What am I building?

I was journalling today about what I want with my company Vine Strategies, what am I actually trying to build here and the more I wrote, the more I realized I should probably just put a blog together and share it and get feedback from people I trust.

I feel like I am supposed to reimagine what it is we are doing. Or just define it better. Or maybe I am just overthinking it all. (I’m not, just feels like that sometimes)

I have been consulting businesses on strategy & digital marketing since 2016, but it wasn’t until I sold my Smoothie Kings in late 2017 that I went all in on consulting and building businesses. I built a few digital e-commerce brands and picked up some clients to help them with their digital marketing, website, and overall strategy.

Since then I feel like every 8-10 months, I am forced to pivot, rethink, reimagine what it is we are doing and who we are doing it with and what we charge to do it. Just a constant ebb and flow. This isn’t a bad thing, pretty natural for a business to respond to what the market is telling them as new information comes in.

Early on, I took on clients I shouldn’t have. I think most businesses are like that. They simply take on whoever will pay them, to do whatever. We did that. We worked with a lot of clients who simply didn’t value what we bring to the table. And honestly, we probably did a bad job of showing them our value, so not even their fault. But I have slowly gotten rid of those clients. Which is good for us, and probably good for them too.

Over the last 12 months or so, we have brought on some of our biggest clients. Clients, who I think, realize what we bring to the table and the skillsets I have, and also my team has. 

And this has forced me to really think, “OK, what am I building here?”

What do I want this to be in 6 months? 1 year? 10 years?

I am not sure about everything, I have ideas, but nothing concrete yet. Things I know I shouldn’t do and things I know I should do, but that’s about it. And that is sort of what I am trying to nail down in this blog post that really is just a journal entry. 

Should do

1. I need to define what it is we do better, and what we don’t do.
   1. This will make it easier to do marketing.
   2. It will also make it easier for us to define what is a good client and what is a bad client.

Ok, so here is the language I am landing on for this:

Who am I?

I am a strategic business consultant that helps clients think, look, and grow better. 

What does Vine Strategies do?

We work with clients at the C-level to build strategic growth plans and implement them by quarterbacking the execution.

What does this look like on a day-to-day basis?

Each of our clients gets a lead strategist, like a fractional C-team, as well as a digital marketing team that can basically handle anything. We are not “button-clickers”. We don’t simply do what the client tells us. We want to create the strategy with the client, and then actually help implement it with our digital marketing team.

So from website development, to paid ads, to content production, you name it. Whatever needs to get done to accomplish the strategy, our team can handle it. And if we can’t, we bring on someone who can.

These are just some of the notes that I have been writing and changing and mulling over for the past few months, and just want to put some words to paper. I also want feedback from people I trust. Take a look, let me know what you think.

Here are some other things I should do:

1. I need to be building for the future, not building to maintain what we have.
2. I need to make more content (I tell our clients this all the time, but don’t do it myself because I don’t want to, but I need to. I need to invite the world into what I am doing and building.)
3. I need to be OK with seeing clients go because they don’t understand our value. Our time and expertise is worth what we charge.
4. I need to fire clients more frequently that are not excited about growth or who simply want to maintain or stagnate.

This is at least a start to fleshing out some of the things I am thinking and questions I am asking. I want to be more transparent with what I am building because I think it is a great way of getting feedback and inviting others into it, and I also think its not a bad way to market either. 

Like I mentioned earlier, I am going to be making more content like this as I build and would love to invite you into the journey. I want all the feedback I can get. Drop your email below if you want to join me!