ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1

0:09

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

Welcome to Coursera's Essentials of Management and Strategic Planning. My name is Marla Noll, and in this module, we're going to focus on the strategic planning meeting, what it should look like, and how your company can benefit the most from this meeting.

0:27

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

Welcome to Coursera, the Module 4 on Strategic Planning. In the previous module, I gave you an indication of why or the reasons for strategic planning. Now I'm going to help with the how-to. Many businesses have similar cycles where you grow and then you get to a point and then you hit a wall.

0:53

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

we are using strategic planning so we can either get through the wall or get over the wall but developing a strategic plan is really a process so I'm going to share with you how you can develop that process and this is something that you should do with your business

1:12

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

every year, if you can't do it every year, maybe every other year. People used to do strategic planning once every five years. Well, things change too fast now, so we need to really be focused on going through the strategic planning process every year. When I talk about strategic planning, we really need to have a strategic planning session, and that's where we come up with

1:41

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

getting consensus on what the strategies for the business should be based on conversations and then follow up from the decisions on the strategies.

1:53

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

In order to have a strategic planning session, I'm going to start with a timeline because it takes a while to be properly prepared for a strategic planning session. So I gave a talk similar to this to a group of people and the next month when we met, this person in the room thanked me for providing this information because she held her strategic planning session and it turned out wonderfully.

2:22

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And what I'm thinking is she didn't hear really what I said, because when I talk about strategic planning, I mention a timeline because it takes time to properly prepare for your strategic planning session. So you really need to start a couple of months, if not three months in advance, getting prepared for the strategic planning session. And I'm going to tell you on the next slides what that means.

2:49

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

This is where entrepreneurs roll their eyes. Data, data, data. We need information to make good decisions in the strategic planning session. There's a lot of data that you need to accumulate. You need to get the financials from the past.

3:05

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

two or three years and look at trends. You need to look at some of the marketing plans that you've had in the last couple of years. What did you try? What worked and what did not work? If you have information about market share, that's good to bring to the strategic planning session. Also, I'm looking for ideas. I go to association meetings and get ideas about what other people are doing.

3:30

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

in their businesses and then that's something that we can discuss. But this is data that I accumulate and I need to accumulate this prior to the meeting and be able to distribute it to the other attendees before we actually hold this strategic planning meeting. I'm sure many of you have heard of the SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

4:21

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And putting together a SWOT analysis is another piece of data that we need for the meeting. And when I talk about a SWOT analysis, I asked all my senior members, so there were four people that I asked for their opinions about what our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were, so that I could put that together in one document.

4:46

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And that helped us when you put together a SWOT analysis. That can be an hour of discussion because why we need a SWOT analysis? We need it because we use our strengths to offset.

5:00

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

our weaknesses. You use our opportunities to offset the threats and that is a really good discussion for any business to have. It takes time to put together this data. It takes time to put together the financials for several years.

5:19

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And also you would want to probably use some trends like what's my gross profit been doing as a percent to revenue? What's my net profit been doing as a percent to revenue? And quarter over quarter for the last three years, how has that been fluctuating? Does that really, if you don't look at it in that regard, that tells you a lot about the revenue that you're going towards.

5:45

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

One of the things that I realized in putting together the gross profit as a percent to revenue, it was that my revenues were going up, my gross profit was going down. And if I hadn't put that together and looked at it and tried to figure out what happened, I would have lost a lot of gross profit in the following time period.

6:11

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

But since I figured it out, I can do something about it. So this is data that you need to look at. So marketing history, what have you done in the last several years? What has been successful? Also, your org chart. Identify your org chart, what it is now, what it should be, and then evaluate your employees. Who are your A players, your B players, and your C players? And have your staff, your executive team, rate their employees.

6:42

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And then there has to be a discussion around the C players. What are you going to do with them? Are you going to up your game with your level of employees?

6:52

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

Then operational issues. If you are a manufacturing company, what's your output per man hour going into your manufacturing? What kind of machinery do you have? How long has it been since you've purchased new machinery? How about some technical background? What IT are you using? Do you need to up your game on that or are there other opportunities out there that you can look at? And then what does your industry...

