You’ve Been Thinking About Strategy Wrong: How to Approach Strategy for More Growth as an Impact Entrepreneur
Wondering how you and your team can work to approach strategy effectively and efficiently? Check out a few of the reasons why a tailored, dynamic approach to strategy can help drive growth and success for impact-driven businesses.
There's a common misconception in the business world – particularly among impact entrepreneurs – about the nature of strategy.
On one hand, many of them believe that it's a “one and done” process – a fixed plan that, once created, doesn't need revisiting or updating. On the other hand, some hold the view that a strategy is rigid and unchanging – that it’s merely a set of tangible actions aimed at helping businesses achieve certain goals and overcome immediate challenges.
But, here’s where things get interesting, what if we've been thinking about strategy all wrong?
What if, instead of viewing it as a rigid, unchanging set of directives, we think of strategy more as a flexible, responsive journey that goes way beyond these limitations?
After all, rethinking the approach to strategy – especially for growth-oriented impact entrepreneurs – involves challenging some common myths and embracing a new perspective.
At FairForce, for example, we think of “strategy” not as a static blueprint, but as a dynamic, evolving journey that continually adapts to new challenges and opportunities. And, ultimately, it’s this perspective shift from strategy as a one-time plan to an ongoing process that helps us support impact-driven businesses as they navigate and thrive in a complex environment.
However, this shift doesn’t just happen automatically – it requires intentional effort and consistent refinement.
Ready to redefine your strategic approach? Here’s how you can apply this adaptive strategy framework to your venture – all while focusing on sustainable growth and maximizing impact.
Types of strategy to foster business growth for impact startups
When it comes to achieving business growth – especially in the case of impact startups – each leader’s approach to strategy can take many forms.
Nonetheless, they all typically have one thing in common: they encompass a variety of tactics that are specifically tailored to the unique needs and objectives of the business.
With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at some practical examples of how strategy can manifest itself in various aspects of a startup's growth process:
1. Market research
An essential aspect of any growth strategy is conducting thorough market research. This involves understanding your competitors, clients, partners, or investors, and assessing the overall market dynamics.
If done right, effective market research is a crucial step to approach strategy, and can provide insights into where your product or service fits in the market, what customers are looking for, and identifying areas for improvement.
2. Asking the right questions
Strategy is all about asking probing questions that help optimize and simplify your business processes.
This, in turn, involves a deep understanding of how your product or service meets market needs, as well as the critical role of identifying opportunities for enhancement. When you commit to asking the right questions, you ultimately unlock the potential for innovation and improvement in your strategic approach.
3. Clarity on objectives
A key strategic move is to be crystal clear about your objectives and the purpose behind each action, process, or conversation. But this clarity isn’t just about setting goals – it’s also about understanding the 'why' behind each decision and how it contributes to the larger vision.
After all, having clear objectives ensures that every step taken aligns with the broader goals of your business, thereby streamlining efforts and resources toward targeted outcomes. It also helps when it comes to effective communication and collaboration within teams – ensuring everyone is on the same page.
4. Coaching for leadership and identity
In some cases, strategy can also involve coaching experiences that help leaders and founders elevate their executive presence and business identities.
This type of personal and professional development can be crucial to help certain leaders position themselves confidently with key stakeholders. Plus, at the same time, it can also significantly impact how a startup navigates its growth trajectory. After all, coaching fosters a deeper understanding of personal and organizational strengths – both of which enable leaders to steer their ventures (and their teams) with greater clarity and conviction.
5. Analyzing possibilities and intentional tactics
Part of a robust, well-formulated approach to strategy also involves analyzing multiple possibilities and choosing the most intentional paths or tactics that directly link to business objectives.
This careful consideration ensures that resources are optimally utilized for maximum impact and, at the same time, fosters sustainable business growth. At the end of the day, it's all about weighing different scenarios, understanding their potential outcomes, and making strategic decisions that align with both short-term and long-term business goals.
6. Streamlining complex scenarios
Finally, breaking down complex business scenarios and streamlining the steps to progress from point A to point B is another vital strategic approach for impact-driven businesses.
What does that mean? Put simply, the process involves identifying, simplifying, and overcoming any obstacles that might impede progress on your path to achieving specific business objectives. By doing so, you’re ultimately making these initial “roadblocks” a lot more manageable and approachable.
