What the Heck is Strategic Planning and How Do You Do It?

Many people have heard the term but are unsure what strategic planning is. Strategic planning is a process that helps leaders design their organization’s destiny with intention, instead of simply reacting to what the world throws at them. If you own a small business, you might think strategic planning sounds like corporate hogwash. Even if you see value in it, perhaps it seems daunting and boring. Frankly, if done poorly, it can be all of those things.

By helping over 20 businesses a year in many different industries do strategic planning, I’ve had the benefit of LOTS of cycles of learning. So I am confident to say that my version of strategic planning, which I call Own Your Future, provides the structure to get business and life-altering results, is fairly straightforward to follow AND is fun. Boom!

Even if it isn’t possible for you to work with me right now to do strategic planning, you can get started on your own. Since it is my vision to double the small business success rate in America, I’m willing to give away a skinnied-down version of my 5-Step Own Your Future, Strategic Planning process right here in this post! So dig deep, have some fun and Own Your Future!

Step 1: Identity

In step one, start with building a solid foundation.

• Values and Behaviors: Take some time to journal on what you stand for and how.
• Mission: Think about why your business exists (not just what you do). For more on this, check out my Tear in My Beer post.
• Core: Are there any aspects of your business that must always remain?

  Step 2: Inspiring Future

You likely started, bought or took over your business because you envisioned an exciting future.  Amid the daily challenges, you might struggle to keep that alive.  You’ll more easily muster the energy to power through those challenges if you have a long term vision. It has to be BIG, like leaving a legacy so it is compelling enough to keep your fire going. A near-term vision is helpful too as it is inspiring, attainable and a great motivator for staying the course.

Dive in to Step #2: 

• Develop a Near-Term Vision (the “next level of better” in terms of money earned, time required, work quality and customer satisfaction). Pick an approximate date you’d like to achieve that Near-Term Vision. Maybe it is 6 months, a year or 18 months out.
• Now, develop a Long-Term Vision (a legacy you’d like to leave). For example, mine is: To double the small business success rate in America.

Looking for further inspiration? Check out my Double Vision
post for more on how to establish both a near and long-term vision. 

  Step 3: Current State

With this next step, you’ll take a look at what you have going for you that will help you achieve your near and long term vision. Maybe you have a unique and super effective process, or there is a global trend towards buying products like yours. You should also make yourself aware of the things that stand in your way like new regulations in your industry or a marketing-savvy competitor.  

In the Own Your Future strategic planning process, I encourage participants to be thorough in thinking through what’s currently working and what’s not for various aspects of their organization. To help, I offer my System Elements model. Check out the short video here.

Step 4: Architecture for the Future

This is definitely a Catalyst-only step (since I invented it) and is one of the reasons my clients’ strategic plans produce better results than the average strategic plan. In this step, put your near term vision at the top of the page. Next, identify each of the groups of people who need to do something in order for your vision to become a reality (e.g. employees produce a specific average of products per week, customers buy a certain amount of your products or services). For each, think about what you’d imagine that group of people would need to think, feel and know that would motivate them to do what you’d like them to do. The last part of Step 4 is to brainstorm things you could do to influence what those people think, feel, know, so they are motivated to do what you’d like them to do. I understand this is the trickiest step. Email me directly if you’d like a template for completing Step 4. You might also check out this video on the model. 

Step 5: Goals & Strategies

Hang in there, you’re almost done! To close the gap between the current state and your desired future, develop 10 or fewer SMART goals, and a handful of strategies for each.  For a refresher on my version of SMART goals, check out this post.  A strategy is an approach you are going to take to reach a goal. Pull strategy ideas from your Step 4 brainstorm on what things you can do to influence your customers, suppliers and employees. And remember, you can always email me directly if you would like templates to help compile your answers for any of the steps in the Own Your Future process.

There you have it, your very own strategic plan. Next you can start taking actions to implement those strategies. Review and adjust your goals and strategies throughout the year. Don’t forget to celebrate your wins! That reminds me of an upcoming post. Stay tuned for:“Why looking for a Gucci purse online is totally part of strategic planning”.

Why I Have Double Vision and Think Your Business Should Too

In my strategic planning work, I’ve found that a grand long-term vision like: ‘putting your tiny town on the world map’ is wonderful for inspiring your team to persevere through challenging times. I like to think of this long-term vision as your “When It’s All Said and Done” (WIASD). However, though inspiring, your WIASD may lack the specificity to guide your team members’ immediate efforts. It may also fail to provide a much needed near-term fix to fuel everyone’s momentum. This is where a near-term vision or an “Amazing Not Too Distant Future” (ANTDF) can help.

At any point in time, every business has a certain amount of calm or chaos going on with respect to it’s people, profits, and products or services.  The “Amazing Not Too Distant Future” is the next level of better for this combination of things. The ANTDF is not a final destination, nor is it an achievement in a single point in time. It is a new norm that remains constant over a given period of time, perhaps months, quarters or even a few years. When it is achieved, a new ANTDF is needed.

For example:

Let’s say that your business is booming. While that’s great, you didn’t anticipate sales going so well and as a result your staffing levels aren’t adequate to get the work done. This leads to lots of folks working lots overtime to get the promised work out the door and to the customer. This overtime is negatively impacting employee morale and eating into your profits. On top of that, Quality Control is catching a higher rate of product defects, which requires rework to fix the issues!

In this situation, your ANTDF might be to: ‘Maintain average monthly revenue while increasing profitability by 2%, improve employee morale by two points and return to prior quality levels.’  We aren’t working on strategy for getting there yet, just setting an aspiration for an “Amazing Not Too Distant Future” - a next level of better for your people, profits and products/services.

On the other hand, if your business vision statement is only about the achievement of a new steadier business state, you may miss the early steps necessary to make the grand, legacy-leaving impact that you know your business is meant to make.  You don’t have to know the strategy yet for how you are going to get there. When you simply have a compelling, far-reaching legacy you’d love to leave through your business, you begin noticing opportunities that would have otherwise been invisible to you.

As if that’s not reason enough, a double vision is helpful for your staff. You likely have some employees who are predominantly interested in understanding near-term targets and others who are at their best when they understand and are in tune with the organization’s long-term vision.

When you hold a double vision, you get the focus and momentum of a near-term vision as well as the opportunity-leveraging and deep inspiration of a long-term vision.  This promotes a more fluid and energetic environment for you, your employees and your organization.