In this episode, Isabel Alexander dives into the world of strategic planning for solopreneurs and smaller businesses. Learn how to create your own one-page strategic plan and gain valuable insights from her years of experience. Discover the secrets to unlocking business success.

Key Takeaways:

The Importance of Values and Mission: Isabel emphasizes the significance of understanding your beliefs and core values. Your business decisions should always align with your values as they form the foundation of your company's identity and purpose.

Setting BHAGs: Discover the concept of setting Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAGs) and why they are essential for your business growth. Learn how to define both short-term and long-term goals that contribute to your overall mission.

The Rhythm of Success: Explore the secret sauce of strategic planning—maintaining a cadence of communication, accountability, and celebration. Regular check-ins and sharing results keep everyone on track and motivated.

Measuring What Matters: Understand the significance of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in evaluating your progress and success. Isabel delves into the critical metrics that provide insights into your business's health.

SWOT Analysis: Learn about SWOT analysis and why it's crucial to perform this analysis regularly. Identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats helps you make informed decisions and stay agile.

Conclusion

Isabel's mission is to make strategic planning simple, enjoyable, and incredibly effective for women business owners. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes as she guides you through each step of creating your one-page strategic plan.

Mastering the Rockefeller Habits 20th Edition: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm Link:

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Rockefeller-Habits-Increase-Growing/dp/0978774957

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:

The Encore Catalyst Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/TheEncoreCatalyst )

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/

 

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To register for a coaching with Isabel

Isabel: 00:00:04

Hello, I'm Isabel Alexander, and I'm glad you're back here with me today

Isabel: 00:00:09

because recently I shared an episode on why small to medium sized enterprises,

Isabel: 00:00:17

SMEs, should have a strategic plan, why it's really important that they have

Isabel: 00:00:23

a strategic plan, and I got a lot of feedback and questions about that episode.

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And they included "What about me?

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I'm a solopreneur

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and I'm all by myself."

Isabel: 00:00:34

And even

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more frequently, "it was, okay, I understand what you're saying, Isabel,

Isabel: 00:00:44

that as a small business, we need to have a strategic plan, You didn't

Isabel: 00:00:51

really explain how to do that."

Isabel: 00:00:54

So that's what I want to do today.

Isabel: 00:00:56

I want to start a mini series of episodes explaining how to create a strategic plan

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when you are deciding a solopreneur, or when you are a smaller business and you

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don't have all the resources that larger organizations, all those fortune 100, 500,

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1000 corporations that have staff that can put all that stuff together and gather

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all the data and make it look pretty and format it and distribute it, or not for

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profit organizations or clubs all those organizations have a strategic plan.

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And that's why you, as a woman business owner, and whether you're

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a solopreneur or you've got, half a dozen or 20 staff members, why does

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it really pay you huge dividends?

Isabel: 00:01:56

to take the time and effort to learn how to do a strategic plan that works

Isabel: 00:02:02

for your business, the size of it, the number of people involved in carrying

Isabel: 00:02:08

out the plan, and how to have fun with it, and how you keep on, how you

Isabel: 00:02:16

start the rhythm and the continuity.

Isabel: 00:02:18

So I'm sharing In several episodes coming up, my own journey, how I learned no

Isabel: 00:02:28

longer to be intimidated by strategic planning, how I learned absolutely

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I should have a strategic plan.

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It's even more important than those really big corporations with all the double

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commas and zeros in their bottom lines.

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My inside tip for you it's all based on a book written by Verne Harnish, and of

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course I'll include the details to that book in the show notes, called Mastering

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the Rockefeller Habits, and I learned about this book when I hired a business

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advisor, a business consultant, to come in and help me organize the chaos

Isabel: 00:03:18

and the unpredictability of my already then in the millions of dollars a year

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sales business, so that I wasn't always running to see if we could keep it up.

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That was the big thing.

Isabel: 00:03:34

Can I keep it up?

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Can I plan my life?

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Can I keep my promises to this team that they have a livelihood to look forward to?

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And can I keep my promises to my customers and my suppliers?

Isabel: 00:03:49

Rather than you having to, today, dig deep and go find yourself a business

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consultant, a business advisor, who is a right fit for you, I will give

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you insights from my own experience on going from sort of kind of knowing

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what I wanted to do to having a really elegant, beautiful, one page strategic

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plan that guided us from hit and miss millions in sales to eight figure

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multiple millions with a team that knew where we were going, knew their

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part of it and everybody was on board and knew what their contribution was.

Isabel: 00:04:40

And I felt more calmness and more excitement and more enthusiasm

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than I had for multiple years.

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Do buy the book!

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Guarantee, it will become one of your favorite reference books.

Isabel: 00:04:57

It talks all about the great habits of the ultra successful businessman, John D.

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Rockefeller.

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Thanks to Verne Harnish, he was able to capture those habits and best

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practices and update them and make them relevant to us as business owners today.

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Now, the book really is directed more towards, slightly larger businesses and

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larger teams, but I have been able to adapt those best practices over the years.

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I've used this methodology, the one page strategic plan, which truthfully

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is two pages but it's okay, it's double sided printing, to help many clients,

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many other women business owners get a plan, get a vision, and get a

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systematic, step by step, measurable, celebrate ability plan for their company

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that they could go year after year with, "Okay, this is working so well!

