Latest / Black Girls Consult TOO! / Episode 89: Unlocking the Full Potential of Strategic Planning

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Episode 89: Unlocking the Full Potential of Strategic Planning · Black Girls Consult TOO!

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: There's a misconception that we don't exist, that somehow our ability to excel at the highest level of our industry is limited, that overcoming barriers as a woman of color would be insurmountable.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: But what would happen if we decided to venture out on our own, despite everything we're up against?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, a healthcare consultant, consulting coach, high performance fanatic wife and proud girl mom.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I help transform female professionals into thriving solo consultants and, just like you, I'm wearing all the hats and doing all the things.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So this podcast is to empower the busy female professionals to move past fear to start and grow a successful consulting business, despite the obstacles you may encounter.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We'll dive deep into consulting practice, business strategy, mindset and more.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So grab your cup of coffee or tea, if that's your thing, and let's get started.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, hello.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dr Angelina Davis, and I am excited that we are getting closer and closer to fall.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: You know I love fall because that is my birthday season.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I am a Libro, so I was born in October, and I always like to tell people that I think October is one of the prettiest months because it's not so hot and humid.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I'm in the South, so it's not as hot and humid.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: The sky is often crystal clear.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I promise you.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: If you actually take a look at the sky at that time of year, it is always so beautiful and blue.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It is not very stormy, not a lot of rain.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: It's just actually a rather comfortable season, and for someone who sweats a lot and doesn't like to be hot, I definitely enjoy my fall season.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So I'm super excited that we're getting to that point of the year.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: But what that also means is that we're moving closer and closer to the close of the year and with that I think that there's a lot of pressure and a lot of movement in many of our worlds, in our businesses, in our industries to meet certain goals by the end of the year.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So there is a huge focus on strategy, on developing the right strategy to get us to the finish line.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation, which I hope to be a little bit different from many of our other podcast episodes, is because I want us to talk about strategy and maybe some of the things that we are either forgetting or not necessarily executing properly, and one of the reasons why I want to talk about this is because I know that strategy as a term is thrown around a lot in the business world, but I don't really see strategy being executed in the best way, and when we don't do this, it can cause problems, because we think that we are executing a strategy that will get us to an end result.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: On all actuality, it's not necessarily a strategy, it's just more so of a plan, and they are vastly different, and so that's why I want us to have this conversation and this chat today.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: You know, when we think about strategy, one of the things that I want us to consider is the fact that strategy as a concept is really just a plan as to how we get to our desired result.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So it's not just the plan itself, but we have to also consider what the end result would be.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So the plan that we're developing is focus on an end goal, an end result or the value that we're trying to bring in the business world.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: We're focused heavily on generating and creating value, because it's that customers or clients perceive value.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: That translates into our ability to sell and to generate revenue.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So what I always like to recommend to clients is that we start with the end in mind, and so what this looks like is thinking about what your outcome is, is that you desire, with outcome is that you desire, and focusing on the steps that you need to get there.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: So if your outcome is to land a contract with a local business or firm in your area, but you don't have a relationship with that business as of yet, then part of that strategy needs to entail you becoming more visible in your industry, in your local area, meeting someone who is part of that organization, being able to communicate your value to the right stakeholder who is part of that organization, and then being able to nurture and move that individual or that business through the entire sales process In order to get to the end goal or the end point of converting them to a client.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So when we think about what we want to accomplish is a little bit easier for us to see and understand and know the steps that we need to take in order to get there.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: But many times what we think about our strategies for certain things in a silo.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: So what I mean by this is that we may be focusing on a strategy for visibility and we get so consumed with how we're going to be more visible and, instead of being Focus on becoming more visible for the local business or entity that we want to work with, we are consumed with becoming more visible overall, globally, and when we do that, we begin to miss the mark, because what it takes to become visible, maybe globally or on a much wider scale, is not necessarily what we need in order to get in front of the business that we want to work with within our local area.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: We don't want to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: We don't want to become so consumed and focus on each step and the strategy that it takes to master that step, without understanding where we're trying to go as an end result, because you can Spend all of your time becoming more visible, but is the visibility that you're gaining allowing you to reach the right person to land the business with the local firm or business agency that you wanted to work with in the first place?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: If it doesn't, then that is not an effective approach to getting to the end result, and what I see is that oftentimes this happens.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: It's Kind of the nature of the beast in terms of being in the business world.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: There are so many pieces of the puzzle that allows us to create a successful and growing business, but we have to know what to implement, when to implement it and how to combine those things and execute at the right time.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So, hard of what I want us to think about is what is the end goal that we're trying to accomplish For the rest of this year?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Once you have identified that specific end goal, then what we want to do is to begin to reverse engineer the steps to get there.