7:21

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

have for future projections about your industry? What's the new up and coming and what is going out of style? These are all pieces of information that you should have, number one, a conversation around. And when I bring the data, I have an agenda that goes with this data. So I'm not putting together the data just to have it. The data is for conversations.

7:49

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

around all of this data. A good strategic planning session may be two days, three days, it really depends upon the size of your business, but a good strategic planning session might take some time and it's best to have a location away from the office so that people are not interrupted and distracted by things going on in the office.

8:16

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

We used to have a session at hotels. When I wanted to have a creative strategic planning session, we actually spent the morning at Disneyland and walking around Disneyland and looking at what they did to be inventive, creative, different, or to provide an atmosphere for the guests. Disneyland puts a lot of

8:44

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

time and effort into their people and time and effort into the I would say illusions that you as a guest don't really notice but they're there and actually the cast members will tell you about these illusions if you ask. Also, we need so much focus on what the conversations are and believe me as the conversations are around sensitive issues, particularly when it comes to employees,

9:12

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

they may be a little loud. I know we had some very loud discussions.

9:23

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

conversations about certain issues and it wouldn't have been good if other people were around in the office. They would have thought we were having an argument. We weren't. But they're very active and lively conversations that it would be good for you to be able to have.

9:43

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

you know meeting location really does have an input on how you can have a meeting and how effective your meeting is. Now I would have to tell you be careful about trying to have a meeting location that invites too much creativity. I had a strategic planning

10:00

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

meeting on a boat in the harbor Newport Harbor and which is a local area that's beautiful with wonderful very large homes but that really took away from the focus on the meetings because people were busy looking out the windows watching those big glorious houses go by so I would say avoid meeting locations with distractions

10:27

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

But focus on meeting locations where you can have really good conversations, people are not interrupted, and you can get some things resolved in your strategic planning meeting. I mentioned going to Disneyland as a good jolt to the creative juices. Some things that if you have a business where you need more creativity, whether it's physically or mentally, Disneyland really is a great place to go.

10:57

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And you can look at your resources. So one of the strategic planning sessions that we had, we used a video about a business that was sort of stuck in a rut and what the business owners did about that. There are a number of videos out there that are good for businesses to look at. There's one on who moved my cheese.

11:25

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

There's the Road to Abilene.

11:32

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

The art of possibilities. So there are a number of videos that you can look at to start before you even hold, you know, get everybody in the room. It's morning. You're starting your strategic planning session. You've got coffee and donuts or something healthy and start it with a video so that you can have a conversation around that video before you even dive into some of the topics related to your business. So you can get conversations going and started.

11:59

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

You can get good ideas from the internet and again influencers, people that are in your business that have done some great, creative, unusual things.

12:12

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

We got some ideas from our association meetings. We did not do exactly what these people did. And quite frankly, half the time they only say that they did the stuff, but they really didn't. But we took some of what people said they did and modified it to where it wasn't as expensive, but was equally helpful as far as marketing was concerned.

12:38

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

You've put together all of the data that you need. You've decided where you're going to have the meeting. You need to make sure that you identify who should attend and you want to get this meeting on their calendar a month out in advance. So any busy executive is going to have their plate full. So you want to make sure that number one, they have the meeting on their calendar. Two, they have time to review the data.

13:06

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

before they attend the meeting. So all the data that I told you about should be put together in a notebook with dividers identifying the sections that you're going to be talking about as you have the meeting. And it's always good to have some prep for these key executives before they even attend the meeting.

13:29

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

Like I said before, I had input from people in my association. I had input from my vendors. Now, this goes to are you paying your vendors in a timely manner? I personally think you ought to treat your vendors like your partners because they can tell you a lot about what is going on in your competitor's business, and they might do so if you treat them well.

13:58

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

get some input from your vendors and of course if you've only if you've been paying them after 90 days you may not want to do that. So I believe in paying your vendors in 30 days.

