Why do strategic planning? It can literally save you from failure
“Strategic planning is an investment in the business, which effectively means you should expect a return.”
I was halfway into a strategic planning session when it was clear this company was about to implode in the next two to three months. In less than three hours, we had to figure out a plan.
I was facilitating a strategy session in November 2021, with a company that had recently hired us. That day, I learned that the business as-is couldn’t support the expected influx of holiday orders, a new product launch, and a move to a new bigger warehouse.
Point blank, they just didn’t have enough: the systems and team couldn’t handle processing, making, and shipping the orders. And while the corresponding revenue was healthy, payment terms created a cash flow crunch - effectively slowing down how quickly we could solve these issues.
In less than 3 hours, we learned enough about the business to know what to expect and what to do next. By the end, we set an 8-month strategic course to stabilize operations so they could meaningfully scale the business, and hit their definition of success.
The most important reason to do strategic planning
At Delta Awesome, we aim for a 10X to 20X return on the work we do, including strategy days.
This means, if we charge $5,000 for a Strategy Day, we expect to return $50k-$100k per day that we spend with teams in the form of:
revenue increase
valuation increase
or cost savings
Like many investments, this takes time to actually see the value. It also requires teams to implement and follow the strategies that we designed during a Strategy Day.
This is the power of strategic planning. It’s a tool that often goes overlooked for monitoring the health and direction of a business. Yet, without it, businesses frequently crash and burn.
What is strategic planning?
Simply put, strategic planning is a method to assess where you are and where you’re going in your business.
It includes discussion about all elements of the business, reviews of company metrics and dashboards, brainstorming, vulnerability, and deep listening to each other’s opinions, perspectives and expertise.
The best strategic planning sessions (we call them strategy days) are designed to help leaders and teams:
Spend time working on the business
See the forest through the trees
Acknowledge, head on, the sticky problems of the business and design a plan to get through them
Integrate the different areas of the business along with key stakeholders
And stay in alignment with the vision, mission, and values of the organization
How do you know if you need strategic planning?
Business leaders spend their days worrying, thinking, acting, and making decisions about their business. It’s a ton of work, but how do you know all that work is working?
Just as it’s important to go to the doctor to get a check-up once a year (or more), strategic planning is a time to step back and reflect on how your business is doing, and see if it’s heading in the right direction.
You know you need strategic planning if you:
Want to increase sales
Are trying to figure out financing options or how to raise capital
Aren’t sure when you should hire more staff
Are ready to launch your next product
Think it’s time to redesign a new go-to-market strategy
Are having trouble finding product-market fit
Of course, there are many more, but these give you a taste of the type of questions that are based on strategic decision making and thus require planning.
Why have a facilitator run your session?
As facilitators trained in business strategy, our job is to spend time integrating the different parts of a business (sales, ops, product, marketing, finance, HR, etc) so that we can clearly understand how to help our clients reach their teams definition of success.
Top reasons to have a facilitator:
They have seen dozens or hundreds of ways of solving problems and add incredible value in the room alongside the CEO + team
They see things other team members cannot, keep the conversation focused on strategy rather than tactics, and help facilitate challenging conversations when very normal team dynamics start showing up.
They can listen, process, and share what they are hearing
How a strategic planning session works
There are many ways a strategic planning session can be run and organized. Much of it depends on the facilitator and the company’s culture.
At Delta Awesome, we’ve designed an effective 6-hour model based on working with hundreds of teams. The 6-hour timeframe is the right amount of time to maintain energy and engagement and get into deep topics.
Before we begin:
We always start with preparatory meetings to scope the main ideas, determine key topics, and create a robust agenda. The CEO or team leader assembles key staff members to participate (usually no more than 5 people).
During the actual day:
The goal is to design a complete strategic and tactical plan for the next major milestone of the company. We start with defining success for your next major milestone, then we work backwards with a variety of activities. Sometimes, these originate from the company, other times they’re from Delta Awesome. Ultimately, this brings together a unique plan that your team can actually manifest.
After framing the strategic plan and milestones, we lead businesses into other key areas that must be discussed.For instance, a financial plan, who to hire and when, the CEOs personal journey, go-to market strategies, mental maps for decision making in the face of uncertainty, gap analysis on team/assets/time.
There’s no one “right recipe” or order for how to run a strategy day. This is where a talented facilitator becomes important because they know it’s closer to jazz than a formula. We know it works because we’ve run almost 100 sessions.
What happens after a strategic planning session?
Remember, the best strategies need to be adjusted based on new information that comes into the business.
After a strategy day, you need to have a plan on how often you’ll revisit it as well as who is accountable for implementation. At Delta Awesome, we often work closely with teams for months afterwards to act as accountability partners and thought partners to make sure teams stay on track.
If you want to learn more about our process or hire us to lead your next strategic planning session, schedule a call or email us at hello@deltaawesome.com.