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: And when we reverse engineering the steps to get there and we're thinking about developing a strategy around each and every one of those steps so that they're executed properly we want to do so with the end goal in mind, meaning that we want to build and design a strategy in the proper context, thinking about the end goal and not necessarily focusing on just the general concept of visibility or the general concept Of marketing.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: We are trying to become more visible and we're trying to market and sell for a specific goal that we're trying to reach by the end of the year.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So this is the first step in terms of developing strategy is that strategy is not just a plan, is a plan to reach an end goal or an end result, and in business, that end result typically is creating some level of value so that that perceived values there in the client wants to move forward.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So that's one of the first things.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Now the second part of this puzzle is the need to maintain a simple and simplistic approach.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Your strategy doesn't have to be complex, and often this is a misconception, because the term itself when we're talking about strategy, we're talking about strategic planning it sounds like something that we are doing in a war room.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: You know, we talk about that often because that is a part of it, and I think that when we visualize that and we think about being in a war room, we're thinking about complexity.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: We're thinking about a lot of moving parts, a lot of different people and, yes, in some circumstances that can be the case, but not early on, not when you're trying to run a business yourself, or not when you have a small team.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Your strategy needs to be simple.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: It doesn't require complexity in order to be massively successful.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: So that's one of the things that we have to remind ourselves is that often the best late strategy is simple.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: One of the reasons why this works is because the more simple and streamlined your approach is, then the more likely it is that you are going to execute in a way that's going to generate a positive result.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: You're reducing the likelihood of failure.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: You're reducing the risk associated with that strategy by keeping it simple.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Every level of complexity that you add is going to also add a level of increased risk, and whenever we multiply that risk on top of risk on top of risk, it becomes problematic.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: It makes it more difficult for us to actually achieve the goal.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that we want to ensure that we're doing is keeping things simple and really looking at complexity in our strategy as being a potential weak spot, because the more complex it is, the more difficult it is to implement and the less likely it is that it's going to work.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: So as we're building our strategy out, we want to make sure that we are keeping it as simple and as streamlined as possible.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: You don't need a lot of steps.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You don't need a lot of people.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: You don't need a lot of team.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Whenever you get to the point where you are overwhelmed by the work and you're trying to figure out how you're going to bring on more and more people or how you're going to delegate more and more steps of the process.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I want you to pause for a second.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I want you to pause and I want you to think is this necessary for me to achieve the end goal?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Because that's the point of the strategy.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And, like I mentioned before, we can get lost, adding complexity because we're not remaining focused on the end goal.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: The end goal has to always be top of mind Whenever you find yourselves in these moments.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I want you to stop and think do I need this step, this process, in order to achieve the end result?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Is it a requirement?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And if it's not, let's think about how we can do things differently.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Let's think about what we can possibly streamline and simplify so that you make it a lot easier for you to achieve that goal without having to rely on so many other people and so many other moving parts.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Also, when you do that, you're going to increase the likelihood of profitability associated with the result that you want to achieve.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: The less you have to spend in terms of help or contractors or any other type of services, programs, platforms, et cetera, the more profitable you're going to be at the end.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: You can do the work without a lot of drag and overhead.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: So I want us to think whenever we get to these moments and we feel overwhelmed, we feel stressed, we're trying to figure out how we're going to make all of this happen, I want us to pause and think do I need all of this in order to achieve the result?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Not, do I want all of it.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Right, there's a lot that we can want, there is a level of service that we may desire to offer, but, once again, the end result needs to be tied to value, and it's the client's perceived value, or the potential client's perceived value, that we're concerned about.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So it's what I'm adding something that the potential client is going to view as being so valuable that they're willing to pay for or pay extra for, if it's not in needs to go, if it's not in needs to go, and we have to get in the habit of asking ourselves that question over and over again.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: It's the question and reminder that we all have to continue to bring up, because it's easy to get drawn in by the nice to haves, because we all want to provide excellent service, we want to be the best, we want to offer the best service out there, but sometimes those added assets that you're putting on your plate are not going to generate the financial return that you desire, nor is it going to result in any improvement for the client that they are going to look at as being highly valuable.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: So we have to be able to differentiate between the two.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, is that we do a lot of strategic planning and I feel like in our world we're used to talking about the SWOT analysis and we're all about, you know, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: We need to identify these things when we're developing and building our strategy, and then what I see is that we don't use it.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: We don't use it and we get in the midst of building everything out and we run into a threat and we have no idea what we're going to do about it.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: We don't know how we're going to adapt, we don't know how we're going to adjust, and that was the whole point of doing the strategic planning process.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: When you were going through that process, part of it was thinking through how am I going to adjust, how am I going to adapt?
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: How am I going to account for these things that may occur?
