Three Ideas for Next-Level Growth
I enjoyed my interview with Brandon Gano on his Harmonious at Lunch Podcast. We both believe in the importance of strategic planning for business growth. In our interview, I emphasized the need for entrepreneurs to step back from the day-to-day operations of their business and think about the bigger picture. I recommend using a one-page strategic plan and holding quarterly planning sessions to set clear goals and track progress. We also discussed the importance of trust within a team and the need to address the biggest challenges facing the business. I reminded listeners that I offer coaching and facilitation services to help entrepreneurs implement these strategies. Listeners are encouraged to take action and implement at least one idea from the episode to accelerate their business growth in the next 90 days.
Transcript
Announcer (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of Harmonious At Lunch, the show that fuels your business success. I’m Brandon Gano, your host and guide through the world of Harmonious Business Growth. Today, we’re unlocking powerful strategies with industry experts to help your business thrive, your business owner, entrepreneur, or executive. You are in the right place. Join me and our incredible guest today on the journey to clarity, growth, and success. It is time to revolutionize your approach to business. Let’s dive in with another episode of Harmonious At Lunch.
Brandon (00:34):
Welcome back. We’ve got another episode, some more bite-sized business advice for you. I have a special guest. His name is David Greer, and he made a massive promise to deliver three ideas that are going to accelerate your business in the next 90 days on this episode. I’m excited to dive in and he’s already speaking my language. The first thing he said to me was strategic planning. So before you fall asleep, don’t worry, we are going to keep this entertaining. I love strategic planning. I promise you we’re going to have fun. Before we get any further there, David, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
David (01:04):
Thanks Brandon. It’s great to be here.
Brandon (01:07):
Yeah, so let’s start right there. Okay, because I at my company, what if we love strategic planning, we always start there with our clients. Everyone rolls their eyes. What is so unique about strategic planning for you and why is it so crucial to start there?
David (01:24):
In my experience, entrepreneurs, we get caught up in running our business or being in our business and responding to the next fire, the next email, the next phone call, the next sale, the next delivery, whatever that is. But I think to create long-term success and to create greater success for ourselves, we need to step back and work the vernaculars work on the business to think about the business more holistically with a bigger picture. And we can’t do that if we’re just totally caught up in the operation of our business. I kind of liken it to we get caught up in the business and we’re basically looking down to see if our foot is going to step on a rock in the next step we’re going to take, we try and avoid that rock, not step on it. Strategic planning asks us to actually lift our head and look ahead and say, well, we actually on a path that we want to be on.
(02:17):
Like is that mountain up ahead? Is that the one we want it to go for? Or have we completely lost our way? And in a lot of cases as business owners, we lose our way, we lose sight of our original vision or we lose sight of the thing that really motivated us to start the business. And I think you have to take conscious effort to do this work to think about your business in the bigger picture. I use a framework from a guy Vern Harnish. He has this thing called a one-page strategic plan that a ton of my entrepreneur friends I really believe in, and I become a specialist in that. And the recommendation for that planning mechanism is you get offsite once a quarter and plan the next quarter, and then once in the year you get offsite for two days and you really look deeply into your business.
(03:09):
And the core kind of fundamental. When I first learned about Vern, I took a course from him in 2007, the eye eye-opening thing for me was he started with where do you want your business to be in three to five years? And that blew my mind. What look out that far. And when I was at university, I joined a young software startup. I stayed for 20 years. I built it into a global powerhouse. And we planned like many entrepreneurs plan, we just [did] incrementally better than last year, but especially towards the end where I had a major blow up with my co-founder or with the founder of the business. We should have been looking three to five years and the end of the computing platform we specialized in and we kind of were, but we really weren’t. So again, three to five years, where’s the markets you want to operate in? What are the key thrusts and capabilities that you want to build? What are three to five? Again, everybody tends to overplan too many things, then work backwards. So what do you need to achieve this year to set you up so that you can be where you want to be in three years? And again, I’d say if a business can achieve five major goals in a year, that’s a lot.
(04:24):
Entrepreneurs tend to have too many goals rather than too few because we fear that we’re going to miss out on something if we don’t have this really big list. But the truth is we don’t really get anything done when we have 12 goals. And then what do you need to do this quarter to get you to where you want to go this year? And again, I really work hard. Part of my work as a facilitator is to get senior leader, get entrepreneurs and their senior leadership teams to agree on a four to five goals for the quarter. Big picture goals, clear finish lines. We’re not that good at setting goals where we can unequivocally get to an end of a quarter and we can stop and we can say, did we achieve this or not? So a goal might be let’s improve customer service. Well, what does it mean to improve customer service?
