Kris Plachy: Let’s talk about everybody’s favorite topic. I want to talk about business strategy for women-owned businesses. Let’s do it. Well, hello, and welcome to the Leadership is Feminine podcast, I am your host, Kris Plachy. Now, we’re going to do a thing. We’re going to talk about business strategy today. And what I’m going to say may or may not be something you’ve heard before. And that’s okay, right? I’m just going to talk about this from what I observe in women-owned businesses when it comes to strategy, and how there are really some pretty foundational approaches that you can have questions to answer to make sure that your strategy is in alignment with you and is something you can leverage to grow and achieve the goals that you have for your business.

<a name="_GoBack"></a> So first things first, whether this is popular or not, I guess I’ll just say it, I think that—well, I know—if you Google business strategy, you will get a kajillion models to follow. And you will also get a kajillion things you could buy that would teach you how to follow those models. And the majority of the kajillion, in my opinion, are confusing, cumbersome, and infused with and informed with a masculine business framework.

Now, I don’t want to say that’s wrong. And I think there’s a tremendous amount we can learn from all of it. I just know, when I work with my clients who are women business owners, we approach and think about what we do a little bit differently. And we can leverage models that have worked for years under masculine leadership. And we can also begin to leverage strategies and models that align more to us and honor our strengths and our assets that come to us naturally.

But what I don’t think is at issue and should be argued is that we need a strategy. Businesses without strategy, do suffer, they struggle. And I think we can all identify with there being moments in our lives, in our business lives, where we really haven’t had a strategy, where we’ve been confused as heck about, what the heck am I doing? I have certainly had those moments in my business. And I actually find that probably every 24 to 36 months, I kind of go through it, because I want to change the strategy of my business, because I want different results. But for me, the results that I desire, the results I want to create the world are usually what come to me first, and then I have to figure out what will be the strategy that will achieve that. And that, my friends, is the process, okay?

So really, that’s the first thing I want to talk about, is what is it that you want to achieve? If we’re going to have an effective strategy, we have to have a clear result. And I want to offer that for a majority of us women types who have our own businesses, we have what I call heart centered business, which means that we started what we’re doing because we have a mission or purpose on our heart that’s bigger than whatever the product or services that we offer, that we are kissed with something that we want to put in the world because we are led through some level of heart meaning.

So the work that I do with all of you is really compelled by the belief that I have, that I want to have an impact on other women. I want to see other women thrive. My vision is to prove the power of one thriving woman. I know that when you thrive, the world around you thrives, and I just know what a difference that can make. So I feel very, very attached to this very service-purpose part of what I do. And so and I also chose being a business owner, because I wanted the autonomy and the independence and the freedom that comes with it and the potential. I make, I don’t even know, 10? 100? I don’t even know what it is, times more money than I made when I worked in a corporate leadership role. My potential to earn for myself and my family and have a legacy of wealth for my family is so much more vast. And at the same time, I’m able to help more people.

I remember when I left my corporate job, one of my colleagues at the time said, “Oh my gosh, it’s going to be so exciting to watch you take what you do and affect so many more people outside of the walls of this company.” And I didn’t get that, but now I do. So the strategy has to start with what it is you want to create and the result that you want in the world. But I would also ask you not to just think about what you want the business to create, because I want you to also think about the life that you want to live. Because as business women, what we tend to do is we say, “Oh my gosh, I want to help 5,000 female entrepreneurs change their lives by learning how to lead and manage team.” And we don’t pay attention to the kind of life we want to create at the same time.

And that’s why so many women who end up working with me, are haggard and exhausted and overwhelmed, because they built businesses at their own expense. Because the strategy they created did not leverage other people’s talent. And so they are completely enmeshed in everything to do with their business. So they’re exhausted, and they want to burn the whole damn thing down. But now they’re making all this money. How do I do that? I like this part. I like the revenue I’m making. I love my profit. I love what I’ve been able to do with my family and take care of my life. But I don’t want to keep following this strategy for what my life looks like. Because what my life looks like is not what I wanted, I’m exhausted, I’m not spending time. I’m working at night. I’m in these grueling launches, you know, whatever it is that you’re doing.

So set a result, consider that, but consider the result in terms of also the life you want. So there’s the business result, and the life you want. So I’m in the middle of this right now, my result is clear. I know what my revenue goal is, and I know what my life goal is, which is to build a business that creates an opportunity to have intimate, powerful relationships with successful and open minded and wise women, while having the flexibility and the freedom to spend time with my kids, go to my daughter’s soccer games, and travel to be with them in various locations. I have one more year where my twins are home, they’ll be seniors in the fall. And then my daughter is going to college not too far from here, but about two hours. So we want to go to as many of her games as we can. And my son is probably going to go to Southern California, and my other son is in Southern California. And so we want to be able to see them.

So I don’t want to create a business that keeps me chained into an office or out on the road so much so that I’m missing out on what I believe will be some of the best years of my life and of the lives of my kids. So I am playing with that strategy. But we have to get the result clear, you guys, you have to get it. And the next step is once we do that, once we look at this big result: this is what I want to create in the business, this is the life I want to live to complement that business where I want those to go together, not be at the expense of one another, then the next step of that strategy is to truly sit with whether or not you believe it’s possible. Do you believe it’s possible to have that business and that life?

And anywhere in there you say, “Yeah…Maybe…Oh, I don’t know,” we have to evaluate that, because that will prevent you from executing on the strategy. Whatever strategy we end up putting in place, steps to that, we won’t execute because we doubt. And we cannot doubt. And I don’t doubt. I don’t doubt what I see as a result. I don’t doubt it. I don’t know how it will happen, but I trust that it will come, but I do not doubt that the result is possible.

