Dan Martell - March 04, 2019


How To Apply Strategic Vs. Tactical Thinking In Your Business


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

198.775

Word Count

1,839

Sentence Count

103

Misogynist Sentences

2


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.080 Hey there, I'm Dan Martell, serial entrepreneur,
00:00:01.840 investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.
00:00:04.080 In this video, I'm going to share with you
00:00:06.240 how to think strategically about where
00:00:08.600 you're going in your business, not tactically,
00:00:10.960 so you can actually move the needle and drive your goals
00:00:14.160 forward.
00:00:14.960 And be sure to stay to the end where I share with you
00:00:16.720 my precision scorecard framework where
00:00:18.960 I teach you how to structure your metrics in a sequence
00:00:23.600 to allow you to measure your progress towards those goals.
00:00:30.000 So it's been said that strategy is doing the right things
00:00:42.340 and tactics is doing things right.
00:00:45.620 Now, think about that.
00:00:47.000 Essentially, it's doing the right things.
00:00:48.880 It's strategically what do we need to do
00:00:51.540 and what order to get an outcome.
00:00:53.700 And then once we know what we need to do,
00:00:55.960 then it's making sure those things are done at the right level.
00:00:59.000 That's why this show is called The Growth Stacking Show.
00:01:02.100 I believe that right time equals right action.
00:01:06.240 And to do things right, if you want to be successful,
00:01:08.680 you need to sequence things in the right order.
00:01:11.520 So what I'm going to share with you
00:01:13.020 is how I've been over the years, even from my first company
00:01:16.260 at 17 to eventually Spheric Technologies that really
00:01:19.480 was the one that succeeded.
00:01:21.020 I grew to 150% year over year for four years,
00:01:24.160 eventually got acquired, is where I figured out
00:01:27.760 how to think strategically.
00:01:29.420 Because to me, it's easy to make a list of things
00:01:32.140 we know we got to do.
00:01:33.300 But really mapping that, understanding
00:01:35.640 how those things connect and overlap
00:01:37.560 and making sure we understand what
00:01:39.600 we need to do this week, next month, or next quarter
00:01:42.240 is how we're going to get results in your business.
00:01:44.200 So here are the steps to thinking strategically
00:01:47.700 in your business.
00:01:48.700 Number one, begin with the end in mind.
00:01:50.860 Now, Stephen Covey said this, that we
00:01:53.140 need to go all the way to the end to understand
00:01:55.260 what it looks like.
00:01:56.760 But to do that, we need to go all the way
00:01:59.100 to the end of 25 years, 10 years, three years, and one year.
00:02:03.580 So to me, it is tough for anybody.
00:02:05.640 It doesn't matter what kind of goal you want to set,
00:02:07.280 personal, professional.
00:02:08.640 To think strategically, I need to understand
00:02:11.080 what your vision for your life looks like.
00:02:12.900 I need to understand where you want to bring your business.
00:02:15.340 Not in the short term, but in the medium, long term,
00:02:17.940 and in the future, 25 years.
00:02:20.800 Because understanding that will give us
00:02:23.400 a clear direction of decisions we make today
00:02:26.160 and in what order to make sure that we're on the mark.
00:02:28.740 So the first thing we need to do is begin with the end in mind.
00:02:31.820 Number two, list out the strategies.
00:02:35.120 Once we know where we're going, let's
00:02:36.780 say we have a clear understanding of the next 12 months
00:02:39.000 from a revenue point of view, from a market, the products
00:02:41.680 we want to sell into the market.
00:02:43.540 Then we need to list out the strategies
00:02:45.760 that we want to execute, and we can just make a dump.
00:02:48.040 We can just say, OK, here's our goal.
00:02:49.780 What are all the possible things that we
00:02:51.580 could do to achieve that goal?
00:02:53.160 We just make the list, OK?
00:02:54.700 That is it.
00:02:55.320 We just want to dump, because I really
00:02:57.080 believe one of the biggest challenges people make
00:02:59.340 is they don't separate the ideation part
00:03:02.260 from the prioritization step, OK?