14:12

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

and not stringing them out. That's good business practices, my opinion. You're going to treat your vendors like partners. They will help you get information. So you do not want anybody to attend that negative influence in your company. And if you have a key executive that's a negative influence in your company, then shame on you.

14:35

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And you really need to be looking at your personnel policies before you even hold a strategic planning session. But you want to not have a negative person attend the strategic planning session. I feel that brings down the vibe and brings down the creative and brings everything down. Not helpful. I know business owners think that...

15:00

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

they would be the bright facilitator for a strategic planning session I disagree with that I always had a facilitator at my strategic planning sessions because I wanted to be involved in the discussions and if I was focused on who's speaking where are we on the agenda are the notes getting recorded all of that I am not going to be able to run the meeting and

15:26

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

and focus on the discussions. It just doesn't work. So I encourage you to have a facilitator. You can get a lot of executive coaches would be a good facilitator. You want to make sure that, number one, they understand a little bit about your business or at least have seen the data that you put together for the strategic planning session. They should help you put together the agenda and they should help make sure everybody in the room contributes.

15:54

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

So as I am a facilitator, I don't have any skin in the game. I just want a good, lively conversation about each topic. And the facilitator should be able to identify any elephants on the table. So we had a strategic planning session where I have been lucky to have good facilitators for the most part. After the first session, I...

16:22

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

really focused on having a good facilitator. But we had one session where we had a very long-term employee who was creating so many problems.

16:38

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

the operations of the business. She was hugely knowledgeable of course because she'd been in the business a long time, but she was so negative and so mean and so counterproductive because of her attitude that

16:55

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

It created so many problems with operations. Well, her supervisor, of course, did not want to replace her because she was very knowledgeable and knew what she was doing. But we really had to put that on the table. As the elephant in the room, she's either got to shape up or she's got to go. And that conversation lasted at least two hours because there were people in the room that thought that was a bad idea.

17:24

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And there were people in the room that thought she was creating too many problems for the business to let that go on. And it actually worked out that that employee, that issue was addressed. And it really was to the benefit of the organization. So make sure you identify the facilitator can make sure that we draw any elephants in the room.

17:53

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

The facilitator should be able to put together the agenda for the meeting. So a good methodology would be to get input from the executive staff on what they thought the critical issues were in the business, put it together in an organized fashion, but always, always get approval by the CEO before the strategic planning session. You don't want to be talking about something

18:21

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

the strategic planning session that is really off-limits, whatever that might be. So put together the agenda and this should be done before so that people have a chance to look at the agenda, but ultimately must be approved by the CEO. So where I'm getting on this is before the meeting, like a week before the meeting, and this goes into the timeline.

18:49

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

should have the agenda. I should have all the data in a notebook in the order following the agenda. So if I'm going to discuss marketing and if that's the first thing I'm going to discuss, I need to have the tab with marketing up front first thing. So my data in my notebook should follow the

19:13

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

time the agenda items in order of when you're going to be discussing them. Also, when I have an agenda, I have a time when I'm going to start a topic discussion, when that's going to end, where the breaks are, where the lunch is, and in the right order so I know with the agenda how much time we're going to allot and make sure the facilitator can make sure that we start a topic.

19:43

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

Now, if that topic requires additional discussion, then really needs to, in the meeting, you need to say, this is too important to drop and to stop discussing. We need to keep discussing it. That's going to mess up.

20:00

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

up our timeline a little bit as far as the agenda is concerned but maybe we could say okay this is a good dinner topic so let's discuss this at dinner and just remember so at dinner if approved

20:16

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

We always had wine or beer or whatever at dinner and the discussions certainly got more lively. But that has to be something that the CEO and the facilitator discuss in advance. As the meeting progresses, I need to have three to five strategies identified.

20:41

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

we go along. So three to five strategies must come out of the strategic planning session. That's not the only thing that you need to arrive at. So you need to have the action items that will be accomplished to make sure I can get the strategic items done. So, and rule of thumb, I don't have any action items assigned to anybody who's not in the room.

