How I use Strategy Days to Make Sure I Hit My Money Goals

Strategic planning shouldn’t be a secret or something people hide. Every business owner should set aside dedicated strategy days to thoughtfully plan their business’s direction. It’s better than waking up every morning wondering, “What should I do today?”

People often ask how we achieved £4 million this year, and the answer lies in our strategy days. Sometimes these days take place with just myself and my Operations Director Karen. We also have an annual strategy day with the whole team. 

Here’s how we approach them and what we discuss when we have strategy days for our business: 

Start with the end in mind

We work backwards. It used to be just me handling this, but now my Operations Director, Karen, joins me because she knows all the numbers and metrics better than I do. We start by discussing our financial goals for the next year. Karen grabs a flip chart and pen, and the first question she asks is, “How much do we want to earn next year?” This question is crucial because your strategy should help you reach your financial goals.

Set clear goals

If you don’t have clear goals for how much you want to earn in a year, month, or quarter, start by defining those. For example, we recently set a goal to earn a bit more than $4 million next year — not double, but a significant increase.

Evaluate your services

Next, we list all the services we offer. Then, we decide which ones we don’t enjoy. It’s important to love what you do. You shouldn’t wake up dreading certain tasks. I’ve experienced this before, both in corporate life and in business. I used to offer one-to-one sessions every week for three months because that’s what everyone else did. However, I realised I could teach everything in one day. So, I decided to stop offering services that didn’t bring me joy.

Make necessary changes

Once we’ve crossed out the services we dislike, we review the remaining ones. Are there any improvements needed? This part usually takes a couple of hours. We go through each service, discussing how we can enhance it for our clients. For example, the most recent version of our One to Many programme originated from improvements we identified during a strategy day.

Balancing client needs and business sustainability

While we strive to enhance our services, it’s essential to maintain a balance. For example, in our That Strategy Club membership, we frequently ask members what they want more of to guide our teachings in the GSD Sessions. However, we must ensure that what we offer matches the membership fee. Teaching content which we cover in high-cost masterminds, isn’t feasible in a low-cost membership. It’s about ensuring fairness both for our clients and for our time.

Refining our product suite

Initially, I had too many offerings and kept adding new courses spontaneously. Over the first two years of strategy days, we focused on simplifying and refining our product suite. We eliminated unnecessary courses and concentrated on improving the remaining ones. This streamlined approach made our business more efficient and effective.

Introducing tiny offers

We decided to add tiny offers (priced between £7 and £49) to our product suite. These function like tripwires — a concept I’ll cover in another blog post. Essentially, a tripwire is a small offer made to new subscribers. For example, we had a £49 course that we offer when people sign up for our freebie. This generated about £3,000 to £5,000 monthly, offsetting our £5,000 Facebook ad spend. We realised that adding more tiny offers could create a new six-figure revenue stream with minimal effort, utilising existing material. This is something that we review regularly to come up with new offer ideas. 

Planning and financials

With our new suite of services decided, we plan our sales strategy for the year. We determine the number of participants needed in each program to hit our financial goals. After setting these targets, the next step is to develop a marketing plan to ensure we reach our audience.

Developing a marketing strategy

We spend a couple of hours on marketing, identifying what is working and what isn’t. We take a look at our current strategies and also experiment with new approaches. 

Experimentation is key to success in any business. Each business is unique, so it’s crucial to continually test and adapt to find what works best for you and your audience.

Exploring marketing trends

We constantly explore new marketing strategies and trends during our strategy days. For example, we decided to utilise quizzes based on emerging trends in the US, which significantly grew our email list from 2,000 to 20,000 in about 18 months. Staying ahead of trends allows us to implement innovative strategies before they become widespread.

Evaluating team needs

A crucial part of our strategy sessions involves assessing our team. We identify what roles are needed to achieve our goals and whether our current team setup is optimal. If there are gaps we look at expanding the team. When planning for the next year, consider the staffing you’ll need to achieve your growth goals. If you wait until you think you can afford a larger team, you might never reach that point because it’s the team that helps you grow. Assess your current needs. Maybe you need a few hours of a PA, VA, a technical expert, or someone to manage your Facebook ads. Identify what you truly need to move forward.

Addressing business issues

Once you’ve mapped out your revenue strategy, product structure, marketing plan, and staffing needs, it’s time to address any existing issues in the business. Problems can range from difficult clients to issues within your mastermind group, such as clients poaching others or speaking negatively. Other issues might include non-payers or other operational headaches.

To tackle these issues, develop procedures to prevent them from recurring. For example, if you’ve had issues in your mastermind group, create a clear onboarding process that outlines the rules and expectations. Incorporate these guidelines into your contracts. Without identifying and addressing issues, you can’t prevent them from happening again.

Mid-year strategy check

Six months later, we hold another strategy day to ensure we’re on track. This session is crucial for making any necessary adjustments based on new developments or changes in our goals. For instance, unexpected opportunities can significantly impact our plans. These strategy days allow us to reassess and realign our objectives as needed.

Adapting to changes

Life and business are dynamic, and unexpected opportunities can arise. For example, after my podcast hit number one, I received two book deals from major publishers. This wasn’t part of our original plan that year, so we had to adjust our strategy. Having these regular strategy sessions helps us remain flexible and responsive to such changes.

Continuous improvement

Strategy days are vital for continuous improvement. Without them, our courses would remain stagnant. By regularly evaluating what works and what doesn’t, we ensure our services evolve and improve every year. This approach helps us create the best possible offerings for our clients.

There is sometimes the rare opportunity to work with me and have a group strategy day at my house. If this is something that would interest you, please join the waitlist by clicking here.