(05:16):
How do you measure customer service now? Oh, we don’t. So maybe a goal for the quarter is have some kind of survey that you give to some percentage or every customer, and that’s the goal for the quarter. The next quarter we can work on, depending on what the feedback we get, whether we need to improve that. And that’s kind of the essence is get offsite, get out of the business for high growth businesses, which I would say anything that’s growing at 10 to 15% year over year revenue growth or higher, we need to be meeting at least once a quarter because a business, this is growing one or 2%. When you’re growing 15%, what happens in a quarter is what happens to a one or 2% growing business in a year. So that’s why your pace needs to be at a different level. I also like quarters because the quarter is 13 weeks. You can get a lot of shit done in 13 weeks, and if you picked really badly and you hit it off wildly in a wrong direction, 13 weeks is enough time left in the year for you to course correct and go, oh, well that experiment didn’t turn out the way I expected it to and move in a completely different direction. Whereas if you go a whole year down that path and you haven’t really looked and taken feedback and seen whether you’re successful or not, you can spend a lot of time and not get anywhere.
Brandon (06:45):
Yeah, I mean I love everything that you just said mostly because it overlaps almost identically with what we do with our clients. So we’re very much on the same page here. I’m curious to hear the feedback you get when you start doing this with clients. What we usually hear is A, it’s not sexy, so people don’t do this kind of work. And that’s the first misconception because it’s absolutely foundational to growing a company of any size. But especially where we’re talking today in that upper six to 7, 8, 9 figures and beyond, you have to do this. So the pushback that we get is the standard goal setting or strategic planning. I’m going to put that in big air quotes that we’re taught as entrepreneurs is to write a list of goals on a sheet of paper and review them at the end of the year. So already what you said contradicts that because you said quarterly, not once a year, which I completely agree with. But when you’re taking people through this process for the first time or even the first couple of times, really what do you find is the biggest shift that they make from putting these big goals on pieces of paper that they never look at to actual concrete, measurable goals that they then will review in 12 to 13 weeks?
David (08:05):
So feedback. By the way, I want to, when I start a session, I always ask everyone’s expectations for the planning session. And my expectation at the top always is have fun. It’s like no one, unless you’re in the medical field or healthcare, like no one’s going to die if you make a bad decision. You just got to kind of keep it right size. A few things are people learn things that they were totally unexpected. I’ve also seen repeatedly information surface from someone on the senior leadership team that was absolutely critical to another person’s success in which they had absolutely no idea about some critical decisions that were being made. And again, it’s not like anyone was being mean or holding back information, they just didn’t understand the context of why this information would be important to the other part of the business. There’s all of these insights that are revealed for super high performing teams. The other thing is oftentimes these quarterly planning sessions is literally the only time they’re all in the same room in the quarter. They’ll have weekly meetings, which tend to be very operational. They’re often semi mixed, hybrid kind of zoom and in person.
(09:34):
And some of my entrepreneurs try and force me to not have the coffee breaks, and I push back really hard on that because I think that’s maybe where the best work gets done is people just go have a break. We’re going to take 15 minutes if you have to go answer your emails, answer your emails. But then some of these casual conversations happen, and I always make sure that we don’t bring in lunch. Well, we might bring in lunch, but we try and do it in a way that gets us out of the room, out of the break and talking about, and almost anything except the planning. Again, that’s where this kind of some things can emerge and they also emerge also. I mean, I have a process for how I run these sessions. So they tend to unearth the biggest challenge, my experience in businesses is the biggest challenge is getting the issue on the table. Everyone walks around it or well, they might not know what it is or everyone knows what it is, and oftentimes it’s the entrepreneur is the biggest block, but no one wants to let the entrepreneur know.
Brandon (10:42):
Don’t say oftentimes it’s every time,
David (10:47):
But in my experience, businesses can fail if you do not identify the biggest problem. But I’ve never run across a case where the biggest elephant in the room got identified. Sometimes you have to take very drastic action, and sometimes that action is very painful. You have to lay off half your people, so you’re going to have enough cash, but the business survives and goes on and moves ahead. And in three years time, it performs at a level that has never performed at because the biggest problem actually got spoken. A lot of my work is to try and elicit that and to build trust within teams that they’ll trust each other enough to be willing to put the problem on the table. Because a lot of it, if we look at Patrick Lencioni’s, five dysfunctions of the team, the bottom of his pyramid is trust. If you don’t have trust, then you’re not going to trust the biggest issue that you have with the table if you don’t trust other people to respect you.
