Business Built With Strategy
Business Built Strategy is for business owners who are ready to lead with clarity and confidence. Hosted by Victoria E Strange, it’s direct, strategic, and built for people who want to grow a business that actually works.
New episodes every Monday.
Love the real talk? Go listen to A Woman’s Power Unfiltered—Victoria’s second podcast on mindset, confidence, and personal power.
Follow on Instagram: @victoriaeastrange
Business Built With Strategy
Passion Isn't Enough: The Hard Truth About Building Your Dream Business
Ready to cut through the noise and discover what really matters in building a sustainable business? You're not behind, you're not failing, and you don't need to hit six figures in your first year. What you need is clarity.
Welcome to the first episode of Business Built With Strategy, where I share my 20+ years of entrepreneurial experience, including building businesses, losing one during COVID (or rather, successfully pivoting), and supporting countless others on their journeys. Most entrepreneurs come to me full of ideas but lacking direction. They're tweaking offers constantly, posting on social media without results, struggling to balance working in their business while trying to grow it, and battling self-doubt along the way. Sound familiar?
Drawing from my own journey of initially running a children's event company on instinct alone, juggling everything from bookings to logistics on my phone and scraps of paper—I reveal the four essential foundations every business needs: a clear strategy that gives you direction, a well-defined offer you can explain in one or two sentences, a steady mindset that determines how you handle challenges, and a specific ideal client who guides all your decisions. Miss any one of these, and you're setting yourself up for struggle.
Perhaps most importantly, I share why there's no universally "right" way to build a business, only YOUR way. Your job is to discover what that looks like and build with intention. This podcast promises honest talk, real structure you won't find in motivational quotes, and practical strategies, whether you're just starting out or cleaning up "the messy middle." Some episodes will feature just me, while others will bring in guests who've built lasting businesses, but every episode will respect your time and your intelligence.
Ready to stop winging it and start building something that lasts? Subscribe now and join me next week as I share the unexpected springboard that launched me into walking in my power as both a woman and an entrepreneur. One step at a time, with intention, that's how we build a business that works.
Hello, I'm Victoria Strange and welcome to the first episode of my new podcast, business Built With Strategy, where mindset meets method. If you're thinking of building a business, or you are building a business or you're in the middle. You're just playing with the idea, don't know which way to turn. This is where you start. There is a lot of noise out there at the moment so many people shouting about you know what you should be doing, what you've missed, how you're behind and all the rest of it. Apparently, if you're not hitting six figures in your first year, you, you're done. You know you've done it all wrong and you might as well give up. Well, no, you're not behind and you're not doing it wrong. You're just trying to probably make sense of it all, and I totally get that because that's where I've been a couple of times. So in this episode, I want to cut through all of the crap and just say here's what actually matters when building a business, not from a textbook, not from a funnel, but from lived experience, because I've built businesses, I've lost a business, I've rebuilt and I supported other people doing the same. So if that's you, if you you're overwhelmed, winging it, all the rest of it stuck, then just start here and when I say I've lost the business, actually I pivoted. I pivoted in COVID. It's a weird one. I always said, oh, I lost my business in COVID, but actually it was completely out of my control because I had an events business. So, of course, in Covid you couldn't do events, we couldn't even go out the house. So I pivoted and it was one of the best things that I did.
Speaker 1:So let me tell you where most people are when they come to me. They're full of ideas, but nothing feels clear. They've got the offers, but you know they're tweaking them. They're posting on social media but not really seeing the results, and they're stuck between working in the business and trying to grow it, and that's difficult. And then they're doubting themselves as well. So you know that's not the. Then they're doubting themselves as well. So you know that's not the best concoction, is it? But it is. It's something that a lot of us, as entrepreneurs, go through 100%, and the truth is most people think they're failing at this point, but they're just missing clarity. And that, literally, is it. Plus, you know, a very good plan, a strategy. Effectively.
Speaker 1:I remember when I first moved out performing and into business full-time, I had a children's event company and I was doing everything on instinct book, bookings, payments, the organisation, the logistics. I did absolutely everything. I was juggling it all from my phone and, dare I say it, but scraps of paper and about a million diaries, and of course it was working, but it was exhausting. I was absolutely knackered. I wasn't running the business, it was running me, and the truth is I was winging it 100%. I was winging it every week. I was changing something.
Speaker 1:Every time someone asked me what I did, I just found myself rambling. There was no structure and there certainly wasn't, you know, any solid plan. There was no strategy, and that's the thing you know. Passion's brilliant love, passion, but without the foundation, it's just not going to hold. It won't hold together.
Speaker 1:So that brings me to this what do you actually need? If you're building a business, strip it back, first of all, and look at exactly what you need. Now, I would say, from building my business and being successful. You need a strategy, ok, you need a plan, because how on earth are you going to know where you are going if you have no plan? You need your offer and you need a steady mind. Now, of course, there's a lot, lot more other things that you need to build a business, but I would say you start off with this. And one more thing who are you selling to? Who's your ideal client? I love doing ideal client work because it really is like inventing a person, because, effectively, that is what you are doing and when you do that, you become very, very clear and everything else will fit together because you know, when you come to advertising, you know what you're putting out there. When you come to messaging, you know what you're putting out there. You know it all fits together like a puzzle. But if you miss one thing off, you are going to really, really struggle. So let's talk about each one.
