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

 Isabel Alexander's journey from modest beginnings to global recognition epitomizes entrepreneurial resilience and innovation. With over five decades of experience spanning diverse industries, she has become a driving force in shaping economic landscapes worldwide. Noteworthy accomplishments include founding a multimillion-dollar global chemical wholesale business and earning accolades such as Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women.

As a mentor and advocate, Isabel empowers women entrepreneurs through initiatives like the Lift As You Climb Movement and podcasts, guiding them from startup to maturity. Serving as Chief Encore Officer of The Encore Catalyst, she dedicates herself to coaching and educating emerging entrepreneurs. Her involvement in organizations like RenegadesReinventing.com and Femme on Fire underscores her commitment to leadership and business development.

Additionally, Isabel's advisory roles with government bodies and trade associations, such as Chair of the Canadian Association of Importers & Exporters, highlight her influence in shaping trade policies and fostering international relations.

Driven by her mantra, "Lift As You Climb," Isabel embodies the ethos of mutual growth and empowerment. With dual citizenship in Canada and the United States, she values her extensive family and embraces global connections through travel and professional engagements. Isabel Alexander's narrative serves as a beacon of inspiration, illustrating how visionary leadership and strategic advising can drive global entrepreneurship and economic independence forward.

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’ https://whoaminowbook.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabelannalexander/

 

Thank You for Listening!

It means so much that you listened to this podcast! If you know of anyone else who might find this show valuable or entertaining, please share it on your favorite social media platform.

If you have questions about this episode, please send me an email at Hello@TheEncoreCatalyst.com

 

Subscribe to the Podcast

Receive automatic notifications when new podcast episodes are made available.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with the latest episodes. Links on the sidebar make it easy. Please share if you value the content.

 

Leave a Review

Every bit of feedback offered helps to make this a value-packed part of your week and suggestions are welcome.  

Ratings and reviews from listeners are used to improve the podcast. They also help others find this series in their podcast platform, so reviews are very much appreciated!

To register for a coaching with Isabel

Isabel: 00:00:03

Hey again, Isabel Alexander.

Isabel: 00:00:06

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

Isabel: 00:00:11

series about strategic planning.

Isabel: 00:00:13

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

Isabel: 00:00:19

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

Isabel: 00:00:27

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

Isabel: 00:00:33

the year and really worth hanging on to.

Isabel: 00:00:38

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

Isabel: 00:00:44

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

Isabel: 00:00:49

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

Isabel: 00:00:55

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

Isabel: 00:01:04

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

Isabel: 00:01:11

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

Isabel: 00:01:18

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

Isabel: 00:01:26

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

Isabel: 00:01:33

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

Isabel: 00:01:43

have a strategic plan for your business.

Isabel: 00:01:47

Yes.

Isabel: 00:01:48

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

Isabel: 00:01:53

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

Isabel: 00:02:04

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

Isabel: 00:02:09

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

Isabel: 00:02:14

Yes!

Isabel: 00:02:14

Yes!

Isabel: 00:02:15

Yes!

Isabel: 00:02:15

The more women who are creating businesses and creating wealth and

Isabel: 00:02:20

impacting the economy, the better!

Isabel: 00:02:28

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

Isabel: 00:02:34

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

Isabel: 00:02:40

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

Isabel: 00:02:47

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

Isabel: 00:02:55

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

Isabel: 00:03:01

All of them.

Isabel: 00:03:02

have a strategic plan.

Isabel: 00:03:03

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

Isabel: 00:03:10

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

Isabel: 00:03:13

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

Isabel: 00:03:22

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

Isabel: 00:03:27

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

Isabel: 00:03:31

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

Isabel: 00:03:37

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

Isabel: 00:03:44

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

Isabel: 00:03:50

called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.

Isabel: 00:03:54

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

Isabel: 00:04:00

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

Isabel: 00:04:08

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

Isabel: 00:04:14

lifestyle, for your goals, your ambition.

Isabel: 00:04:17

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

Isabel: 00:04:22

mission, and Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Isabel: 00:04:26

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

Isabel: 00:04:31

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

Isabel: 00:04:37

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

Isabel: 00:04:42

in my journey to learning what works.

Isabel: 00:04:46

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

Isabel: 00:04:51

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

Isabel: 00:04:58

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

Isabel: 00:05:03

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

Isabel: 00:05:07

spiel, but it's really important.

Isabel: 00:05:10

This is the why of your business.

Isabel: 00:05:11

Like, why are you doing this?

Isabel: 00:05:13

What is the organization about?

Isabel: 00:05:15

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

Isabel: 00:05:23

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

Isabel: 00:05:31

What is the legacy that you are building?

Isabel: 00:05:34

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

Isabel: 00:05:40

And that's a big part of this process.

Isabel: 00:05:43

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

Isabel: 00:05:49

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

Isabel: 00:05:55

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

Isabel: 00:06:03

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

Isabel: 00:06:06

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

Isabel: 00:06:16

is too late then, don't you think?

Isabel: 00:06:18

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

Isabel: 00:06:22

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

Isabel: 00:06:26

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

Isabel: 00:06:33

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

Isabel: 00:06:38

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

Isabel: 00:06:44

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

Isabel: 00:06:53

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

Isabel: 00:07:02

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

Isabel: 00:07:10

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

Isabel: 00:07:19

values and mission of your organization.

Isabel: 00:07:24

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

Isabel: 00:07:33

Key Performance Indicators.

Isabel: 00:07:36

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

Isabel: 00:07:43

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

Isabel: 00:07:49

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

Isabel: 00:07:54

to our banker, to our higher self.

Isabel: 00:08:00

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

Isabel: 00:08:06

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

Isabel: 00:08:15

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

Isabel: 00:08:23

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

Isabel: 00:08:32

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

Isabel: 00:08:40

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

Isabel: 00:08:47

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

Isabel: 00:08:52

Oh!

Isabel: 00:08:54

Oh!

Isabel: 00:08:54

Oh!

Isabel: 00:08:55

Totally missed the mark.

Isabel: 00:08:56

Landed on a different planet!

Isabel: 00:09:00

Okay, so recapping.

Isabel: 00:09:03

You should have a strategic plan.

Isabel: 00:09:05

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

Isabel: 00:09:11

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

Isabel: 00:09:15

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

Isabel: 00:09:21

episode that I recorded not too long ago.

Isabel: 00:09:25

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

Isabel: 00:09:30

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

Isabel: 00:09:39

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

Isabel: 00:09:51

and Get everybody else on the team.

Isabel: 00:09:56

Get the buy in from your stakeholders.

Isabel: 00:10:00

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

Isabel: 00:10:05

your professional support group, your family, your friends.

Isabel: 00:10:12

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

Isabel: 00:10:20

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

Isabel: 00:10:30

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

Isabel: 00:10:36

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

Isabel: 00:10:44

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

Isabel: 00:10:50

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

Isabel: 00:10:56

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

Isabel: 00:11:05

Bye for now.