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We're just going to keep refining it."

Isabel: 00:06:12

Over in the next couple of episodes, what I'm going to do

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is go through each of the steps.

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that are included in Verne Harnish's book about how you also can

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create your own strategic plan.

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You don't have to rush out and get the book now.

Isabel: 00:06:28

I know your to do list is already full.

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You've got lots of plates spinning, but here's what we're going to do.

Isabel: 00:06:35

We're going to talk about what they've captured so concisely in this book and

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that's establishing your priorities.

Isabel: 00:06:45

Yeah, yeah, yada, yada, yada.

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That's what we all say, but In following this process, you crystallize what the

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priorities are, get really clear on them, know how to measure them, and how

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to really see that you are achieving not only the big goals, but the smaller goals,

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that contribute to the overall plan.

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It anchors you back into "Okay, we'll do this!", and there will be a flow, and

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everyone who's involved in creating the plan, executing the plan, measuring the

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plan, celebrating the plan, will know the rhythm, and they will know the pattern

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to which their accountability comes up.

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Having a plan, not only It gives you a structure, a framework to look backward

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and learn from what you have accomplished and what worked and what didn't work

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for you in your business and you've got the measurability aspects because you

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have the numbers, you have the data but based on that You can look forward and

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you can make some realistic projections.

Isabel: 00:08:09

I love the book in its entirety for the framework that it establishes for growth.

Isabel: 00:08:17

I have been able to, over decades, to modify, or let's say massage, the content

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and the practices to make it work best for smaller businesses, smaller shops,

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one person shops, or a small team.

Isabel: 00:08:37

So I'm looking forward to sharing all of that with you.

Isabel: 00:08:40

I hope that, in these conversations I will help you overcome any doubts that

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you have about needing a strategic plan and remove any intimidation

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or fear, reluctance about creating one and creating an honest one and

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going through all of the steps.

Isabel: 00:09:04

That's my joy.

Isabel: 00:09:05

I've always said that my greatest.

Isabel: 00:09:10

reward, satisfaction as a business catalyst and as a transformation coach

Isabel: 00:09:17

for women business owners is being able to share not only what I have learned

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over the past 50 ish years in business, running other people's businesses,

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working for other entrepreneurs, and then ultimately starting my own

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business and running that for 20 years.

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And then going on to coach and be a catalyst, a CEO catalyst for

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hundreds of other women entrepreneurs.

Isabel: 00:09:49

I love that I can share with you all what not to do, because I have

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learned those lessons as well.

Isabel: 00:09:58

And one of the most important lessons here to underline is that I have learned that

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you cannot have predictable, enjoyable success and rewards from your business.

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If you don't have a plan.

Isabel: 00:10:14

Because as I've said before, if you don't know where you're

Isabel: 00:10:18

going, you won't get there.

Isabel: 00:10:22

So just recapping what we're going to talk about in creating a strategic plan that is

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designed to work for your unique business.

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We'll review the importance of understanding your

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beliefs and your core values.

Isabel: 00:10:41

That comes before anything else because every single business decision that you

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make, you can only live with it, support it, and grow with it, if it's aligned

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with your values, because your values are the values that the company is built on.

Isabel: 00:11:00

That leads us then into figuring out the purpose of the business and the

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mission description so that you can articulate very, very clearly what Your

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purpose is, and what you stand for, who you support, what you're delivering.

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We'll talk about big, hairy, audacious goals, BHAGs, and the importance of having

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smaller and larger goals, and having long term and short term goals, and to

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make sure that you're clear what they are and they fit into that purpose and

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mission, and how we can measure those.

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Then we'll break it down into, okay, understanding.

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So we've got these higher level objectives, goals.

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Now, what are the steps?

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What are the many steps within each of those that are necessary?

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And who?

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and how they get accomplished

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. And then the rhythm part is probably, that's kind of a secret sauce in

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my mind, is having that cadence of staying informed, checking the numbers,

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sharing the results, and celebrating with everybody who contributed.

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And then, of course, underpinning all of that is figuring out how,

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what are the important measurements that you're looking for.

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Those are the ones that will tell it all, that will say,

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yes, you're on the right track.

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Those are called KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators.

Isabel: 00:12:36

Without going too much farther into the details of what we're going to talk about,

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we'll also be talking about SWOT analysis.

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If you haven't heard that term before, it's eons old but it's still relevant

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to every single one of us today and it should be done on a regular basis.

Isabel: 00:12:55

So stay tuned, come back next episode and we'll start to build it out.

Isabel: 00:13:04

If you want to follow along with me, I'll give you some real

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examples of what this all looks like so you can start to envision

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how your strategic plan will work.

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If you need more help with that, you want to have a conversation with me

Isabel: 00:13:23

about, "I'm not sure about that, or how could that possibly work for my

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particular business situation and model."

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Then reach out to me.

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We can talk about that.

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All you have to do if you live in the United States is text from your mobile

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the word ENCORE, E N C O R E, to 33777.

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Or, apply to have a conversation with me at URL www.

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encore33777.

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com.

Isabel: 00:14:01

All right, I'll be back to you soon.

Isabel: 00:14:03

I'm excited to share what I learned about strategic planning and how to make it

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simple, fun, and incredibly effective!

Isabel: 00:14:14

Bye for now.