Greetings Destiny Friends,

I’m sure that many thoughts run through your mind whenever you hear of success; thoughts such as accomplished entrepreneurship, academic achievement, money, or even vision. What most fail people to realize however, is that there’s no success without a strategy. \

Just like every business has a selling secret, every success has a secret. Success is like an all-round fruitful marriage. Most people just see couples celebrating a decade and silver jubilee of marital bliss, but don’t see the numerous challenges they had to overcome in order to get to where they are. Just like every business has a secret, every marriage also has its own unique secret. 

The most important thing is to work out a strategy that works for you.Success means different things to different people, but they have distinct or similar attributes. Success can take different shapes depending on one’s area of work. For example, success entails having experience, networking with a diverse set of people to achieve a common goal, preparation, making mistakes and learning from it, punctuality, building bridges, overcoming the fear of failure, discipline, and above all relying on God for grace.

 If you don’t have a good strategy, no matter how good your plans are, they will fall by the wayside.Did you know that success does not come easy? In the pursuit of success, you will lose money and friends. Many people will dismiss you as crazy, others will discourage; you cry and possibly fail often; you will experience disappointments among many other vicissitudes of life, but then, you must never give up; that’s the price for success. 

The truth is that you’ll be 100% uncomfortable on your journey to success, but in the end, it will worth the while.Would you like to pay and play later, or would you like to play now and pay later?One of the first steps to succeed in life is to find people who have the same mindset as you. When you hire or work with people who are passionate about the work at hand, the work becomes relatively easy.

 When you have a good team, innovation becomes easy.You can have a good product or idea, but poor execution can lead to failure. Poor execution can include your way of branding, poor customer relations, and social skills which relate to networking or interpersonal relation skills. 

Success is truly a consequence of strategy because if you have a good product, and you don’t know how to market it, the product will never see the light of the day. It’s just like a beautiful lady who is not smart, her beauty won’t be enough to win the pageant. The beauty is just the entrance form, but her exposure and intelligence will come in handy to make her a force to reckon with.

Sometimes, we look for opportunities where there are little or no opportunities, and in some cases when we get the opportunity, we lack the capacity to execute it or the foresight to recognise it.

What most people fail to understand is that whatever is supposed to come to your life will be there when you have developed the capacity to receive and execute it. For example, if you may have a product that is thriving, but you lack the capacity to manage people and resources, it will be hard for the universe to attract those opportunities to you, and even if you happen to get them by chance, you’ll lack the mental capacity to properly manage them. It’s just like having a wealthy friend, who if you fail manage well, the friendship will fall apart.What therefore, is the strategy for success? Since every success involves strategic planning, I have developed a little framework with the acronym P.L.A.N.

Plan

The hallmark of success entails planning. In planning, you must know what works for you in the industry you are passionate about. You must be very strategic in your plan. For instance, if you have an interest in entertainment, you can shoot your shot by associating with people you know have access to the people you need. You can even volunteer to work for free for the people or associate yourself with the target person like researching to know what they like and by liking and commenting on their post on social media, and even send a copy of your work.

Launch

After planning, the next stage is to launch your product. Don’t be scared to launch your product. If you make a mistake, you’ll learn from the criticisms you will receive. You may have a good product, but if you don’t have the right execution, you will lose out. Execution is very important. 

Before you launch, examine all options and see what’s best for you depending on your product, environment and industry.In launching your product, you must make sure you have a good finishing and your execution must be top-notch. Note that before anyone appreciates a product, the product must come across as an attractive one.

Adjust

One of the distinct natures of man is adaptability. Succeeding in the corporate world entails adjusting to the times and seasons. Adjust as you move along. This approach is very important. How you approach issues is very important in whatever you do. A good approach involves your manner of talking writing, presentation of issues and innovation abilities. Rational minds adjust their plans if it’s not working out just to just meet up with their target. Isn’t it true that you cannot be doing something the same way, and expect a different result?

Networking

The aim of strategic networking is to locate the right people to work with. The value of networking cannot be overemphasized. Networking entails engaging people from different walks of life. No matter who you are, you need good people to get your product across. Sometimes, success is not about what you have upstairs, but who’s in your network. 

Most people fail to realize that their success can come from unexpected persons in unexpected places. So as a way of advice, be kind to everyone you meet along the way because you never know how resourceful they may be to your life. Do you know, you can get what you want faster when you help people to achieve what they want?

In summary, to have strategic success, you need to establish a clear and meaningful strategic planning process. Engage all levels of employees or partners and communicate effectively with them to ensure success. Use an innovation process for all new product development, service delivery, etc. Re-shape the organisational culture to be more adaptive to the changes the strategic plan requires.

Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He’s a mindset coach and public speaker. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the author of the acclaimed book Design Your Destiny – Actualizing Your Birthright To Success and President of gloemi.com. He can be reached via info@gloemi.com