Strategic Planning - Right Sized, Intentional Results | LAYC 96
Isabel Alexander delves deeper into the mini-series on strategic planning, providing timeless insights applicable year-round. Whether you're a seasoned business owner or aspiring entrepreneur, Isabel shares wisdom gained from over 50 years in business.
1. The Importance of Strategic Planning:
- Small to medium-sized businesses and solopreneurs must prioritize strategic planning.
- Isabel emphasizes the need for strategic plans, even more so than larger corporations, sharing her experiences and lessons learned.
2. The Foundation: Core Values, Purpose, and BHAGs:
- Recap from the previous episodes covering core values, purpose, and Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs).
- These elements form the bedrock of a strategic plan, aligning personal values with business objectives.
3. Primary Objectives - Defining the Why:
- Explore the significance of defining the primary objectives or the "why" of your business.
- Breakdown of long-term and short-term objectives, including BHAGs, contributing to the legacy of your business.
4. Quarterly and Annual Focus on Progress:
- Shift from viewing strategic planning as an annual task to a continuous, quarterly, and annual focus.
- Establishing a meaningful cadence for progress evaluation, ensuring adjustments align with core values and mission.
5. Embracing KPIs and Critical Numbers:
- Overcoming the aversion to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and critical numbers.
- Implementing a system that transforms KPIs into valuable tools for measuring progress and making informed decisions.
6. Recap and Looking Ahead:
- A concise recap highlighting the essential elements discussed.
- A teaser for the next episode, where Isabel will share her favorite best practices and tips for effective strategic planning.
Subscribe, share, and stay tuned for the next episode where Isabel unfolds more techniques for strategic planning success. Planning for your business's future has never been more rewarding!
About the Host:
Isabel Alexander
Your Next Business Strategist and Transformation Catalyst
Dynamic, a self-made entrepreneur who overcame obstacles with an unrelenting positive nature, a farm girl work ethic, and a conscious choice to thrive rather than survive, Isabel Alexander cultivated an award-winning, $10+ million global chemical business and grew it from dining room table to international boardrooms.
Isabel’s strengths include the ability to initiate and nurture strategic relationships, a love of lifelong learning and talents for helping others maximize their potential. An inspiring speaker within both industry and community, she is a driving force behind those with the courage to follow her example of thriving against the odds.
With 50+ years of business experience across diverse industries, Isabel is respected as an advisor, a coach, a mentor, and a role model. She believes in sharing collective wisdom and empowering others to economic independence.
Founder:
Lift As You Climb Movement (www.facebook.com/groups/liftasyouclimbmovement)
and
Chief Encore Officer, The Encore Catalyst (www.theencorecatalyst.com) – an accelerator for feminine wisdom, influence, and impact.
also
Author & Speaker ‘Who Am I Now? – Feminine Wisdom Unmasked Uncensored’ (www.IsabelBanerjee.com)
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/isabelalexanderbanerjee/
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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.
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