Speaker 1:A clear offer, now. That doesn't mean a polished website, snappy brand name. It means being able to say what you do, who it's for and why it helps and what it solves in one or two sentences. You know. If you find yourself changing it depending on who you're talking to or, I don't know, dodging the question completely, it's a sign that your offer isn't clear enough, and that's okay. It's just where we start, and then you build upon it a simple plan.
Speaker 1:Now I say a plan, but actually I do mean a strategy. Now you don't have to start off with a 12-month marketing calendar. I mean, you know. I mean, how are you going to reach people? How are they going to pay you? How are you going to deliver what you've promised? If you can't answer those three questions with confidence, you don't have a plan. You have hope and there's nothing wrong with hope. You know, don't get me wrong, love hope, but it won't build a business. You know you cannot build a business on just hope alone, because it won't work.
Speaker 1:A steady mind now, when I say this, this is the one I think that probably gets ignored the most, but honestly, it's the one that I talk about most in real life. Like your mindset is the thing that decides how long you keep going when you know things get heavy and the thing is they will. It decides how you handle rejection, how you price your work, how you hold your boundaries. If you're full of doubt, self-doubt or comparison, you won't stick to your plan. It doesn't matter how good you are, you just won't.
Speaker 1:I've been there, I've done it, know. I'm not just pulling this out of a textbook, I'm speaking from experience. I've been in business for over 20 years. I get it. There was a time when I knew what I offered was good, but I still hesitated to charge properly. I'd second guess myself and I'd listen to people online who made me feel like I was late to the party. And the thing is, I wasn't late, I just needed to get quiet and trust myself again. And then that leads me to ideal client.
Speaker 1:Ideal client, as I said, I love working on, and it is so important the amount of people that I talk to who will say, yep, I've got the website, I've got this, I've planned lots of social media posts, I've done my pricing, and then they'll go. Well, no, I'll say, and your ideal client is who? Oh, I don't know. And I'm like, how can you have done all of that work but not know your ideal client? Because that is part of the foundation what you are building your business on, it's just yeah, it's just not going to work. So it's extremely important. It's actually quite a fun exercise because, as I it's, effectively you're inventing someone and you are building your ideal client to suit what you can offer them and what solves their problem. I love working on it.
Speaker 1:I think you've probably got that so far from what I'm saying, so here's something that I believe deeply. There's no right way to build a business, but there is your way, and your job is to figure out what that looks like and then build it with intention. Now, of course, you're going to have your core items that, yes, you will need when building a business, such as strategy, but everything else is very personal to you, you know. That's why I say there's no right way and there's no wrong way, but there is your way. And that's where strategy does come in, not in a stiff, complicated way, in a clear, very, very grounded way that you can work with.
Speaker 1:Now, strategy obviously gives you direction, doesn't it? It stops you throwing energy everywhere and wondering why nothing's sticking or not. I think we've all done it, definitely. I remember doing it myself many a time and then thinking well, isn't any anything working? And why am I? Absolutely exhausted because my energy was going in so many different directions.
Speaker 1:But once you have a strategy, it doesn't, because you have a plan, what you stick to, and it gives you permission to stop jumping on trends and actually lead in the business. And and that is what you need, and I want to say this too don't compare your business to someone else's highlight reel, because how do you actually know that their highlight reel is actually real. You know, I've worked with different ladies, different entrepreneurs, different people who thought that they weren't real entrepreneurs because they didn't have a team. I've worked with other people who thought that they were failing because they weren't scaling fast enough. None of this matters. If your business isn't solid, you need structure and that works for life as well. Not someone else's spreadsheet, not someone else's sales script. It has to be yours. Be yours. So that leads me perfectly in to what you'll get from this podcast.
Speaker 1:So honest talk. I'm very, very honest in what I say. Real structure you won't find in a motivational quote. Don't get me wrong. I love a motivational quote, but when you really do mindset work on yourself which I've done on me, I've done on myself it works. It really does, really does an actual strategy that you can use, whether you're just starting or just trying to clean up the messy middle, maybe, of your business, or maybe you are just scaling.
Speaker 1:So some episodes in this podcast um, it will be me talking like this. Sometimes I'm going to have guests who've been through it too and built things that last, but every episode will have one thing in common it will respect your time and your brain. I'm not here to coach you from a pedestal not me at all. I'm in it with you. I'm running my business. I'm supporting in my dad's business because he passed away five months ago. I'm navigating life and grief and growth as well, and that's what we talk about here.
Speaker 1:So if you're building a business, start here, start with clarity, start with some courage, start with a mindset that says I don't have to have it all figured out, but I can build something that works. You don't need to do everything at once. It's impossible to do everything at once. You just need to take one step at a time with intention. To take one step at a time with intention. And that leads me on to what we are going to talk about next week.
Speaker 1:So since last Wednesday, I have had a springboard unbelievable springboard to walking into my own power in many ways, including business, and if someone had told me that I was gonna be handed a torch to leap onto this springboard, I'd been like no, no, no, no, no. And that wasn't. That wouldn't have been so much about business, but it was just as a woman walking in to your power. So that's something I'm going to cover next week and I'm so excited to tell you about it. So thank you so much for listening to Business Built with Strategy. I'm Victoria Strange and I'm so looking forward to episode two. Speak soon.