In this episode: You wouldn’t drive across the country without a route. Jon Peyton explains why a business shouldn’t run without a strategic plan either. He lays out how to break a five-year vision into yearly goals and 90-day priorities, and walks through the eight core areas every plan should cover, from marketing to sales.
Key insights
- Without a plan, every “I don’t know” is a chance to get derailed.
- A five-year vision is far enough out to be meaningful and close enough to be realistic.
- Break it down: five years into one-year goals, one year into 90-day priorities. Then you can track progress and adjust as the market changes.
- A strong plan covers eight areas: marketing, planning, finances, legal protection, leadership, team, operations and sales.
- When everything before it is done well, sales becomes solving problems rather than pitching.
Episode timeline
- 0:00 The entrepreneur’s plan
- 0:41 Would you take a trip without planning it?
- 2:08 From idea to traction, then what?
- 4:11 Why a five-year vision
- 5:37 Five years, one year, 90 days
- 7:02 The eight core areas of a strategic plan
- 8:21 Protecting what you build
- 9:17 Building the right leadership team
- 9:46 The right people in the right seats
- 11:35 Documenting operations
- 14:06 Sales: solving problems, not pitching
- 19:18 Without accountability, the plan drifts
The episode in brief
You wouldn’t travel without a plan. Few people hop in the car for a cross-country trip without thinking about the route, the stops, the fuel or the time off. Every “I don’t know” is a chance for the trip to go wrong. A business is no different. You may have found the market, built the product, shared the message and earned some traction. Then what? What’s the next level, and how do you get there?
Start with a five-year vision. Anything beyond five years is usually a pie-in-the-sky goal. Five years is realistic enough to plan around. Break it into one-year goals, then into 90-day priorities that stack toward each year’s target. That lets you track progress, see whether you’re still heading the right way, and stay nimble when the market shifts.
The eight core areas of the plan. Jon walks through each:
Marketing. Understand your market, your position in it and your audience’s pain points.
Planning. Decide how you’ll execute on what the market wants.
Finances. Determine how much you need and where it will come from: savings, a bank, friends and family, or reinvesting every dollar and growing slower.
Legal. Protect what you’re building in your dealings with contractors, vendors and customers.
Leadership. Put leaders in place who push for growth and give honest feedback.
Team. Make sure people are in the right seats. Move them when a seat doesn’t fit, and when nothing works, have the hard conversation and help them find their next step.
Operations. Document your systems and processes so you can tell whether the team is executing correctly and within budget.
Sales. If everything before it is done well, sales is the easy part. The salesperson’s job becomes understanding the customer’s problem and showing how the solution fits, not pitching people who were never the right audience.
Accountability makes it work. When everyone from leadership to the front line helps shape the plan, everyone is on the same page and accountable to it. If you’re overspending, being taken advantage of or hearing customer complaints, there’s usually either no plan or no one holding the business to it.
Key action items
- Write your five-year vision. Keep it to one page, covering where the business will be, who it will serve and what it will look like.
- Set this year’s goals and next quarter’s priorities. Choose three to five priorities for the next 90 days that move you toward the annual goal.
- Score your plan on the eight areas. Rate marketing, planning, finances, legal, leadership, team, operations and sales, and start with the weakest.
- Schedule a quarterly review. Put a recurring date on the calendar to check progress and adjust.
Listen next: Episode 14: Entrepreneurship, Money and the ROI
This episode is educational and isn’t legal, tax or financial advice. Speak with your own attorney and advisers about your situation.