What's Your S.T.R.A.T.E.G.Y.?
Last week, I ran two Rock Your Year workshops, and what a resounding success they were. Every woman in the room was able to clearly set a revenue goal for her business, get clear on her 90 day action plan, and build a path toward a consistent marketing and sales strategy. They also developed plans for accountability, because let’s face it, we’re all good at making plans, but ACTION is where it all comes together.
One of the things I consistently see with business owners is an inconsistent or missing strategy. Your business strategy is the outline of actions and decisions you plan to take to reach your business goals and objectives. It defines what your business needs to do to reach its goals, helps guide the decision-making process for allocating your resources (time, money, people…), and shapes your marketing and sales efforts.
That’s why I developed the S.T.R.A.T.E.G.Y. method, my process for helping business owners really take stock of where they’ve been, get clear on how their life and business intersect and support each other, and building the path toward your revenue goals. This is the method I have used with my clients, with other businesses and organizations, and when I do my own strategic planning.
State of Your Business
Numbers and data don’t lie, and in order to understand what you need to do differently, taking a few minutes to check in on the revenue you’ve generated, where it’s come from, and how you feel your year/quarter/month has gone is a powerful process. It gives you insight into exactly where you are and aren’t making money, helps you refocus and reprioritize based on what’s working, and the freedom to let go of what’s not!
Thrive in Your Life
Being a business owner is all about designing a business that supports the life you want to live. That starts with having a clear picture of what your life looks like right now and what, if anything, needs to change in the coming year. I don’t know a single business owner who left corporate behind in order to work harder or more hours. Most of us wanted more freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment, and if you’re unclear on what that means, it’s going to be hard to proactively design a business that supports that vision.
Revisit Your Business Design
Over the last decade, I’ve seen countless entrepreneurs burn out. We get into a cycle where we’re relentlessly pursuing our goals and chasing after all the possibilities, and while you’ll never hear me say don’t try hard, there’s a point when it becomes too much. There’s no point to having a business if it sucks you dry, consistently pulls you away from family and friends, or doesn’t allow you to do the things you love. Take some time to think strategically about your business design and ensure that you have a business that will be profitable and energizing.
Aim High
I love big, hairy, audacious goals. But not all of your business goals need to be monstrous. For business, I recommend setting goals in four buckets:
1. Revenue and profit
2. Growth or expansion of the business, operations, team members…
3. Service improvements for client experience and care
4. Social goals related to impact, philanthropy, and giving back to communities that are important to you.
Tailor Your Marketing and Sales For Traction
Once those big goals have been set, then you have to think about what your marketing and sales looks like. This is where I like to think specifically about the pipeline and how I’m going to bring in prospective clients, cultivate those relationships, convert them into paying clients, and create a beautiful, high-touch customer experience. When you break down your marketing and sales processes this way, it becomes a lot easier to see where you need to beef up your pipeline.
Engineer Your Weekly Plans
This is where the rubber meets the road. Having goals is great, but until those goals are broken down in such a way that it enables you to take action, they’re sort of useless. In Rock Your Year, we took our big goals, our sales and marketing plans for the year, and broke them down into quarterly, monthly, and then weekly focus areas. This ensures that no matter where you are in any given quarter, you don’t wake up on a Monday morning wondering what the heck you’re supposed to be doing.
Get Moving
It seems like it should go without saying, but for goals to be achieved you have to take action. If you struggle with this, finding an accountability partner, coach, or mentor to touch base with is imperative. I meet with my accountabilities partners weekly, and while I know how to take action, knowing there’s someone else watching, gives me that extra nudge.
Your Weekly CEO Time
Building time into your weekly schedule to check in, work ON the business, and make sure you understand where you are in relation to your goals is a game-changer. This is where you shift out of employee mode and into CEO mode. Use this time to get and stay clear on the health and progress of your business.
This process, from start to finish, takes time, but every second of it is worthwhile. If you missed Rock Your Year and need help getting your strategy in place, schedule a 90-minute Strategy Session. I’d love to help you get clear on your strategic plan, ensure your goals are purposeful and actionable, and design a plan to help you knock it out of the park!