So that’s first then what we have to do is consider, okay, so knowing this is the result I want here, this is what I want in my life. Yes, I know it’s possible. Now we have to ask ourselves, okay, if that’s all true, what are the critical drivers, the vital few to the revenue goal that I have? What are they? And all of us run different businesses, so all of us that looks different, right? But those are your products, those are your services, those are your offers. What are they? Make it up, write them down: these are the five things I do that drive revenue. Now, do you want to keep them? Right now’s the time to decide. And then we take it from there, right?

Then we look at each one of those and we look at, okay, where am I now? Where do I want to go? And what are the resources required to make that happen? Now what we do in CEO Immersion, which is going to happen at the end of August, I’m going to talk to you about that here in a second. But what we do in Immersion is we really blow this up, because a critical part of your strategy has to be team. And why I focus on building and designing teams, exclusively for women in business who run their own business, is because I think we do it differently. And honestly, I think we do it better. And when you know how to consider that team part of this strategy, it absolutely becomes gasoline to your plan, it fuels it.

And then when we come over here to our life, if this is the life I want to live, then there’s the same process. What are the vital few that I will tap into, to live that life, to get that result, to have the freedom and independence and autonomy to do the things I want with my kids and my husband, when I want? What is that? Maybe it’s, I’m going to live somewhere else, I’m going to have a different house, I’m going to save more money, I don’t know. But I need to look at the vital few. And then when we get into the resources that support us with achieving that vital few, that’s where all of the testing is. And that’s where all of the failure is. So what so many people and models and people that you pay money to don’t talk to you about is failure. And failure is a business strategy. Failure is part of strategy: testing, failure, testing, failure, testing, failure.

I have colleagues, friends, who are marketing geniuses, and they have failures. For every one successful marketing campaign, they have 15 failures. For every successful product launch, they have 10 that were off. So your strategy can’t just be focused on how everything will go when everything’s perfect. Your strategy has to plan for failure. So for example, I’m running a CEO Immersion at the end of August, that’s part of the strategy for our results. And the CEO Immersion, as I mentioned before, is a week, it’s five days of intense… It’s like CEO camp, you guys. It is camp. It is 8:30 to 5, and then the rooms will be open till 10 or 9pm in the hotel, and it is all day full in building, learning, getting coached on, getting advisement on every foundational team system you need to have in place to build an amazing team. You will leave that week, not only knowing things, but they will be built. They will be written, built, documented in a system that we are calling your team knowledge base, it will all be there. I am so frickin excited about this, I can’t even tell you because I know that’s how to help you get the best results.

But here’s what I know. I don’t know if anybody’s going to want it. It may not be a thing. It may be something I think is amazing and nobody else does. I don’t know. But I’m all in. But I’m already accounting for “this could fail”. And I’m not going to take it personally. Although I really do think people would be dumb not to do this. That’s my opinion. It’s just going to be such a game changer. I can’t even… I think about the clients I’ve worked with, some for years, who just keep putting parts of this off. And they’re always like, “Oh, I need to get that done. Oh, yeah, I need to get my performance reviews written. Oh, yeah, I need to figure out how I’m going to hire that one.”

And they just don’t do it because it’s awful. And in this environment, at camp, you can’t hide getting it done. And the cool part is you also get to bring your ops manager, ops director or whoever it is that really helps you with the process part who can document things for you and help you make sure that they’re all fleshed out. So I’m super excited about it. But here’s the thing, it could fail, and I’m still going to be okay because I have a result that I am all in on. And I am accounting for that in my strategy.

So the result is the thing that sits on a shelf. It’s a thing that you go into in your brain, you do future-self exercise, you get really, really clear about what it looks like. And then we ask ourselves, okay, these are my vital few, now what are the resources that I need to go all in on this vital few? And that is the part that is so dynamic that your strategy has to be that fluid and concrete, and fluid and concrete, and fluid, right? It’s just an evolving process. It’s a breathing process. And I think that’s what so many models don’t account for. I think so many models make it look like, well, if you do this, and then you do this, and then you do this, and then you do this, then you get this, and it’s all great. No, there are core rocks that you have to have: what are the results that you want? What are your vital few? Get that cleaned up, get that clear, then we’ve got to go. We got to learn it, do it, practice it, fail, make a hot mess, embarrass ourselves, try again.

But you have to have a strategy, my love. All great business owners who really are able to double, triple, quadruple, 10 times their business, do so because they have a clear strategy. And that strategy has to include team as part of your resources, not just marketing, sales, products, team. So if you need help with that team, we should talk.

So as a reminder, if you want to learn more about CEO Immersion, I’ve already announced it to some of my clients. So we’re already accepting deposits, it’s going to be at the end of August, it’s going to be at this gorgeous resort in Scottsdale. So excited. You have to be at seven figures to join the Immersion. The complexity of your team is important for this exercise. If you aren’t at seven figures, you need help, just go to www.krisplachy.com/howtoceo.

How to CEO is currently available digitally and you can just buy it, and then come to a weekly Q&amp;A Call if you need help. But if you are at the seven figure mark and you know you are ready to really make this investment along with your ops person, then you can go to <a href="http://www.ceoimmersion.com/">www.ceoimmersion.com</a>, put your name in there, and we will get you the information. Thanks for tuning in. And I’ll look forward to talking to you next time.
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