How To Create Your One Page Strategic Plan | LAYC 94

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Hello, I'm Isabel Alexander, and I'm glad you're back here with me today

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because recently I shared an episode on why small to medium sized enterprises,

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SMEs, should have a strategic plan, why it's really important that they have

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a strategic plan, and I got a lot of feedback and questions about that episode.

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And they included "What about me?

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I'm a solopreneur

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and I'm all by myself."

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And even

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more frequently, "it was, okay, I understand what you're saying, Isabel,

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that as a small business, we need to have a strategic plan, You didn't

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really explain how to do that."

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So that's what I want to do today.

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I want to start a mini series of episodes explaining how to create a strategic plan

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when you are deciding a solopreneur, or when you are a smaller business and you

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don't have all the resources that larger organizations, all those fortune 100, 500,

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1000 corporations that have staff that can put all that stuff together and gather

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all the data and make it look pretty and format it and distribute it, or not for

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profit organizations or clubs all those organizations have a strategic plan.

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And that's why you, as a woman business owner, and whether you're

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a solopreneur or you've got, half a dozen or 20 staff members, why does

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it really pay you huge dividends?

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to take the time and effort to learn how to do a strategic plan that works

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for your business, the size of it, the number of people involved in carrying

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out the plan, and how to have fun with it, and how you keep on, how you

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start the rhythm and the continuity.

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So I'm sharing In several episodes coming up, my own journey, how I learned no

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longer to be intimidated by strategic planning, how I learned absolutely

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I should have a strategic plan.

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It's even more important than those really big corporations with all the double

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commas and zeros in their bottom lines.

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My inside tip for you it's all based on a book written by Verne Harnish, and of

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course I'll include the details to that book in the show notes, called Mastering

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the Rockefeller Habits, and I learned about this book when I hired a business

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advisor, a business consultant, to come in and help me organize the chaos

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and the unpredictability of my already then in the millions of dollars a year

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sales business, so that I wasn't always running to see if we could keep it up.

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That was the big thing.

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Can I keep it up?

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Can I plan my life?

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Can I keep my promises to this team that they have a livelihood to look forward to?

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And can I keep my promises to my customers and my suppliers?

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Rather than you having to, today, dig deep and go find yourself a business

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consultant, a business advisor, who is a right fit for you, I will give

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you insights from my own experience on going from sort of kind of knowing

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what I wanted to do to having a really elegant, beautiful, one page strategic

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plan that guided us from hit and miss millions in sales to eight figure

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multiple millions with a team that knew where we were going, knew their

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part of it and everybody was on board and knew what their contribution was.

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And I felt more calmness and more excitement and more enthusiasm

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than I had for multiple years.

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Do buy the book!

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Guarantee, it will become one of your favorite reference books.

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It talks all about the great habits of the ultra successful businessman, John D.

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Rockefeller.

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Thanks to Verne Harnish, he was able to capture those habits and best

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practices and update them and make them relevant to us as business owners today.

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Now, the book really is directed more towards, slightly larger businesses and

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larger teams, but I have been able to adapt those best practices over the years.

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I've used this methodology, the one page strategic plan, which truthfully

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is two pages but it's okay, it's double sided printing, to help many clients,

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many other women business owners get a plan, get a vision, and get a

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systematic, step by step, measurable, celebrate ability plan for their company

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that they could go year after year with, "Okay, this is working so well!

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We're just going to keep refining it."

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Over in the next couple of episodes, what I'm going to do

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is go through each of the steps.

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that are included in Verne Harnish's book about how you also can

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create your own strategic plan.

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You don't have to rush out and get the book now.

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I know your to do list is already full.

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You've got lots of plates spinning, but here's what we're going to do.

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We're going to talk about what they've captured so concisely in this book and

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that's establishing your priorities.

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Yeah, yeah, yada, yada, yada.

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That's what we all say, but In following this process, you crystallize what the

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priorities are, get really clear on them, know how to measure them, and how

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to really see that you are achieving not only the big goals, but the smaller goals,

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that contribute to the overall plan.

