Founders and leaders of small-medium sized enterprises carry with them the air of possibility and a vision of the future. But the day-to-day grind of building a business feels more like playing a constant game of chess than changing the world, writes Jasmine O’Reilly.

In my early days of establishing The Outlier Group, I was making a lot of reactive moves. But five years in, and with the benefit of hindsight, I’ve learnt that checkers isn’t the game I should have been playing. It was chess. And the strategy is completely different.

With chess, it takes many small moves to make it the other side of the business board. The first few moves are critical.

There are three often overlooked ‘moves’ or areas that new businesses should focus on when starting out. These are:

branding, company culture and long-term business development.

I believe that my strategic investment in these areas is the reason we’re now a nationally-recognised business.

Branding

Branding is more than a logo on a car and a website. It is all encompassing. While a good brand is recognisable, a great brand elicits an emotional response.

When I first started out, I was donning our company’s original yellow colour in meetings and online. It not only helped us build instant recognition, it also matched our vibe – fun, energetic and fresh.

Relationships

But it’s not enough to be recognised, we need to be trusted. So, I regularly post content – genuine and authentic content that’s often unfiltered – to LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

It’s seen my reach grow to over 10,000 people and the recognition and trust it’s built has won a lot of new business.

To really supercharge relationships, the whole team needs to be aligned.

Millennials and Gen Zs now make up half the workforce so we’re playing on their terms. Every small improvement in team relationships adds up to create a strong, winning culture.

Now that we’ve moved from start up to an established business, we have deeply imbedded norms that support that strong culture. They include weekly one on one meetings spent outside, a ‘lunch with friends’ team meeting where we get to know each other, and an end of week wrap up to celebrate the wins, acknowledge challenges, and verbalise our future goals. This has resulted in us becoming a company with an infectious energy with a desire to transform the industry we work in.

When our team really started living the company values, it catapulted our brand recognition and positive reputation further into the market. The right kind of new business opportunities now find us.

Long-term business development

I am guilty of being discouraged after an initial meeting or proposal did not result in a sale. I now know that to move forward in business we must build solid, trustworthy relationships with our prospects and that takes time.

Many people described this to me as ‘fluff’ or a ‘nice to have’ part of business. But this relentless and long-term focus on relationships has helped our small business grow and achieve exciting revenue outcomes.

So, wipe clean the checkers, dust off the chess pieces, and block time in your diary to action the following each week:

• Post on both your company and personal social media pages at least three times per week in a genuine, down-to-earth manner.
• Hold weekly team meetings, interact with all staff 1-on-1, recognise a monthly MVP, or start a weekly kudos team chat with your employees to build new culture norms.
• Block 60-90 minutes in your diary to move two-five of your prospecting chess pieces forward each week. A simple call to check in or message on LinkedIn will help keep your company front of mind for the customer.

With your pieces in prime position, you’re ready to capture those ‘checkmate’ opportunities.

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