5 Questions to Solve Your Business Challenge

Want to know the 5 questions that will solve your business challenge?

It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s not. It’s just how we approach strategic planning. Nearly every project at Hanson starts with a planning phase, and we ask the same 5 questions every time:

What problem are we solving for? This is whatever is keeping you up at night. Your business objective and the relevant KPIs.

What matters to the market? This is both internal (your capabilities, values, reputation) and external (your relative position, equity, and broader industry perceptions).

What are your audience’s needs, behaviors, and motivations? These are the goals they have to achieve for a successful journey, aka the decision-making help you need to provide.

How well are you meeting those needs today? These are your areas of opportunity.

How well are your competitors meeting those needs? This is how you will differentiate your opportunity.

The insights gained from this 5-point analysis reveal the unique, measurable way you will succeed.

If you’re thinking this sounds a lot easier than it is, you’re right. The effort required to answer these questions varies widely from project to project. (Consider how aligned your stakeholders are, how mature your market is, and how recent or reliable your data are, to name a few factors.)

And it doesn’t tell you how to develop that solution. There’s another series of questions we use to build the blueprint.

But it does provide the confidence to move forward knowing you’re aligned with your stakeholders and other partners. And it provides a sound foundation for all the decision-making that follows.