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: One of the things I love to teach my clients in terms of offer development is think about the objections ahead of time, not think about them before you get on a sales call, think about the possible objections when you're building your offer, because if you think about them, then your offer is going to be much stronger and then you will face fewer objections when you get to the point of making a sale.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: But many times we do this work, we do it, but we don't actually use it.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: We're not actively implementing it ahead of time, we're not thinking about the opportunities ahead of time.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So when it comes time to pivot or adjust, we're going back to ground one and we're wasting time and we're spending more resources instead of already knowing what the opportunities are and knowing exactly how we need to adjust, pivot and move forward.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: That was the whole process that we were going through when we were doing the strategic planning.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: That was the purpose of it.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But many times we do the work and we don't implement it.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: We do the work, we don't use it, and that is part of our oversight.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: That costs us tremendously sometimes.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: So as you're thinking about developing strategy, I want you to also think about how you're going to utilize this data, utilize this information to make your business more successful.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: It's not about doing this work one time.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: You are not examining opportunities and threats and weaknesses and even your strengths one time.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: You are doing this over and over again.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: You're constantly on the lookout for these things so that you don't lose ground when it's time to make adjustments.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Part of the skill of creating a winning strategy is knowing that one likely your first strategy is not going to work.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Part of the skill of creating a winning strategy is knowing that, more than likely, the strategy you create the first time is not going to work.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Even the best way strategy can fail because life is going to life.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Things are going to change.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: It's not going to work like it does in a textbook, so we have to be able to adjust to that.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of our world in consulting is that we're critical thinkers, we're problem solvers, but sometimes we have to help ourselves out.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: We don't need to problem solve from ground zero.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: We need to problem solve from a point of knowledge and past experience and insight that we've already done in terms of the work to investigate these things and then put them to use.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: That's how we're able to help others adapt and modify quickly.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: We need to do that also for ourselves.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Many times we put our business development on the back burner.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: We have to stop doing that, because in order for you to have a successful business that thrives, you have to constantly be doing this work.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: You have to constantly be thinking about how you're going to get to an end result.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: You have to constantly be focused on making sure you're remaining streamlined and simple in your approach.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: You're going to have to constantly be doing the work of knowing how you're going to adapt, modify, adjust or pivot.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: That's part of the process, and you have to do that for yourself while you're doing it for others.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: But I want us to take this time as we're moving into this heavy season, as some of you are approaching new fiscal years, some of you are getting ready for holiday season, some are going into this push before taking time off as we get closer to the holidays later in the year, and you have goals that you're trying to accomplish.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: You have financial goals that you set at the beginning of this year that you are trying to see through, and you want to make sure that you get to that end result.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: So, in order for you to do that, you need a strategy.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: You need a strategy which is your plan to get to that end result.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: You need to make sure that strategy does three things.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: One, that you're able to reverse engineer it so that you're focused at all times on the end result and not gain loss in each step of the process.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: You need to make sure that strategy is simple simple enough for you to execute, and do that with the resources that you currently have, or that the resources that you can easily get and afford, if that's the case.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And the third thing is that you need to use your strategic planning, the work that you did to identify your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, your threats.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: The work that you did sitting down, kind of combing through data, looking at trends, finding insights, trying to figure out where you wanted to go when you crafted your initial plan.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: You need to use it when that plan is maybe not going as anticipated.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Put that into work, put that into implementation, Implement it Right, use it.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So I hope this conversation helps you.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I want us to think about strategy differently.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I want us to stop thinking about strategy as just solely a plan that we come up with that's not attached to all of these other things.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It's attached to an end goal, and the end goal for us in business is to create value.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: It's attached to the fact that it needs to generate an outcome.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: It's attached to the fact that it needs to be simple enough for us to execute and to implement effectively, and it is attached to a deeper strategy and planning process that allows us to figure out what we need to do if a threat arises or if our weaknesses cause some level of failure, and we need to identify opportunities for us to adapt, modify, adjust or pivot.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: That is the whole process of developing a winning strategy.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: So I want you to go out there, I want you to use this and I want you guys to execute.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: We have a few more months left in this year and it's more than enough time to reach every goal that you have set, for it's just a matter of doing the work, and we all have to just get out there and we need to crush it, because it is certainly possible.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So listen, if you enjoyed this episode and you got something out of it, I want you to share it with a friend, and if you enjoyed this episode or any other, leave your five star review and rating on Apple podcast and Spotify.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: It helps the podcast reach more and more people, and I just can't wait to have a conversation again with you next week.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Don't forget, reach out to me on LinkedIn or Instagram.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I love to have those conversations that keep them going.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: So I have to tell you guys that every podcast episode.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: So you keep reaching out, because I like to continue to have those conversations and I can't wait to talk to you again soon.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: All right, guys, bye, have a great one.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to the black girls console to podcast.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple podcast, subscribe and share it with a friend.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting, and you can help us do that Also.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I love to hear from you.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: So let's connect at Dr Angelina Davis on Instagram or LinkedIn and don't forget to visit excelatconsultingcom for more information to support your consulting journey.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Until next time, take care.