Do you have a strategic plan or a bunch of goals?

Every business owner wants to grow their business, but very few have a written strategy on how they are going to use their company assets (both financial and nonfinancial) to create a high impact winning position. A clear and written strategic plan is completely different than a goal of growing from $5 million in revenue to $10 million in revenue.

On today’s show, we have Greg Meredith - Founder of Simply Strategic™ - is on the show again to dive deeper into the essential components of an effective - and actionable - strategic plan and how it is different from goals or an operating system (e.g., EOS©). Greg breaks down the 9 Keystones of the Simple Strategic™ process and how it helps you identify your company’s strategy to beat your competitors and win market share — no matter how big your business is.

What You Will Learn

• The definition of strategic planning and what is included in a strategic plan that is actionable
• The difference between strategic planning and an operating system like EOS© or Scaling Up
• How strategic planning and operating systems compliment each other if done right
• Why you need just one strategy that incorporates every aspect of your business
• The 9 Keystones of the Simply Strategic™ approach 
• What the difference between a guide and a facilitator is and why it’s crucial to know which one you are working with
• Different exercises that are in a strategic plan (e.g., the Ansoff Matrix) and how they help compare the tradeoffs between different ideas and strategies 
• Why strategic planning is an underutilized - yet extremely crucial - exercise every visionary needs to go through
• What the ‘opposite strategy’ exercise is and why it’s a great way to vet out ideas
• How to think about the process of incorporating your strategic plan into your company’s financials

Bio:

Greg Meredith is the Chief Strategy Guide at Simply Strategic in Dayton, Ohio. Simply Strategic is a network of strategy guides that bring knowledge and deep business insight to the table when business owners are looking to scale. Greg believes it’s important to be a guide and not a facilitator when working with high level executive clients. He also holds a Masters of Business Administration from The Ohio State University and a BSBA in Finance and Economics from Miami University.

Quotes:

07:49  - “What we say when we’re talking about strategic planning is, what we’re trying to do is create a compelling strategy. There’s a lot of activity that’s going to be around that.” - Greg Meredith

09:13  - “We want an integrated strategy. We want one strategy that incorporates how your business intends to use the assets of your company. [...] How are you going to use those to create a high impact?” - Greg Meredith

16:56  - “We’ve got these nine keystones that are a part of our planning process and one of them is very much about ‘What is your goal? What is your definition of success?’ We call it the bullseye.” - Greg Meredith

18:05  - “How are you going to run your business Monday through Friday, month to month, quarter to quarter? There’s a lot of value when you get that structure and that process and having a really clean operation when you run a professional management system like EOS. But that’s not what we're doing when we’re talking about when we’re talking about developing strategies.” - Greg Meredith

29:52  - “A foundational keystone means, ‘This is what we believe. This is what we understand. These are the things that are available.’ Those three keystones are your doctrine, your bullseye, and your opportunity.” - Greg Meredith

30:05  - “Your doctrines are your core beliefs about your business and your marketing.” - Greg Meredith

35:35  - “Enabling the keystone, it’s all about making it real and saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got this strategy. This is how we make it actionable.” - Greg Meredith

50:30  - “It’s easy to sit in a conference room and create incredible businesses in your mind or even on the whiteboard but when you actually have to go out and implement it… So we help to shine some of that reality into the space of some of our clients.” - Greg Meredith

53:40  - “How unique is [your asset]? How valuable is it? How rare is it? And how do we use them well?” - Greg Meredith

Links and Resources:

Simplystrategic.us

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