For impact startups, embracing these diverse strategies is essential for nurturing growth. That way, by combining research, insightful questioning, clear goal-setting, effective leadership development, careful planning, and efficient problem-solving, leaders and teams can navigate the murky waters of business and chart a course toward sustainable growth and impactful success.
What’s the business value of strategy?
The business value of strategy is undeniable – especially when it comes to impact businesses and startups.
When you invest in strategy support, you invest in optimizing your most important resources: time, capacity, and money.
A good strategist will work to stop the guessing and the “try-and-hope” approach in the decision-making process, helping you save time and money.
They will catch inconsistencies in your existing roadmap, fix the weak points in your growth trajectory, and point you to those areas in the business that require leverage and improvement.
They will save you from major seatbacks and reputation risks by foreseeing worst-case scenarios, obstacles and objections, and build growth roadmaps that take these into account.
Strategy facilitation will help you see what you can’t see, know what you don’t know (yet), and show you the most optimized route to achieve your key business objectives.
At its core, strategy is the key driver of growth and results. It represents a crucial investment that simplifies decision-making – clearing the path from overthinking and overwhelm – and keeps everyone aligned and on the same page, creating clarity around decisions and underlying purposes.
And, as you might already know, precisely this alignment also ends up being vital for any business looking to move forward effectively, efficiently, and cohesively.
How FairForce approaches strategy
At FairForce, our approach to strategy is rooted in a dynamic and holistic process. To support the leaders and entrepreneurs we work with, we start by emphasizing the importance of not just creating a plan but engaging in continuous, imaginative, and visionary work.
That’s why our approach to strategy isn’t just a one-time, punctual experience – it's a comprehensive process that involves everything from coaching to strategy advisory, mentorship, and hands-on operational work.
Leading the charge toward innovative strategies, we recognize that strategy goes beyond following a playbook. After all, a playbook on its own won’t solve your problems; and, without the right approach to execution, it can leave you behind.
That's why our team focuses on supporting strategic thinking and processes by diving deep, asking more questions, employing systems thinking, and even exploring various scenarios and outcomes.
The different stages of an impact start-up
In addition to our holistic approach to strategy, our understanding of strategy also acknowledges that the different stages of an impact start-up require different approaches.
Essentially, the strategies that work for a business in its “Pre-seed stage” will differ significantly from those in the “Expansion” or “Exit” phases.
With this in mind, we tailor our strategies to align with the specific stage and goals of your start-up, whether it's:
Pre-seed stage: Laying the groundwork and initial concept validation.
Seed stage: Building a foundation and starting to test the market.
Early stage: Developing product-market fit and beginning to scale.
Growth stage: Expanding market reach and refining business models.
Expansion phase: Broadening the scope and scaling up operations.
Exit phase: Preparing for acquisition, merger, or other exit strategies.
Each phase demands a unique strategic approach, and FairForce is equipped to guide impact startups through these different stages – all while ensuring that the strategy evolves in tandem with the business.
Applying the “FairForce Lens” to strategy
Nowadays, the traditional approach to business strategy often falls short for impact start-ups and values-led organizations.
After all, this approach tends to enforce a rigid, profit-centric model that ultimately fails to serve the nuances of modern social entrepreneurship and leads to a misalignment with the core values of businesses that are focused on making a positive impact – not just profits.
Why? Because this approach not only prioritizes profits over people, but it also overlooks the possibilities brought by innovative social entrepreneurship business models and the unique identities that define these types of organizations.
Understanding this, FairForce advocates for a different strategy model that’s specifically designed for impact founders and leaders. Put simply, our approach actively works to align itself with the values and missions of these organizations – focusing not just on growth, but also on maintaining ethical standards and creating genuine impact.
That way, by applying the “FairForce Lens” to strategy, we help businesses develop plans that resonate with their core principles, as well as foster alignment, authenticity, and a more fulfilling business experience.
Understanding the FairForce process
At FairForce, we’ve worked to adopt a unique lens and process in strategy development that aims to help change-makers and visionaries across industries establish themselves as leaders – all while realizing their community-focused, values-driven ambitions.
Our approach challenges conventional and restrictive 'business as usual' capitalist models by shifting the definitions of success, growth, leadership, and impact, and creating a business ecosystem that’s deeply rooted in equity, sustainability, and care.
