Strategic Planning: Avoid These Costly Mistakes!

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi, and welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, and I'm also known as the Geeky Girl. Today, I want to talk to you about why your business needs a strategic plan. Stick with me. I mean, in the Rockstar Success Circle, we call them Planning parties. We don't call them strategic plans, but let's be honest, it's what they are. We are strategically planning our businesses, but we're doing that in such a way that it is good for our neurodivergent brains. Because the way that the neurotypicals do it, the way that corporations do it, aren't fun, first of all. And don't you want to have fun? I mean, I want to have fun inside my business. But not only is it not fun. It also doesn't work really well for a lot of our brains. We don't think the same way that they do. And so let's talk about that and how you can change this and make it different slash better, maybe even have some fun and join us in the Rockstar Success Circle. I tell you, let's talk about this. So we don't want to think about strategic planning because we think about it as boring. It's like watching paint dry. It's things, it seems like, damn, like things that we can't work with because it keeps our creativity at bay and it doesn't allow us to move. So let's throw that out because that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about having something that allows you to pivot, something that allows you to come off the road a little bit to come back on again, but also still lets you be successful in the way that works for you, yourself, your family, your mental health. All of those things together. Okay, so I want to break down the basics of what we're looking at. A strategic plan— essentially, it's a roadmap that guides you and your business towards certain goals, and it helps you stay focused through the process. Stick with me because focus is fun. We want to take our big goals and break them down into smaller goals so that it's easier for us to chew on. Sometimes it can be really difficult to think about like a 5-year plan or a 10-year plan or something way out there, but we want to make sure that we are creating something that is a little bit ahead. So I encourage you to think about at least a year. So we think about our yearly plan. I mean, our year vision can be 3, 5, 10 months or 10 months. Isn't that hilarious? Freudian slip. It can be 3, 5, and 10 years. I ahead of time. That's different. But when I talk about the strategic plan, let's narrow it down. Let's do the next year. Okay? And then we take the ability to break that down. What are we going to do in the next quarter to make that happen? What can we do in this month that rolls up to the quarter? Okay? We're going to think differently about these things. It doesn't have to be rigid and boring, and it can be flexible and fun. We have a lot of fun inside the Rockstar Success Circle, and a lot of business changes and grows inside there as well. So every business needs to have this because it doesn't matter how big or small your business is. Without this, you can lead yourself astray pretty damn quickly. And as a neurodivergent person, unfortunately, I feel that we can be led astray even faster. So there was one year when I lost 10 grand to a program, but also lost a bunch of money in terms of the, the Yeah, but what I could have earned from clients and work as well. It's, I can't calculate it because I didn't happen, right? So there was a great deal of financial loss that year, but there was also a great deal of emotional turmoil that I went through that year as well, because I was trying to live up to a neurotypical brain and I was trying to be successful in what they thought I should do. And reality was, had I had a strategic plan for my business, when that opportunity presented itself, I could have looked at that opportunity and said, okay, I'm in my plan, I'm trying to accomplish this, this, and this. Will that program help me? Well, yes, it can. Fantastic. How? What in your program is going to help me accomplish this, this, this? All 3 of them? One of them? What is that? Then I would have had something tangible to actually put together with the Pie in the sky, this is going to work for you. Unfortunately, that program was not the right program for me. I met some great people and made some great friends, but I don't— I paid for friends, right? At the end of the day, that program was designed so that the person who was leading it was the boss, so to speak. And if you didn't do what they told you to do, then you were failing because you didn't do what they said, as opposed to How do you want to do this? They just laid out something and it just didn't work for me. So, had I known that then, had I had a strategic plan, then I would have been able to better assess what it was that was going to happen there. Okay. So, regardless of the size of your business, having this isn't just for some great big business. It isn't for a corporation. You need to know where you're headed too so that when these opportunities present themselves, these I think I can help you moments, Then you can align them and say, well, can you? Because this is what I'm trying to accomplish. And then you can have some really good conversations and find the right person to help you. If you're looking for a coach or if you're looking for a community, you can say, how will they help me get to these places? Okay. That's just one of the ways that strategic planning helps. Okay. We do have the ability during strategic planning, it helps us to be focused and have more clarity. It helps you to be able to Really say, okay, but I'm working towards this. And so it's important for me to be able to work on this project. Sometimes we get overwhelmed because there's so much to do. And by golly, what is important? I've got a pile of 20 things to do