Our Strategic Planning Process

Welcome to Biz Brainstorms –

If you’re new, todays email is going to be different.

MOST of these emails are about:

• Business Lessons

• Business Ideas

• Random Stuff I thought was cool

Today’s email is about the strategic planning template I use for every business I own.

It’s boring. But it’s actionable as hell. And will probably make you more money.

Did someone forward you this email? If so, you can subscribe below:

Strategic Planning – Why Is This Important?

So in November I hired a CEO for our e-commerce business.

The business has been growing well, we finished the year at 6.7M in sales. The main 2 reasons we hired someone to run the business:

1. I have no idea how to get us to $20M (which I want to do)

2. We weren’t running 100 MPH at the business (which, I think was needed to grow)

We’re 120 days into that hire right now and here’s the #1 thing I’ve taken away:

Small businesses stay small because they don’t plan & they don’t invest money into the things that will help them grow.

Our new CEO is great at both.

You see, here’s what we used to do (and I think most of you do):

Monday Calls:

• Jump on a Zoom

• Discuss what’s going well & review last weeks numbers

• Brainstorm new ideas, usually kick off 1-2 new projects

• Give project updates if we can remember them.

There was zero structure for long term initiatives.

And probably the worst part was we’d just forget important things.

So we changed that.

We implemented a doc that makes everyone in the company super aware of what our 3 year goals are. It takes maybe 1-2 to build the whole thing out for the entire year.

And then we back those goals down into annual, quarterly, monthly & even weekly initiatives.

So now we know exact why we are doing something and can be sure that everything we are doing is moving us in the right direction.

The Template

If you just want the template, grab it below & feel free to make a copy.

STRATEGIC PLANNING DOC

How To Use It

5 Steps Here:

1. Define The Core Departments In Your Business
   
   For example, in our e-commerce business these are:
   •Marketing
   • Partnerships
   • Product
   • Customer Service
   • Ops
   
   For our Storage business they are:
   • Leasing
   • Property Management
   • Acquistions
   • Dispositions
   • Finance
   

2. Write the 3 Year Goal
   This is what is looks like in our storage business. Start with the revenue and profit numbers and try to back into what you need to do day-to-day to get there

   

   
   

3. Back Into Annual, Quarterly & Monthly Goals
   
   Here’s a preview of the difference between what our annual vs. quarterly goals look like for our e-commerce business in the marketing section:

   

4. Review Monthly Goals on Weekly Calls
   
   This is where this model shines.
   
   It is so simple and builds the agenda directly for you for each of your weekly calls.
   

5. Adjust Monthly Goals & Quarterly Goals at the beginning of each month
   
   Have a down month? Key employee quit? Genius product idea?
   
   As a small company, plans change.
   
   This document helps you not turn the wheel of your ship weekly and lets you stay focused monthly & quarterly. While still giving you the flexibility to adjust the direction.

Well, that’s it!

Like I said, it’s different from our normal sends.

But, if you enjoyed it, let me know.

Next week I’m sending a more traditional newsletter with a breakdown on:

Million Dollar Facebook Groups, How a Mattress Seller made Billions, and a quick story on Sardines.

✌️ See you next week
-Connor

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