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The Strategy Made Simple Method
1. BLUF
2. Career Day I recently spent the morning at our local elementary school career fair. Signing up, my goal was to support my kids & their school. Shortly after I realized… “How in the world am I going to explain strategy to a group of 6-year-olds?” I wanted to make it real but didn’t have a lab coat or uniform to help them visualize this career. And then I had it… We were going to launch, scale, and grow a lemonade stand. The kids were thrilled to start their own business. We discussed the basics -
To maintain order, I brought a bag of lemons. Two rules: 1) You could only talk if you held a lemon in your hand. 2) Be gentle - no pegging people with lemons. We talked about how they wanted to price the lemonade, the cost of ingredients, where we would source our lemons, and even buying a juicer to make production easier. Ideas came quickly… ✅ “Let’s buy a new ice cream machine for the cafeteria!” ✅ “Ingredients cost $1/cup so let’s price it at $2!” ✅“I’ll make a flyer to spread the word!” The group decided to make signs to market their lemonade stand. We talked about potential competitors and defining what sets their lemonade apart. Oh, and we ended with a round of lemonade for all… 3. Lessons from The Lemonade Stand We make strategy harder than it has to be. At its core, strategy means: We will explore each of the 5 elements through the lens of the lemonade stand in the coming weeks. 4. Application So, what does it look like for your business?
To your success, ~Susan
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Sign up for my newsletter Strategy Made Simple to learn tools to drive revenue, engagement, and impact. To your strategic success!
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