today, but really what's important? How do I categorize whether or not this task is more important than that task? And the answer is, how does it fit into your plan? What is it that doing this task is going to do to help you move forward? Right? In not just your business, but also with your clients, those kinds of things. It helps you to really decide what that focus should be. Here I am shitting on you, but you know, it allows you to be able to really organize your tasks in a much different way. And you make confident decisions. So when we are able to make confident decisions, then it reduces that concept of decision fatigue. Because you can actually say, like I mentioned before, does this align with my plan? Is this in line with where I'm trying to go? When that opportunity presents itself, it isn't just, that looks like a really nice shiny object. It's very pretty and shiny and, oh, I think I can afford it. Yeah, maybe we'll try it. It converts that shiny object syndrome and the decision fatigue of making the decision to, huh, that's a really cool shiny tool. Love it. Yes, I can afford it, but you know what? It's not gonna help me get to where I'm going, so it's not the right decision. It's way easier to make those decisions, so there's less shiny object syndrome getting in your way. And there's less decision fatigue. Okay? I mean, that's enough, right? It works for me. So that's what's really important to me. You're less likely to get distracted by shiny objects and the new ideas that don't actually support your big picture goals, right? Like, you don't have to waste time and energy and money on those things that may be right because you know whether or not it's the right decision. Even before you get to that point, it'll help you avoid burnout as well. Strategic planning allows you to be able to pace yourself. You don't have to say, oh, I want to get this thing done in this year and then say, I have to get it done this month. You're actually breaking it out. Oh, in this year I need to get this done. Fantastic. I've got 4 quarters. Which quarter am I going to work on it? What am I going to work on in each quarter? It allows you to be able to choose those priorities as you move forward and allows you to work smarter, not harder. Heard it said before, right? Really important to work smarter rather than harder. Being able to break this up into manageable chunks and to spread it out amongst all the time that you have to get it done. If it's something that needs to get done this month, great. Doesn't mean you have to get it done today. I mean, maybe you do, but there's a chance that you've got some time to work with if it's a whole month you have to work with, right? So there's lots of different ways this is going to help you to avoid that burnout piece. So your vision and your mission are important. We take— we talk about this a lot. We definitely need to know where we're headed and how we're getting there, which is your vision. And your mission. And we did a recent episode on that one as well. But that is your foundation for the plan, right? For your strategy plan is knowing where you're going and how you want to get there. And then we break it down. So now we want to create some goals where we want to go. I do like SMART goals. I will say that, you know, most people have the A as achievable. Change that. It's actionable. Because let's be honest, everything could be achievable. Let's instead make sure it's actionable. Let's make sure we know we can take actions on it. SMART goals are a great way for you to take your goals and break them down. Make sure that those goals are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound. Okay, so want to make sure that your goal is specific enough that you can actually say, these are the parameters around the goal. We want to be able to say we can measure them because it'll tell you whether or not you're accomplishing something. You know, am I growing my email list by X amount of people? I want to grow my business in a financial way of X amount of dollars, or Those kinds of things. How can I measure what's happening? And then actionable, what actions can I take to get these things to happen? And then is it relevant to the overall plan, the overall strategy that we're trying to put together? And how long am I doing this for? Okay, so really, really important. Remember that A, we like to change it over to actionable as opposed to the other one that everybody else uses. Don't use that. A SWOT analysis is also awesome. It's something that you can use to Look at your business overall and see where are the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, and the threats. And as a small business owner, you might be thinking that it's really related to you. It kind of is. You can look at these things as a human being. Where are mine? I encourage you to focus on your strengths if you're doing this for yourself. Your weaknesses are things that you can either outsource, you can delegate, you can create automations for. There's ways to support your weaknesses. So spend time growing and getting better at your strengths. And we try to offload the W's. But a SWOT analysis gives you the ability to see where are things working well and where can things change. And then that allows you to be able to change your strategic plan to benefit the business by being able to say, where, where do we need to change things in that analysis that's there? You always want to be able to say, what am I going to do for actions? How am I going to break this down? Which is why we take that yearly plan. We break it down into a quarter, and then we take that quarter, we break it down into months. And in some cases, we even break it down into weeks and put that into our weekly non-negotiable lists. So what are those actions that you're going to take every day, every week, every month, whatever the case may be? And of course, we're