A catering business started out doing beautiful, intimate dinner parties for twelve to twenty people. Clients loved the food and the personal touch. Then the requests began to widen. Could they do a corporate breakfast for 200? A children’s birthday party? A wedding for 350? Office lunch platters every Tuesday? A food stall at the local market?
The owner said yes to almost all of it. Every job was revenue, and turning work away felt reckless for a small business. Three years later, she has more customers than ever, a team stretched thin, equipment for five different kinds of event and margins that seem to shrink every year. She’s busy all the time, and not sure what her business is actually known for.
It’s one of the most common traps in small business: confusing doing more with having a strategy. A famous argument from one of the world’s best-known strategy thinkers suggests the opposite. Strategy, he argued, is defined as much by what you choose not to do as by what you do.
One Like insight: Every yes to the wrong work is a quiet no to the right work.
Being good isn’t the same as being different
In 1996, the Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter published an article in Harvard Business Review titled simply “What Is Strategy?” It has since become one of the most widely read pieces on the subject.
Porter drew a sharp distinction between two things that are often confused. The first is operational effectiveness: doing similar things better than competitors, such as working faster, wasting less or delivering better quality. That matters, but Porter argued it isn’t enough, because good practices are quickly copied. The second is strategy: choosing a unique and valuable position, and a set of activities that fit together to deliver it.
The crucial point is trade-offs. A strong position requires choices that make some things impossible to do at the same time. Porter’s examples included IKEA, which serves customers willing to collect and assemble their own furniture in exchange for low prices, and so deliberately gives up the kind of service a traditional furniture shop provides. Trying to serve every customer in every way, he argued, blurs a company’s position and weakens what makes it distinctive. His summary has become one of the most quoted lines in business: “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
Porter was writing about large companies, and his ideas are a framework rather than a single empirical study. But the logic applies with particular force to small businesses, whose limited time, money and people make every choice more consequential.
Writing a stop-doing list
Most businesses keep a to-do list. Fewer keep a stop-doing list, yet it may be the more strategic of the two. It makes the trade-offs explicit, so they don’t get quietly reversed every time a tempting enquiry arrives.
A useful stop-doing list usually covers a few areas:
- Customers you won’t serve. Not out of snobbery, but because they need something your business isn’t built to deliver well.
- Services you won’t offer. Work that dilutes your reputation, strains your team or needs equipment and skills you don’t have.
- Channels you won’t chase. Perhaps you’ll focus on referrals and repeat clients rather than spreading yourself across every social platform.
- Habits you’ll drop. Discounting to win every job, custom requests that take twice as long as standard ones, or meetings that rarely lead to decisions.
Circumstances change, so a stop-doing list should be reviewed at least once a year. Its purpose is to make each “yes” a deliberate choice that strengthens your position, rather than a reflex.
[Infographic placement] To-do versus stop-doing. Two side-by-side lists on notepads. To do: “Perfect our 12–20 guest dinner menu · Build referrals from past clients · Raise prices for weekend events.” Stop doing: “Events over 60 guests · Market stalls · Office platters · Discounts to win jobs.” Caption: “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” Michael Porter, 1996.
Choosing your trade-offs
Start by looking at the past year’s work. Which customers, services and jobs were most profitable, most enjoyable and most aligned with what you want to be known for? Which ones caused the most stress, the thinnest margins or the most distraction? The second list is the beginning of your stop-doing list.
Then agree on a simple filter for new opportunities, ideally a couple of questions the whole team can apply. For the caterer, it might be: “Is it under 60 guests? Can we deliver our signature menu?” If not, the answer is a polite no, perhaps with a referral to someone better suited. Turning work away will feel uncomfortable at first. Over time, it tends to free up the capacity, reputation and energy to do the right work better.
A few questions can help:
- What do we want to be known for, in one sentence?
- Which customers or services consistently drain more than they give?
- What would we stop doing if we were starting the business today?
- What simple filter could help us decide quickly whether to say yes?
Which brings us back to the caterer with five kinds of event and shrinking margins. Saying no to corporate breakfasts, market stalls and 350-guest weddings would mean less revenue in the short term. It would also mean a business known again for exquisite, intimate dinners, a team that isn’t constantly switching between very different jobs, and prices that reflect what she does best. As we explored in Say One Thing Well, a sharper offer can be more powerful than a longer list.
Sources
- Michael E. Porter, “What Is Strategy?”, Harvard Business Review, November–December 1996. Quote verified via Aalto University course materials reproducing the article.
