Strategic Planning - Right Sized, Intentional Results | LAYC 96

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Hey again, Isabel Alexander.

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And as promised, I'm back with the continuation of the mini

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series about strategic planning.

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Because as I'm recording this, it's close to the end of 2023.

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But this conversation these musings, the sharing of my own personal wisdom

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and experience as a business owner for many years, are relevant any time of

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the year and really worth hanging on to.

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So bookmark this, subscribe to the podcast or the YouTube channel,

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whichever your preferred way of sharing it and share this with your friends

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that have their businesses as well, because this is what I want to do.

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I want you all to benefit from my 50 plus years of being in business, my 20

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plus years of owning my own company and building it to an eight figure annual

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sales level, and my falling down, scraping my knees, making mistakes,

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losing money, pulling my hair out journey to get to what I learned that does

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work and why it works and that's why we're here right now with this series.

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We're talking about why it is absolutely essential more than ever before for you to

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have a strategic plan for your business.

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Yes.

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You're probably a small to medium sized business, if you're in my orbit listening

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to me, or a solopreneur, or perhaps, yay, you are aspiring to be a business owner.

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And maybe you're leaving the corporate world, or you're retiring from a

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past primary role in your life, and you want to start your own business.

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Yes!

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Yes!

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Yes!

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The more women who are creating businesses and creating wealth and

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impacting the economy, the better!

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Originally, I started this series by saying, yes, it's absolutely vital

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for small businesses, and solopreneurs to have a strategic plan, even more

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important than the big companies who know that and have been doing this forever.

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They're the large organizations and corporations and the not for profit

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and the government entities and the clubs, the organized associations.

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All of them.

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have a strategic plan.

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They have what's happening to get back on track or modify the plan for good reasons.

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Then I talked about Why are we going to do that?

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And in the most recent episode, I outline from my own life experience I

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hired an expert, a business advisor, a business consultant, when I had reached

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the stage of feeling like, I don't know how to do this anymore, company's

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getting bigger than my experience and my confidence level, and that This

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individual introduced me to a way of creating strategic plans called the One

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Page Strategic Plan, which is modeled from a book written by Verne Harnish

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called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.

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And of course, we're going to put a link to all of that in the show notes for you.

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Last episode, I went through the first three steps of preparing to create

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that strategic plan, your strategic plan for your business, for your

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lifestyle, for your goals, your ambition.

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And I went through the first three elements of that core values, purpose and

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mission, and Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

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So if you're just tuning in now, I really encourage you to go back a couple

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episodes and listen to all of that so that you don't miss any of the juicy bits.

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And also that I'm spilling my guts about all the mistakes that I made

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in my journey to learning what works.

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We're keeping this short and succinct so that you can digest and really

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reflect on these stages before you start your own strategic plan.

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Today we're going to talk about what are the primary objectives?

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And that sounds like something that, would just be like a business

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spiel, but it's really important.

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This is the why of your business.

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Like, why are you doing this?

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What is the organization about?

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What do you, as the primary shareholder, the chief investor, the founder, the

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personality behind this business, want your company to stand for?

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What is the legacy that you are building?

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We're going to break that down into long term and shorter term objectives.

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And that's a big part of this process.

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And it includes the BHAG, which we talked about in last episode.

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So make sure you go and find out what that's about.

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Then, this is the beautiful part of the process that I really, really loved.

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Was like, okay, it's not just something that you say once a year and then you

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file that away in a binder and let dust accumulate on until next year, which

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is too late then, don't you think?

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Twelve months have gone by and you haven't looked at your plan to see what's been

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happening, and it's going to be too fucking late to do anything about it.

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The best part of this process for me, Because I tend to be, the entrepreneur's

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entrepreneur, and I am way out there in front thinking about the next thing I'm

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going to do, forgetting what I already said was really important foundationally,

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and that is to have quarterly and annual focus on progress on each of those goals.

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And there's some really great methodology, systems, involved in how to establish

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that focus and get a cadence around it so that it's meaningful, and that you

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can make adjustments along the way, but stay true to the big overarching core

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values and mission of your organization.

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The third part of this education is learning to love KPIs,

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Key Performance Indicators.

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KPIs and critical numbers, oh my god, don't we just hate the numbers, don't

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we just hate the fact that we have to do the bookkeeping, and we have

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to do the accountability, and we have to be reporting to our bookkeeper,

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to our banker, to our higher self.

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With this process set up properly, you're going to find that a whole lot

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more enjoyable and a whole lot less avoidance because there is a system, a

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cadence that makes it really worthwhile to go back and measure and go "Check!"

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or "Adjust!", and that is something that made a huge difference for me in

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terms of really knowing where I was going and staying on track with minor

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adjustments on a shorter basis, whether that was monthly or quarterly, appropriate

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to what your business is doing, rather than waiting till year end and go, Oh!

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Oh!

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Oh!

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Oh!

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Totally missed the mark.

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Landed on a different planet!

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Okay, so recapping.

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You should have a strategic plan.

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If you're a real business and you really want to be rewarded as the chief

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shareholder, the chief investor in that business, if you're a real business

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owner, not just a hobby, not just take this job and shove it, which was an

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episode that I recorded not too long ago.

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You might want to listen to my country western song about that.

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And that it all begins with you and your values, and how we built on that to create

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incremental, consistent, predictable, rewarding growth in your organization,

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and Get everybody else on the team.

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Get the buy in from your stakeholders.

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If that includes your team, your customers, your suppliers,

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your professional support group, your family, your friends.

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Because you have a very clear plan ahead, and with that, you are able to completely

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relax and be present in the area of your own individual strengths and priorities.

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I know I learned from this experience, and I hope you will too.

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Next episode, come back because we're going to move through some other

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technical terms and I'm going to give you some of my favorite best practices,

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tips and techniques out of what I learned from this strategic planning

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process that you can implement and then start planning the celebrations.

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Bye for now.