Ep 133 | Using SMECA to Prepare to Pivot When Necessary

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get after it. Today I want to talk about an acronym known as SMECA, S-M-E-C-A, And this particular acronym was taught to me by one of my mentors, Mike Fleming, who I think I've mentioned before in one of our previous episodes. Mike has been my business coach for over 10 years, a Vietnam War vet, and then had an illustrious business career with Tandy, which became RadioShack. Then he was on to Payless Shoe Stores. Many of you may remember Payless. Mike is, uh, is an accomplished leader and he's taught me an awful lot. And, and he's also the king of acronyms. And a lot of the acronyms, a lot of the operating systems, the models that he leverages come from his military background as a leader within the military. So SMECA is an acronym that's used in the military decision-making process. And I like it for today's conversation. Because we're heading into the fourth quarter now. We've got some, you know, pretty much no matter what business you're in, we have some headwinds as we go into the fourth quarter and we go into next year. And I think that our business planning, while important to plan for the quarter and plan for the next year and beyond, I think our business planning is gonna have to be rather dynamic. In other words, what we put down on paper, we're gonna have to constantly reevaluate and potentially pivot away from, or at least revise in some way. And I think around this SMECA approach, S-M-E-C-A, as, as, as something to consider as we're, you know, creating these dynamic plans. So what does SMECA stand for? The S stands for situation. Bottom line, this is your description of the current state of affairs. You know, what's going on? What are we faced with? What's the context? This is what we're going to base our plan around. The M in SMECA stands for mission. Real simple. What is the intent? If we have a situation and we've described the situation, now what is the intent? What needs to be done would be the question we're asking here. The E in SMECA stands for execution. Now this is the part that is all about focusing on the plan and coordinating how in fact what we want to get done is going to get done. Right? So it's, it's the steps we need to take. So E stands for execution. C stands for coordination. So this is coordinating all of the different components. Maybe it's different units, maybe it's different departments and getting them all aligned with respect to the mission. And then lastly, the A stands for administration. This is the aspect of SMECA that addresses logistical requirements, administrative requirements that are necessary for execution of the mission in, in honoring, you know, whatever the situation presents. So this is what covers, say, supplies or additional support, or again, the logistics, whatever the essential needs are, the services are. So SMECA again is a great operating model for you to consider when making a big decision or when making a pivot with respect to a business plan. Let me give you an example, something I've been thinking about here recently. Again, I believe we should annually plan, but I think as we're annually planning, especially right now, given the current state and unpredictability, I should say, of the economy, and many of my listeners are in the real estate market, and we just don't know where things are going over the next 12 months. I think we've got to be rather dynamic in our planning. And that's why I'm, again, I'm talking about SMECA. So let's take a sales business as an example here. And let's say the sales business is planning for their fourth quarter. And let's say the fourth quarter historically is the worst sales period of the year. So let's use a structured approach like SMECA to figure out how we best go about planning for our fourth quarter. So the situation, right? S is for situation. The situation is that this particular sales company operates in an industry where the fourth quarter is traditionally slower than other quarters due to seasonality or whatever it may be. So the situation likely includes historical data that shows a decline, historical data that shows that this typically is the, the, the slower quarter, maybe market research that shows demand is typically down. In other words, we've got deeper analysis around the situation. It's not emotionally driven. It's objectively driven. So what is the situation? Okay. This is the context. Now we've analyzed the situation. So what's the mission? Well, the mission for this particular business, slower fourth quarter, is to mitigate the decline in sales and minimize losses during what's going to be a challenging period. So in this particular case, company leadership would aim to figure out, maybe identify or figure out opportunities that would lead to greater sales performance during this particular period, right? So the mission is mitigate the decline, minimize losses, and identify opportunities to improve sales performance during the period. We've covered the S, we've covered the M. Now we get to execution. Execution here is probably the meatiest portion of, of this conversation. Execution is, okay, A, what's the plan? What's a strategic plan that includes Maybe alternative revenue sources, includes cost cutting measures, includes maybe a new service launch or a new marketing effort. So what's the plan? What are the tasks associated with executing? What are the responsibilities of sales team members, of other departments? Again, still on execution. What's our budget? What do we have to work with here? What are our resources? And of course, lastly, what, what's the timeline? What's our timeline for implementing and monitoring the effectiveness of this plan we're looking to put in place? So we have the situation, lower fourth quarter, a mission, mitigate that lower fourth quarter, execution, what are our plans, tasks, budget, and timeline? Now we get the C in SMECA, which is coordination. If you remember, coordination then requires the coordination of different players within the organization, different departments within the organization. So for example, uh, sales, sales training may be necessary. So in terms of coordinating around the execution, around the plan, do we have to provide sales training? Is it specialized to our sales team members that equips people with strategies for addressing Maybe the common objections that, that come up during the fourth quarter, during the slower times, maybe come up with ways to strategize around concerns of potential buyers. In addition to coordination, or in addition, I'm sorry, to sales training around coordination, is there a targeted marketing plan we're putting into place? Is there a campaign we need to run? Is there some, some sort of ramped up effort that we need to figure out how to coordinate the various players within this organization. And then the last thing is A for administration. Administration, as it pertains to this particular example, what are our contingency plans? What's our financial reporting? What is our expense management? What's it all look like? So I'm talking around this. I'm really trying to drill down. Because again, I believe that we have to be rather dynamic in our, in our planning and business right now, probably more so than we have had to be in recent times. And that's because we've got a lot of uncertainty and we've got a lot of things moving at a, at a pretty fast clip. So we have to have some sort of mental model or operating model in play that we can quickly pull out and begin to put together, you know, certain action steps. So that we're coordinated, we're efficient, and we're effective. A structured approach like SMECA, like S-M-E-C-A, helps businesses, particularly sales businesses, assess a challenging situation, clarify the mission's objectives, develop an ex— an execution plan, provides coordination, coordinating instructions, And then lastly, addresses administrative needs or logistical needs for managing and improving sales performance. All during this, again, what's to be a, in this example, a difficult fourth quarter. So the focusing question for you today, where might this SMECA model play favorably for you? Where is it needed in your world? Is it something maybe you have out on your desk and you're thinking through the situation? You're thinking through the mission and the execution and the coordination and the administration. Maybe this is something that's ongoing for you. It's a living, breathing document, and you're analyzing these 5, these 5 categories, these 5 components on a regular basis. Again, have a quarter plan, a quarterly plan in place, have an annual plan in place, but be prepared to pivot. So focusing question again, where might this be applicable in your world? At the very least, can you look at what you're currently executing on and filter it against, maybe scrub it against SMECA, and see if you identify any sort of gaps or holes in your plan? That's all we have for you today, the No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better, so let's get after it.