always looking at timelines, milestones. When do we know we're moving at this pace or that pace? Maybe you have a great big project that's an entire year and you want quarterly milestones. Every quarter, I want to get to this point, I want to get to that point. Those are the ideas, okay? So there are some myths that are out there about strategic planning. One of the myths is it's too complicated. Really, it's not necessarily complicated, but it can be overwhelming if you're not, if you don't have somebody by your side to help you. So if you feel like it's overwhelming to you, or you feel like it's too complicated for you, then you might want to check out our Rockstar Success Circle because we take all the complication right out of it. We have a lot of fun getting it done. It can look overwhelming and daunting. But find someone to help you to find the clarity if you need to move that out of the way, because really it's not. It's what does that plan look like and how do I break it down? It is not easy, but it's simple. Okay. And so if you're feeling like it's too complicated or overwhelming, get some help because you can get to a point where it's not too complicated and it's not overwhelming and you can actually use it for your benefit to have an amazing business. So the other one is maybe there's a, oh, I know that there is this myth out there that you don't have time to plan. It's one of those things that drive me the craziest, I think, because ultimately, I mean, the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. The same is true is that if you don't plan, somebody else is going to plan for you. All of those things are very, very true. If you don't put a plan in place, then eventually somebody else's urgents are going to come in front of you. As opposed to the things that you think are urgent. So even though you think you might not have time to plan, you do. You know, it's like they say, I think everybody should spend 20 minutes in nature every day. And if you're busy, you should spend 2 and a half hours, right? The same is true to planning. Find the time because it is that important. There's a couple times a year where I will go in, we rent a hotel room. And I actually go into more of a retreat planning concept ideas that remove me out of my everyday situations and give myself some space and some room to think about what this looks like moving forward. It is that important to take the time to create the plans, to put things in place, because when I don't, it means that I'm not going to grow as successfully as I want. I am not going to have the same Growth patterns that I would like. So even though you're too busy and you don't have time to plan, find the time, whatever that looks like. It might be work, doing it from midnight to 3 in the morning one night. It might mean taking a weekend and going on a holiday that's a staycation in your city, getting a hotel room. Maybe it's just an overnight. Whatever it is that works for you, finding that space and time to remove yourself from the everyday nonsense. And take the time to plan. It's very, very important to you. If you don't, if you feel like you need a community to help you plan, Rockstar Success Circle is the way to go because we're going to give you time to plan. They are calendar dates that are in the calendar and we're going to do them during that time. So think about this as being very important. Find the time to create a plan for your business. It doesn't have to take you an entire day. It doesn't have to take you All that much time to get it done, but it is important to make the time for it. I'll get off my soapbox. So creating a strategic plan, if you're gonna do it on your own, think small. Okay? You know, you don't have to think about what's my 5 or 10-year plan or those kinds of things. If you need to, if you're really uncomfortable, you can say, what, what's my plan for this month even? But I do encourage you to do the whole yearly, quarterly, monthly planning. Check in on these things as they go. Make sure it's yours. Make sure it's what you want to create, not what somebody else said you should do. This needs to be fluid and you need to be able to pivot within the plan. Make sure that it supports not only who you are today, who you want to be moving forward, but also where you want the business to go as well. So in, from a tool perspective, we definitely, you know, in the Rockstar Success Circle, we have our planners, our quarterly planners that we use with a physical book. That we like to use, but we also, a lot of us use ClickUp to hold that stuff as well. So we have the Rockstar Planner and we also put things inside ClickUp as well. You can use a simple notebook. You can create a tracking plan on a spreadsheet. Whatever works for you, it's important for you to do it. Okay? Whatever tool you're using, make sure it's a tool that you're comfortable with. But at the end of the day, you want to make it yours. You want to make it something that is easy for you to manage. You can see what you're creating. And if you need help, find the help that works best for you. Okay? I hope you have a fantastic day. I hope that you take and make— I hope that you make some time to create a strategic plan for your business, regardless of what that looks like for you. If it's really overwhelming, start small. Just try to do a month at a time. But at the end of the day, it's important for you to make the time to make it happen because it's going to keep you from being sidelined. It's going to get rid of some of that shiny object syndrome, and it's definitely going to help you with that. Decision fatigue. That's a really big one for me. It's like— hope you have a fantastic day, and I'll talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy the podcast in general, why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world? Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.