Brandon (11:43):
Yeah, the trust is huge. It’s got to be there or else no one’s going to even want to share that whatever they think the biggest problem is, there’s no communication. So yeah,
David (11:51):
I also do trust exercises the entrepreneur and with the leadership team typically once a year that are nothing to do directly with planning, but just things to get to know each other better in a deeper level and to practice some vulnerability to the extent that everyone is comfortable with.
Brandon (12:11):
Yeah, no, that’s crucial. So you’ve already overdelivered on the promise of three things to accelerate your business in the next 90 days. If you go back and listen to the first part of this episode, you could unpack that and spend weeks doing this kind of work in your business. It’ll blow your mind the results that you get. But if you can, and it’s okay if you say no, we’ll just move on. I don’t edit things, so we’re not going to edit it out, but we will move on. Could you give us the high level overview of how you structure one of these one day retreats with your companies? I think that’s going to be super valuable for people, whether they want to do it on their own or if they do want to bring in a facilitator like you to help them with it.
David (12:53):
I start with going around the room and asking everybody what their expectations are for the day. We might not meet their expectations, but we certainly won’t meet them if they’re not written down. And I’d like actually write them on big 3M sheets and post ’em on the wall. And halfway through the day, I actually go up and look at the sheet and it’s like, yeah, okay, we’re making progress on this expectation and this one and that one. I always start with the success. I always believe in starting any kind of meeting, any kind of meeting, any kind of interaction with something positive, because I think it reframes the discussion if we’re going to go tackle the biggest challenge that the business has ever tried to tackle. It’s very helpful to remind ourselves that in the last quarter we climbed the biggest mountain that the business has ever climbed. So yeah, we’re going to go climb a bigger one, but look, you did K2, now you’re going for Everest.
Brandon (13:52):
It makes sense.
David:
I have a whole bunch of questions about how you’re feeling about the company, where would you put it on a scale of zero to 10? And just to kind of gauge where people are at and some other things. I also have things around cultural values because I believe cultural values are how you really drive high performance. And then the thing that I focus on next is making a list of the biggest challenge, the biggest brutal fact, the biggest stuck. What is someone really stuck on? And we just go around the room and we make a list. It’s trying not to spend too much time discussing the list. You only want to discuss it so that everyone in the room agrees that when we put these words as phrased down that we agree what that problem means. Because sometimes you put it down and it’s like, no, no, that’s a product delivery problem. No, no, that’s a product support problem. So okay, now we have two topics. I don’t know what, I’ll actually put both down.
(14:58):
And then out of that, I do a vote around the table. I give everyone five votes and you can put five votes on one topic, or you can put two votes and one and three another, or most likely people put one vote on five different topics. And then we just go around, we add it up, and that always percolates a list of five or six things. Those are the things in that moment that is top of mind for everyone. And when we come up with a plan, we may not solve all of them, but it informs our decision making. And then when we go to do the goals for the quarter, so let’s talk, it’s a quarterly planning session. Then what I do is I pull up the goals for the year. I pull up the list of biggest challenges that we’ve discussed. Before we do that, I will have reviewed with them how they succeeded in the quarter, how many of their goals they achieved, what they didn’t, why, what got in the way.
(15:53):
So from the morning we have the success overall of what’s going well. Then we have the biggest challenge. We have our goals, we have the goals from last time and what worked or didn’t work, and then we decide. Then again, I just focus on making a list. Let’s make a list of things we need to do this quarter. And then as a facilitator, I help massage the list so that they are very measurable goals that they’re not that you can, I’ll ask people, I say, if we meet three months from now, how are we going to know absolutely whether we’ve got across this goal or not? Because the way you’ve stated it, I’m not going to know. And I help them restate the goals, but it’s not my job to tell them what the goals should be. It’s just my job to help them make it clear and make sure there’s a clear finish line. And then again, I do a voting process and occasionally the entrepreneur knows more, has a bigger strategic vision, and they may put some limits on that. We’re not going to talk about this or I’m going to have to do a financing, but I don’t want to involve all of you and I don’t need to. And I don’t want to put it on the list. That’s my personal rock for the quarter, but it’s not like the teams.
(17:07):
I’m cautious about that. And then again, so what comes out of that, again, if it’s like we agreed that we’re going to have no more than five goals for the quarter, then I give five votes, five things percolate to the top, hopefully sometime there’s some ties at the bottom, then we have to have a tie off and sometimes there’s the voting and then I go to write it in the plan and then half the team goes, no, no, no. That actually isn’t the number one thing. And a lot of this I just do with a plan onto a piece of 3M sheet because what I find is when it’s actually written down and people can torque against it, they have something to torque against. It’s not just talk. It’s not just in their head. It’s like they get to go vote on it, they get to see it, and then they see where things percolate and it makes it a lot easier for them to contrast and compare and argue and debate. And at the end of it, we come out with what’s the top list of four or five things, and then I make sure that there’s only one and one only person accountable for each of those calls.