Our mission at FairForce is to redefine entrepreneurial cultures toward a more human-centric way of conducting business and establishing a justice-focused economic, cultural, and social system that benefits all and embraces values-led entrepreneurship while cultivating ethical business growth.
How is this different from a traditional approach?
FairForce stands apart from other consultancies in the strategic landscape because of how we diverge from traditional business strategies.
Our approach is different from the more “traditional” position in 6 key ways:
1. Asking thought-provoking questions
We typically come in to ask challenging, thought-provoking questions that haven't been considered before. This process helps uncover new perspectives and opportunities for growth and impact.
2. Centering joy and community values
At the heart of our approach to strategy is the emphasis on joy, placing people over profit, and community over individualism. That’s why we bring critical awareness to privilege, focusing on narratives that challenge inequalities, respect for the land, and awareness of new forms of colonialism, including digital imperialism.
3. Continuous strategy evolution
Working with FairForce is not a one-off thing. Collaborating with us for 3-6 months allows for the evolution of your strategy – informed by ongoing execution – and adjusting the direction based on what's already happening within your business.
4. Collaborative process with an external perspective
We're not just consultants – we're partners in the process. We’re here to offer an external perspective while, at the same time, being deeply involved in the strategic journey with you.
5. Holistic and tailored approach
While many perceive strategy as highly tactical, our work at FairForce is holistic. We start with the vision of what our clients want to achieve and, from there, we work together to build a customized plan on how to get there.
6. Incorporating identity and leadership coaching
A unique aspect of our approach is the integration of identity and leadership coaching. This not only builds on the uniqueness of what our clients want to do, but also how they want to do it – enhancing the overall effectiveness and impact of the strategy.
4 real-life examples from FairForce clients
Developing the 3-5 year corporate + global expansion strategy for a Canada-based and globally operating tech nonprofit in the sexual and reproductive health space;
I am supporting Vitala Global Foundation as their Corporate Strategy Lead to define and execute their 3 to 5-year organizational strategy by setting growth direction and actions towards their global expansion goals in the LATAM Region, setting up their fundraising targets from global donors and leveraging their revenue-generating potential for the scale-up phase through US and LATAM based partnerships.
Co-creating community growth and commercial partnership strategic approaches for a US-based and globally operating community-first business in the social impact career industry;
I have consulted and co-designed community growth strategies and tactics for The Bloom, a 30K+ member community for career empowerment in social impact. In the early stage of the organization’s growth, I advised the CEO and founding team on the most strategic approaches to long-term business partnerships and marketing efforts to secure a steady stream of incoming members and commercial leads.
Projecting growth trajectory and outlining revenue-generating opportunities for a Berlin-based social enterprise in the art, technology, and sexual education space
For 2 years, I have guided the Virtual S*Xploration Project in their growth and business strategy goals. I have crafted ad-hoc communication and marketing strategies to expand their stakeholder outreach, including new hires, workshop audiences, school partners, and community members.
I have helped Christo and Jakob, creative directors and founders, identify opportunities for business modeling and funding and future business-oriented development set-ups.
Defining the community strategy and expansion outreach roadmap for a Berlin-based, globally operating in the MENA region and Diaspora network of professionals in digital transformation;
Working with Bassant Helmi, the CEO, and Founder of Digital Arabia Network, was a fantastic experience of community strategy co-creation.
I worked alongside brilliant leaders in the digital transformation space within the MENA Region and Diaspora community mostly in Germany, Tunisia, Egypt, and Lebanon to help the Network expand its growth, global outreach, and event marketing results.
The power of strategy in driving growth
In summary, business strategy is much more than a roadmap for achieving objectives – it's a catalyst for boosting business growth, especially for impact-driven enterprises.
Essentially, a well-defined strategy goes beyond mere planning to embody the vision, direction, and essence of a business – aligning every action and decision with the overarching goals.
It's the backbone that supports sustainable development and accelerates progress
That’s why starting with a solid strategy is crucial. Not only does it set the tone for your entire entrepreneurial journey, but it also helps in guiding your decisions, shaping your operations, and defining your interactions with customers and the market.
With the right strategy in place, businesses can then work toward navigating the complexities of their industries more effectively and turn challenges into opportunities for growth and impact.
Ready to explore the power of strategic planning and how it can transform your business? Schedule an introductory Strategy Call with our founder, Margherita, to learn more about how we can delve into the unique aspects of your business, uncover growth opportunities, and craft a strategy that resonates with your mission and vision!