22:21

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

I do not have any action items assigned to anyone who is not in the room. So my key executives are there. Maybe they are not going to do the action items themselves, but they're going to tell me when they're going to assure me that the action item is going to be done and when it is going to be done by.

22:45

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And I'm not going to tell them what they're going to do. They're going to tell me. And this is how you get buy-in to what's going to be done. Now one mistake that happens in strategic planning sessions, especially the first one or two, is that people think that they're going to be able to do these 30 action items in two months.

23:09

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

I'm here to tell you that's not a good idea. Everybody has work to do so it's good to make sure that you, and this is where the facilitator comes in, that those action items have to be spaced out during the year. So if I'm having my strategic planning session in September and it's going to be from for the following January through December, my action items need to be stretched out.

23:37

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And maybe I'm going to do some things or my people are going to do some things in January, February, March, and all the way through maybe October or November. But they're not going to be doing everything that they agree to in January and February.

23:53

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

That's just not feasible. So we need to recognize that my action items, I need to have action items to support my strategies, and I need to make sure those action items are spread throughout the year. And I need to follow up on those action items, so either monthly or every other month.

24:15

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

I need to have a meeting with my team only to go over the strategies and the action items that were agreed to. So there needs to be some follow-up. Now let me tell you what's really effective in this is to, before the follow-up meetings, two weeks before the follow-up meetings, send out reminders of the action items that people said they would do and when.

24:41

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

Because you would be amazed at how many things are done the day before your follow-up meeting. But if you don't have a follow-up meeting, some of those things will never get done. And that's just, it's just a matter of people, the people process. So you've got to be realistic.

25:00

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

and know that everybody is busy everybody has stuff to do and this stuff the action items that we're talking about these are really working on the business and not in the business so we need to make sure that people have time to do these things and they need to have accountability to ensure that they get these things done at the end of my meeting I need to have the three to five strategies

25:29

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

need to have the action items who's going to do what by when and I need to have a methodology for tracking these so here I need to just tell you that during the meeting somebody needs to keep notes and during the meeting whenever there's a ding ding ding this is a good strategy and then the ding ding ding

26:23

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

items that we're going to do to accomplish these strategies, somebody needs to be taking the notes and at the end of every time period, so at the end of every morning, that note taker needs to identify the strategies and then they need to get agreement on who's going to do what and by when so that at the end of our meeting we're not trying to remember

26:49

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

what we agreed on as far as the strategies. We are going to document all of this stuff during the meeting. Now I had a person that helped with the strategic planning meeting.

27:02

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

this was a facilitator and this person took a recording of the meeting and that was his idea of helping this business owner follow up. I think that's a very bad idea. I mean a recording good but not producing notes and not producing strategies and not producing action items during the meeting is not effective in my opinion. Again I'm going to have notes from the meeting.

27:32

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And they will have, I'll have three to five key strategies and everybody is going to agree really as we go along what the strategies are and they're going to agree to the action items. There's usually five or six.

27:50

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

action items per strategy there might be more but at least five to six items per strategy these aren't easy action items so this is not like oh I could I did that last week so I can do that next week no no no these are items when we talk about strategies these are things that you haven't done before so they're not necessarily going to be easy and the people that are doing these action items may not really know what it is that they're committing to

28:19

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

So that's why we need follow up and we need to review these action items. And again, the action items need to be clear on who's going to do the action item and when it's going to be done by.

28:37

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

So, now who takes these notes is a good question. I know that's what you were thinking. Who's going to take these notes? Well, I had a variety of people. I tried to take notes myself. I don't think that's a good idea. I had an employee that I trusted implicitly who was not going to talk about the strategy meeting outside the strategy meeting. That was my assistant.

29:02

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

I didn't have somebody in the company then I would ask the facilitator if they could provide somebody that was a note taker to be able to do so. Now the person that's taking notes has to be cognizant enough.