00:03:04.600 When we're ideating, when we're being creative,
00:03:06.880 we just want to make a dump.
00:03:08.460 And this is where it's great to have a team.
00:03:09.960 If you have a mentor, because a lot of people are like,
00:03:12.140 well, I don't have anybody that can give me these strategies.
00:03:14.820 I don't even know how I would grow my business.
00:03:17.160 That's where advisors and mentors
00:03:19.720 and doing a lot of internet Google searching.
00:03:21.800 The challenge with that is that there's a lot of information.
00:03:24.120 There's no insights.
00:03:24.900 So ideally, find yourself a mentor.
00:03:26.640 Somebody who's been there before.
00:03:27.640 And I have a video on that that you
00:03:28.860 can find to understand how to approach them
00:03:31.240 and the things to ask them.
00:03:33.120 But at a minimum, advisors, people in the industry,
00:03:36.400 they can give you some thoughts as to people in your market,
00:03:40.220 at your stage, what are the things
00:03:41.740 that they did in the year one or two,
00:03:43.300 depending on where you're at, to actually move the needle
00:03:45.480 and get the growth that you want to achieve over the next year.
00:03:47.960 Number three, ICE them.
00:03:50.760 ICE is an acronym.
00:03:52.320 So now we want to essentially quantify each strategy
00:03:56.520 for their effectiveness.
00:03:58.000 And I stands for impact, confidence, and ease.
00:04:02.000 And the reason why is impact is if I do this,
00:04:04.820 what's the potential impact from a revenue point of view
00:04:07.820 to my customers?
00:04:08.660 So for example, if I'm going to do a referral program, which
00:04:11.520 is at the bottom of the funnel, meaning that as I get a customer,
00:04:14.200 I get a referral, or I'm going to do a Facebook ad campaign,
00:04:17.780 which is top of the funnel, meaning it's going to drive
00:04:20.120 new leads into my business.
00:04:22.160 I would argue, if you don't have either of those in place,
00:04:25.280 that working on a Facebook campaign
00:04:27.640 to drive new customers into your funnel
00:04:30.080 is probably a best first step so that you actually
00:04:32.800 have enough customers to get and amplify your referral program.
00:04:36.620 So it's kind of like understanding
00:04:38.760 the impact of the strategies, the confidence
00:04:42.040 that you have to actually get that kind of outcome,
00:04:44.580 and then ease of implementation, the resources, the time,
00:04:48.500 and the effort that it's going to take for you
00:04:50.260 to actually deploy that tactic.
00:04:53.320 And this is where it comes down to a tactic
00:04:55.340 to make sure that it's the right thing for you
00:04:57.380 to put into your business.
00:04:58.380 So we just want to quantify those on a scale of 1 to 10.
00:05:02.360 1 to 10 for impact, confidence, and ease.
00:05:05.100 That's a score out of 30.
00:05:06.560 And then we've got our list measured.
00:05:09.140 Number four, prioritize.
00:05:11.560 Once we've got the list, OK, we know where we're going.
00:05:14.200 We've got the strategies.
00:05:15.380 We've iced them.
00:05:16.440 So we have impact, confidence, ease.
00:05:17.980 Now is we want to sort them based on those scores.
00:05:21.680 So it starts to give us a sense of what actions
00:05:24.580 do we do today versus next week versus next month.
00:05:27.700 And that's all about the right time, right action,
00:05:29.800 or growth stacking, in my language,
00:05:32.800 so that you can have the biggest impact.
00:05:34.360 Because the way growth works, it's kind of like compound
00:05:36.600 interest.
00:05:37.440 If I can get some low-hanging fruit out of the gate today
00:05:41.580 that continues to pay off dividends over time,
00:05:44.500 and I get those going right now, and I can get my growth up
00:05:47.220 to 5% per month, 10% per month, 15% per month, 20% per month.
00:05:53.100 It compounds over time versus what
00:05:55.320 I see a lot of people mistake is these frigging long lobbed
00:05:59.420 Hail Mary passes.
00:06:01.200 We're going to go after enterprise customers.
00:06:03.340 We're going to go do this big partnership.
00:06:05.060 We're going to do all these lofty, crazy things
00:06:08.060 that may someday materialize.
00:06:10.060 But for the most part, from a confidence point of view,
