Do your eyes glaze over when you hear words like “market segmentation” or “strategic partnerships”? They probably do. You created your business due to a great passion, talent or skill you developed, not so you could crunch numbers and do research all day. Don’t worry, it’s never too late to get a strong business strategy in place.

When you don’t know who you are, what you stand for, why you started, or where you want to go, your business fails. From customer apathy to employee retention, lack of a brand strategy wreaks havoc on countless startups and established businesses alike.

You can’t keep track of everything you need to market in your head, there’s too many moving pieces. Marketing strategy is an action plan that holds you accountable and works as a roadmap for the coming months and years of marketing activity.

If you want your website to be found by strangers searching the internet, then you need SEO. It’s the most reliable and cost-effective way to understand and attract customers during the key purchasing moments that matter. This isn’t a cost; it’s an actual business investment.

Design is a business tool, not an art project. If design doesn’t help you make money, it is failing at its job. Legitimate professional designers, web developers and copywriters aren’t order takers–they’re business problem solvers.