29:18

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

identify the things that need to be documented and so it can't be you know if I say note taker this can't be somebody that is knows nothing this has to be somebody that's pretty knowledgeable that's able to document what the discussions are and and follow up with good notes the action items I know you're wondering what on earth

29:45

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

they going to look like? Well the action items need to be very clear and measurable. They need to be measurable. So I'm not going to say that I'm going to improve customer service. No, that's not measurable.

30:00

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

What is measurable is that I will go from a 90% satisfaction rate to a 95% satisfaction rate with my customers in six months. So that's clear and measurable and I'm going to say I'm going to do this and so that's me. If I have somebody there in the room that should be responsible for that, that would be them.

30:26

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

and they're going to tell me when they're going to get this done by. Now they don't have to necessarily do the action item, but they need to be responsible for the individuals in the company to get this done. The most effective action item follow-up is monthly. Like I said, you can do this every other month or quarterly, but the most effective follow-up to make sure you get things done is monthly.

30:53

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

And then somebody that's a CEO really should drive accountability. And if somebody doesn't get something done, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about the accountability if somebody does not get their action item done? Glad you asked.

31:09

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

Well, that requires a discussion with a person, not in public, but on a one-to-one, the CEO is going to sit down with this person that didn't do what they said they're going to do and have a discussion. So why didn't you get that done? What can I do to help you get that done? And then the follow-up on that, though, if you have coached somebody a couple of times and they have not done what they said they were going to do,

31:39

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

I've got some people that are going to disagree with what I'm going to say next. But I think you do not invite them to the next follow-up meeting. And that's telling them, look, you're not doing what you said you were going to do. You're not allowed to play. And an executive that does not follow up on something they said that they would do.

32:02

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

should not be in the room and maybe they will end up getting demoted because they aren't following up and they're not accountable to getting things done. In fairness, you should let people know a couple of weeks in advance the follow-up items so people get busy in there.

32:24

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

day to day. So a couple of weeks in advance or even a week prior to, you should send a list of the action items and what people said that they would do and when they said they would do it by. Success! This is the fun part. You would be so amazed at what you can accomplish by identifying strategies and following up on them. I know my competitors did not

32:49

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

strategic planning meetings and follow up on their strategies. And I took market share away from my competitors on a regular basis and they made it easy. So you be that company that takes market share away from your competitors by following up on your strategies. And then when you have a success, celebrate. Have a nice dinner when you've accomplished something great.

33:15

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

just find a way to celebrate you need to look at your strategies on a you know at least a quarterly basis and see if your strategies make sense

33:26

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

because maybe you thought something made sense and then when you go out there and actually try to do something with it, you find that you're mistaken and maybe it wasn't such a good idea or you find out something isn't cost effective. So you plan to do, we actually plan to go into a particular market, but to get all of the paraphernalia involved in going into the specific market was going to cost

33:53

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

thousands and thousands of dollars and I really didn't think that the payback was going to make that what we had talked about worth it so you may look at your strategies and think hmm that doesn't really make sense can we tweak it a little bit so that we can come up with a different strategy so you need to look at your strategies and evaluate the validity and then your vision does your vision make sense or maybe you need to

34:20

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

You have a bigger vision. So these are things that can come out of your strategic planning meeting and then plan your future meetings. So make sure that that's on the agenda for next year because what you want to do is start planning. So our strategic planning meetings were August, September. They were before the budgeting process or before we finished the budgeting process, I should say, because we started the budgeting process also in August and September for

34:49

S… Speaker 2 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

to have that completed for a November board meeting. So make sure you have your meetings planned in advance. You do want to make sure that whatever you've planned, you can include in your budget. So that will dictate really when you are going to have your meetings. I hope this information about a strategic planning session helps, what's involved, what you need, how it's going to work, and how you follow up.

37:49

S… Speaker 1 (ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1)

This can really, really help you move the needle in your business and I encourage all of you to hold a strategic planning meeting and see where that takes you and how much further you can evolve in your business.

ScreenRecording_٠٥-٠٦-٢٠٢٦ ٢١-٥٣-٢٢_1

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