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It anchors you back into "Okay, we'll do this!", and there will be a flow, and

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everyone who's involved in creating the plan, executing the plan, measuring the

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plan, celebrating the plan, will know the rhythm, and they will know the pattern

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to which their accountability comes up.

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Having a plan, not only It gives you a structure, a framework to look backward

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and learn from what you have accomplished and what worked and what didn't work

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for you in your business and you've got the measurability aspects because you

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have the numbers, you have the data but based on that You can look forward and

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you can make some realistic projections.

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I love the book in its entirety for the framework that it establishes for growth.

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I have been able to, over decades, to modify, or let's say massage, the content

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and the practices to make it work best for smaller businesses, smaller shops,

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one person shops, or a small team.

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So I'm looking forward to sharing all of that with you.

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I hope that, in these conversations I will help you overcome any doubts that

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you have about needing a strategic plan and remove any intimidation

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or fear, reluctance about creating one and creating an honest one and

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going through all of the steps.

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That's my joy.

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I've always said that my greatest.

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reward, satisfaction as a business catalyst and as a transformation coach

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for women business owners is being able to share not only what I have learned

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over the past 50 ish years in business, running other people's businesses,

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working for other entrepreneurs, and then ultimately starting my own

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business and running that for 20 years.

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And then going on to coach and be a catalyst, a CEO catalyst for

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hundreds of other women entrepreneurs.

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I love that I can share with you all what not to do, because I have

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learned those lessons as well.

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And one of the most important lessons here to underline is that I have learned that

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you cannot have predictable, enjoyable success and rewards from your business.

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If you don't have a plan.

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Because as I've said before, if you don't know where you're

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going, you won't get there.

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So just recapping what we're going to talk about in creating a strategic plan that is

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designed to work for your unique business.

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We'll review the importance of understanding your

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beliefs and your core values.

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That comes before anything else because every single business decision that you

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make, you can only live with it, support it, and grow with it, if it's aligned

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with your values, because your values are the values that the company is built on.

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That leads us then into figuring out the purpose of the business and the

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mission description so that you can articulate very, very clearly what Your

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purpose is, and what you stand for, who you support, what you're delivering.

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We'll talk about big, hairy, audacious goals, BHAGs, and the importance of having

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smaller and larger goals, and having long term and short term goals, and to

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make sure that you're clear what they are and they fit into that purpose and

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mission, and how we can measure those.

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Then we'll break it down into, okay, understanding.

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So we've got these higher level objectives, goals.

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Now, what are the steps?

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What are the many steps within each of those that are necessary?

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And who?

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and how they get accomplished

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. And then the rhythm part is probably, that's kind of a secret sauce in

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my mind, is having that cadence of staying informed, checking the numbers,

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sharing the results, and celebrating with everybody who contributed.

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And then, of course, underpinning all of that is figuring out how,

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what are the important measurements that you're looking for.

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Those are the ones that will tell it all, that will say,

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yes, you're on the right track.

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Those are called KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators.

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Without going too much farther into the details of what we're going to talk about,

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we'll also be talking about SWOT analysis.

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If you haven't heard that term before, it's eons old but it's still relevant

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to every single one of us today and it should be done on a regular basis.

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So stay tuned, come back next episode and we'll start to build it out.

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If you want to follow along with me, I'll give you some real

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examples of what this all looks like so you can start to envision

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how your strategic plan will work.

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If you need more help with that, you want to have a conversation with me

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about, "I'm not sure about that, or how could that possibly work for my

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particular business situation and model."

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Then reach out to me.

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We can talk about that.

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All you have to do if you live in the United States is text from your mobile

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the word ENCORE, E N C O R E, to 33777.

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Or, apply to have a conversation with me at URL www.

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encore33777.

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com.

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All right, I'll be back to you soon.

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I'm excited to share what I learned about strategic planning and how to make it

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simple, fun, and incredibly effective!

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Bye for now.