For any plan to be successful, your objective must be clear, and this is where strategic planning is different from ordinary planning or even project management.
Strategic planning requires you to consider the goal’s intention in a more purposeful manner instead of just fulfilling a measurable goal, for which a series of tasks are completed and measured against specific metrics.
Most businesses understand and use a USP as their Unique Selling Proposition and apply this as a tactic to distinguish their product in the market when selling directly to their customers.
But there is another way of thinking about a USP: your Ultimate Strategic Positioning. In other words, how do you position ALL of your activities and actions to fulfill and maintain a strategic objective.
Good strategic planning ensures that goals are aligned with the vision, purpose & mission of a business, and the points of culture, processes, and company systems.
The objective doesn’t change with respect to the effectiveness of the tactics deployed to achieve the goal; instead, the tactics are refined, enhanced, or even dropped to ensure the strategic plan’s fulfillment.
Thinking strategically & planning accordingly is the most apparent manifestation of the business owner (or principle) working on the business and not in it.