Brandon (18:15):
Yeah, that’s huge. The follow-up to make sure it actually gets in place. If you’re keeping track here as a listener, we’re up to 92 things that will accelerate your business in the next 90 days. I’m going to have to retitle this episode. David, first of all, thank you for this absolute goldmine and thank you for sharing all of this with us because I think if you are as a listener, if you just take this, like I said, dissect this, put it on 50% speed, take detailed notes. There’s a lot of stuff here. I don’t know what David charges. I know what we charge to do something like this, and you would’ve just saved a lot of money by listening to this episode. That should take you 20 minutes in 40 minutes and taking notes. If you do that, watch what your business does in the next 90 days. So David, thank you again. But what I want to know is if someone wants to go through this process, if they want to bring someone in you, I will put your website on the screen here. What can they expect as the first step to work with you and what is it going to look like working with you over 90 days, six months a year and beyond? And what’s that going to look like for their business?
David (19:24):
I have two primary service areas as a coach. One area is I do one-on-one coaching with entrepreneurs, and that I always start with a free coaching call. Something you’re stuck with and we talk through it in an hour and we see if we think we can work together. Facilitation is much the same, but I might have a longer conversation, better understand where you’re stuck, what you’re looking for. And again, I only want people to hire me who really, it’s not that we agree on everything, but that we will get along. We see eye to eye on one-on-one coaching. I want you to have the best coach for you. And that might not be me, even with my experience and knowledge, but it’s just not a fit, and I’m okay with that. I would much rather you had someone who’s a better fit.
(20:18):
So first of all, it’s the entrepreneur having a fit. And then this facilitation process, you’ve got to commit to it over time because initially it’ll feel like you get benefit initially, but the real benefit is 18, 24 months down the road as you kind of slow start to rise. But as you really build the process, then you do get kind of that hockey stick growth and improvement in the business. For example, I only take on clients with facilitation where the entrepreneur agrees to a year. To get together to do a two day annual planning session and then to commit to three quarterlies. I mean, it’s a big commitment for me. It’s a big commitment from them, and I get that. But if they’re not willing to make that, then it’s not a good fit because it’s the commitment to the process that creates the change.
Brandon (21:20):
Yeah, that’s true. And I like that model because I think so many people, especially today with the Amazon effect is what we call it, you want things instantly. You want to hire a business coach or a consultant and have a profitable business. You don’t have to work in tomorrow, and it’s not the case, but this is, it’s
David (21:39):
Possible. But not 24 and maybe, but not in 24 hours.
Brandon (21:46):
Yeah, that’s what I mean. Not in a
David (21:48):
Month and probably not in a quarter.
Brandon (21:51):
Yeah, no, it’s definitely a process. And you’ve already given us the first piece of that process that’ll change your life if you, I can’t speak highly enough for everything David said on this episode, and you should have charged to come on here and share that info because it’s absolute gold. So David, thank you so much for coming on. David’s website is in the description down below. If you’re listening, if you’re watching, it’s on the screen. David, can we follow you on social media or follow your journey and hear more success stories from you somewhere?
David (22:20):
Absolutely. Instagram, Twitter, are my principal social media. I have a lot of videos on YouTube including a video on what to look for in a facilitator and what to do if you want to facilitate your own sessions,
Brandon (22:34):
That’s fantastic.
David (22:34):
You can that, and I still have a regularly updated blog and I have my book, Wind in Your Sails: Vital Strategies that Accelerate your Entrepreneurial Growth that shares mine and 10 other entrepreneurs journeys as entrepreneurs and as designed as a resource. When you’re stuck, look it up in the index, read through two to five pages and hopefully you’re unstuck.
Brandon (23:01):
I love it. Alright, there’s absolutely no shortage of David. Go follow him somewhere. Grab his book, go to his website, I’ll make sure he sends me all of that. It’ll be in the description below if you want to check it out. Wherever you are, if you’re listening, if you’re watching, first of all, thank you. We do this for you and we hope you learn something from this episode. Make sure you are subscribed and I want to know the one thing, put it in the comments. Don’t listen to this podcast at all. If you’re not going to take action and go grow your business. That’s why we’re doing this. What is the one thing you’re going to do from this episode? And there was 154 of them you could do. So give me one, put it in the comments, and we’ll see on the next episode of Harmonious At Lunch.