00:06:12.680 to me, they're about a 10% or 15%
00:06:14.840 versus all these other things that are tried and true.
00:06:16.980 We know if we do them, we have a higher confidence,
00:06:18.940 a higher perception.
00:06:19.980 We want to stack those towards the top,
00:06:21.780 get those out of the way to build our base
00:06:23.680 so that we have the capital to reinvest in growth.
00:06:26.800 And that is strategic thinking.
00:06:28.620 Because at the end of the day, if you don't have profit
00:06:31.080 from your business ASAP, then you
00:06:33.660 have nothing to reinvest to innovate and grow your market.
00:06:38.300 Number five, add resources and timelines.
00:06:41.360 So one of the biggest mistakes that founders make
00:06:44.040 is they've got this crazy plan and strategy,
00:06:47.420 but they never allocate budgets, which is money, resources,
00:06:50.880 that are needs to be funding these projects initiatives.
00:06:53.680 The other thing is hiring the key people, the people plan,
00:06:56.580 to make sure that you have the resources from a horsepower
00:07:01.260 point of view to actually execute these projects.
00:07:03.500 So if you need to build out a sales team,
00:07:05.760 you better have a recruiting step in Q1 or 2
00:07:08.760 to make sure that you have the people ready to actually
00:07:11.100 sell what you're selling.
00:07:13.200 So it's adding both of those, the resources from a people
00:07:16.620 and a capital point of view to fund those initiatives
00:07:19.300 and also mapping those to the timeline
00:07:21.780 because certain things have dependencies.
00:07:23.960 I can't build a sales team if I don't have enough leads.
00:07:26.580 So I need to make sure that I build my lead gen program first
00:07:29.340 and then I can introduce a salesperson
00:07:31.380 or maybe start off with an SDR sales development rep
00:07:34.380 initially.
00:07:34.920 And those are sequencing activities
00:07:36.860 that need to be mapped out over time only
00:07:39.540 after you do step one to four.
00:07:42.400 So quick recap on how to think strategically
00:07:45.440 versus tactically.
00:07:46.460 Number one, you have to begin with the end in mind.
00:07:48.640 You need to know what it looks like.
00:07:49.800 Have a vision for the outcomes.
00:07:51.460 Number two, list out the strategies, all of them.
00:07:54.260 Be creative that could get you there.
00:07:56.260 Three, ice them.
00:07:57.640 Give them a score from an impact, confidence,
00:08:00.500 and ease factor.
00:08:02.140 Number four, prioritize them.
00:08:04.600 It's all about right action in the right time.
00:08:07.460 And then five, add the resources, capital and people,
00:08:10.620 plus the timelines for those dependencies
00:08:13.280 to be executed over time.
00:08:15.060 So if you implement those five steps,
00:08:16.560 you'll be thinking even more strategically in your business.
00:08:19.580 As I mentioned at the beginning of this video,
00:08:21.200 I want to share a really incredible resource called
00:08:23.040 the Precision Scorecard.
00:08:24.240 It's a framework I created for not only managing my companies
00:08:27.300 and all the investments that I've made over the years,
00:08:29.040 but every one of my coaching clients
00:08:30.680 deploy this into their team so that they
00:08:33.320 can monitor their strategic thinking and activities
00:08:36.940 over a quarter, a monthly, and a weekly basis.
00:08:39.580 Yes, measuring on a weekly basis for all the different metrics.
00:08:42.920 In that template, I give you the different metrics
00:08:47.120 and data points that you should be measuring in your business
00:08:50.100 for companies that are less than a million in revenue
00:08:52.860 and others that are million plus.
00:08:54.300 So you can click the link below to download your copy
00:08:56.860 of the Precision Scorecard.
00:08:58.160 And if you like this video, smash that like button.
00:09:01.040 Subscribe to my channel.
00:09:02.040 And if there's anybody that you care about that you think
00:09:04.100 this video could serve, feel free to share it with them
00:09:06.380 directly.
00:09:07.040 As per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life and a bigger business, and I'll
00:09:10.560 see you next Monday.
00:09:13.500 You know you got a strategy.