meaning exact words and quotes — and once your data is down, making sense of it all which voilà gives you evidence-based insights.

Step 3: Transform research into evidence-based actionable insights

Once you’ve gathered your research, it's time to make sense of it. Hopefully you were really careful when doing your research and collecting your data so it is easy to sort through. We love to get the big brown paper up on the wall, sticky notes and lots of markers, reading and reflecting on what we heard. What seems to be something everyone is saying, what are some saying but very strongly. who was saying it, do we have enough diverse voices, do these voices matter, what voices matter that we did not talk to. How is what they are saying helping with our strategy, what do they want from the business, if they are a partner what would our strategy look like for them to partner with us, if a customer, what does our strategy look like to make our customers happy. You can also use online tools to document and make sense of your data. There are tips how to use AI, but always be careful. AI will always miss “gut feel” which is extremely important. Remember, you are human, and businesses are very human interactions. AI tends to miss any data and its nuances, how it was said, who said it, the context of what it was said.

Once you have made sense, this is where the magic happens. BAM, you have insights, and the really cool part about building a strategy this way, instead of just from your clever-noggin, is it’s evidence-based. When you use it as a talking tool, you can shout that loud and proud. It isn’t just you saying "my business is great, and these are the steps" , you have had it built with people important to your business and co-designed together.

This is really important, as it becomes obvious you are taking your small business really seriously, and not just stroking your own ego and dreams and desires. Businesses that continue to ask, show up, and listen will overcome any challenge that comes their way as they are showing they have the framework to continue to meet customers' needs, and if you always have customers — you will have a successful business.

Taking these insights and creating actionable steps is where you start transforming your strategy into something real. Remember, it's not just about what you think is important—it’s about what your community needs from you.

Step 4: Set SMART goals

It’s now time to set some goals. You have a good idea of where you want to go and what success looks like — now you can turn them into goals. It is up to you how many goals you want, but we personally like to stick to 3–5 goals. It also depends on what timeline you want to make these goals happen over.

We think it is always a good idea to understand where you want to be in 20 years as a broad achievement, then work your way back from there — goals you want to be achieving in 10 years, then in 5 years, then 12 months. You might want to choose one of these timelines to focus on to do a strategy in detail. If you are a startup, and it feels way too overwhelming to think 20 years ahead, just think about what that looks like, then focus on a 12-month strategy instead.

When doing goals, balance between quick wins that feel good and some of the other bigger stuff, which can feel much harder and sometimes more boring to think about. You want achieving these goals and the steps to get there to feel good. Remember, business is human, and you are human, so whilst you can write a winning strategy for a robot, if you don’t manage your personal and business lives in a real way, it quickly becomes unsustainable. When you have your goals, we like to test them against the SMART framework.

The SMART goal framework is a great way to ensure your goals are clear and attainable. Here’s a quick refresher:

• Specific: What exactly do you want to achieve?

• Measurable: How will you track progress?

• Attainable: Can you realistically reach this goal?

• Relevant: Does it align with your overall purpose?

• Time-bound: When do you want to achieve this?

Now you have your goals, think about the steps to get there. Actionable do-able steps and the resources you need. Having your goals backed by activities creates a roadmap in your strategy you can follow. There are some frameworks we love to do that with, our favourite is used mostly in the social impact space called Theory of Change (TOC). Google it, you will see it is super simple and there are some easy steps to complete it. We were once told by someone who works in government that this is very similar to what they call Program Logic. Not sure which one will tickle your fancy. We personally love TOC because we lean towards community and impact. Remember it is your strategy, make it what you like. It is a tool to know what you are doing, where you are going and how you are going to get there.

Step 5: Inviting every voice into your strategy

When developing your small business strategy, don't leave anyone behind. It's important to invite voices that are often excluded, even ones we normally wouldn’t bring into the conversation. Of course, bring people from different cultures, perspectives, and abilities, but what about even creating some space in your strategy for things that can’t talk?

We heard once of the concept of having a seat for the future generation (a child) and the environment (like a tree or a wombat) at every meeting — you could even have the sea (anyone like some reef at your meeting). This is a way to future-proof your strategy. Your customers care a lot when it comes to making sure they buy from businesses that will not destroy the world we live in, now and for future generations. So by including these voices in your strategy (and maybe in all future meetings), it will just help you make sure that you are starting to realise your impact as a business on the bigger world. You could even invite your own child, or maybe it is someone who has passed that you loved and want to make proud. Anything you do, just take a moment, invite these people in and reflect — would this work for them where I am going and what I plan on doing?

Step 6: Create a living and breathing document

Your business strategy isn’t set in stone. It should grow and change as your business grows and the environment changes. Think of it as a living and breathing document that you can adjust when necessary. This flexibility allows you to respond to new opportunities, challenges, or shifts in your personal life, ensuring your business always aligns with your purpose and goals. Check in with your strategy, keeping it always in draft mode. Make notes in it if it changes, why it changed, and be okay with it. Maybe you decided to start a family, or your values aligned with slowing business down to care for a loved one. This is not something to be harsh on yourself about. Remember, we built this on purpose and real life. Hopefully, by doing a strategy in that way, it becomes more useful as a supportive guide than a reason to be mad at yourself if you don’t make a certain milestone.

Step 7: Visualise your strategy

In saying that when your pretty happy with it go through the effort to make it look pretty and print it. Nothing keeps us on track more then a strategy on a wall. A visually engaging strategy will not only help you better understand your goals but will also make it easier to share with your team, stakeholders, and anyone else who needs to be on board.

Wrapping it up

At the end of the day, your strategy is a roadmap for future decisions. It’s not a set of rigid rules—it’s a tool that helps guide you, your team, and your community toward shared success. Whether you’re planning for a project or looking at a 5-year horizon, a business strategy is most powerful when it’s built with intention, research, and a clear purpose. Remember: a good strategy doesn’t just come from the numbers. It comes from people. It’s about understanding what your community—customers, employees, and stakeholders—needs and how you can fulfill that need in a way that stays true to who you are.

So, roll up your sleeves, co-create your strategy, and turn those ideas into something tangible that makes a real impact.