 Let me tell you a little bit about me. My name is Shannon Birch and I've been in the sales industry for about 15 years. My current role that I hold in my organization is Senior Sales and Account Services Trainer. What that means is that I actually facilitate courses around soft skills as well as product training as well as systems training to our sales and our account management workforce. I travel all over the United States teaching these courses in various locations. Throughout my 15 year sales industry experience I have held various roles. Such as I was a sales representative in the New York Metro area for a few years. I then moved on to a sales management role a few years after that and I managed a group of sales representatives. There was about a total of 36 sales representatives that I managed. And then I moved into a training role which was more of a training management role in the New York Metro area. And then I was relocated to the Boston, Massachusetts area. I've managed large teams as I said before anywhere up to 36 people at any given time. I'm certified in strategic planning and selling courses as well as project management courses. I have a master's degree and I reside currently in Boston, Massachusetts. The first lesson of strategic planning skills is preparing for the strategic planning process. What we're going to cover in this lesson is setting the parameters for the process, establishing a committee, and gathering operational data. Setting the parameters is all about understanding what the strategic plan is all about, what's the business issue supporting the plan, why are you building the strategy to begin with. Analyzing the process, understanding what needs to be done. Establishing the committee is all about having a committee to support the process. They'll be helping with any approvals that need to be done. They'll be helping with development of certain aspects of the strategy. And they'll be helping with the implementation as well. There'll also be the support structure that helps to make sure the strategic plan is successful. And gathering operational data is all about gathering information about your industry in the external market as well as internally inside your organization. Understanding the current state of your business. Being able to take that data and really truly plan an effective strategy. Let's look at setting the parameters for the strategic planning process. When you set the parameters, you will develop the best approach for your organization and customize it so it's distinct to your needs. Parameters will ensure that the strategic planning process will be managed effectively and within the allotted time. The key areas we'll focus on for the parameters are phases of the strategic planning process. We'll take a look a little bit closer at the preliminary planning phase. And we'll also talk about stakeholders. Let's talk about each one of these individually. The phases of the strategic planning process. There's a natural order to the process of strategic planning. The completion of each phase lays the foundation for the next. There are several phases that we're going to be focusing on. The preliminary planning phase, mission and vision statements, assessment, development, documentation, and execution. Preliminary planning is where you set the parameters, establish a committee, and gather operational data. We'll be talking about this information in just a moment. Mission and vision statements are really the statements of purpose and direction for your organization. The mission statement is really what's happening now. What does your organization do for your customers? The vision statement is what's expected in the future. Where do you want to go? What do you want to accomplish? The assessment is really assessing the current state of your organization. How are things as they stand today? Development is all about developing the goals and the strategies. So once you've done your assessment and you've done some prioritizing and determining what you actually need to focus on, you want to develop goals and strategies around those actions. Documentation is all about documenting the strategic plan itself, pulling it together into a document to be able to present that to the committee and any particular sponsors or anyone who has support for that particular strategic plan. Execution is all about executing the plan and then monitoring it. You've got to make sure that the plan is working. Is it working according to the plan that you set? Is it not working? Are there adjustments that need to be made? The key thing about a strategic plan is that it's a live, living, breathing element of an organization. And when you develop a strategic plan, you've got to realize that it has to be flexible. Because throughout its life cycle, you may need to adjust it, make changes, and return to its original plan accordingly. So consider these phases. Again, we're going to spend a little bit more time on the preliminary planning phase, but we will look at mission, vision statements, assessment, development, documentation, and execution. Let's take a look at the preliminary planning phase. The preliminary planning phase is the phase of the strategic planning process that establishes the structure and the order for the entire process. During these initial steps, stakeholders set the timeline, consider the necessary participation, and decide how to conduct the process itself. Other details may include the use of a consultant or involving advisors to help support the strategic plan. The timeline is key here. You don't want to just say simply we're going to create a strategic plan, sometime in the next year, and we'll implement it sometime in the next year after that. You've got to be specific, so it has to be realistic and timely. You have to be able to do it in a realistic amount of time to make it effective, as well as make sure that you don't spend too much time doing it, otherwise it loses its validity and effectiveness in the organization. Short term or long term? Well, you really want to plan for both, because it just makes the process a little bit more manager and easier to remain a focus throughout the process. So you want to plan for short term strategies as well as long term strategies as well. You have to decide who are the necessary participants. Are you going to use outside consultants or advisors to support the process? The key thing to think about here, if you're going to use outside consultants or advisors, is really money. Does your organization have the financial resources to hire outside consultants or advisors to support this process? And there are some benefits to using them. If you do have the money to use an outside consultant or advisor, you really want to think about the fact that they have the knowledge and experience in the marketplace to be able to make this happen. They work with strategies, that's what they do. It's what they do in their everyday life. It's their focus. As an organization, you have many focuses, and this is not your primary function as an organization. So having an outside consultant, they've got the experience, the expertise, they've got the knowledge of the marketplace, and they don't have any of those social or economic relationships inside your organization, so really they have a fresh perspective as well. Again, it really comes down to money. If you don't have the resources to hire someone, you're going to have to work together and hire that committee and make sure that committee is really well suited to make this happen. Business issue, what is the business issue that's driving this strategy? Companies don't just decide to do a strategic plan just for the heck of it. There's usually some type of driving factor, such as a business issue. It could be something like you're developing a new product. There's a loss of a large customer that's driving some type of strategic plan. Or there's an opportunity in the marketplace that's so huge that you decide to develop a strategy to go after it. So key things with this phase are really timeline, planning for the short and long term strategy, deciding who's necessary to participate and support the process. And then what business issue is actually driving this strategy? Is it a new product, loss of a large customer, merger or an acquisition, or a large opportunity that you want to take in terms of the marketplace? We're going to talk a little bit more about some of these other phases next. But just remember, this is an important part of the planning phase. These preliminary things that you do will help set the stage for the strategy in the future. Let's talk about stakeholders. A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in the organization's successful implementation of the strategic plan and continued profitability. Stakeholders may have limited involvement in the development, but are affected by the results most definitely. Stakeholders may include owners, partners, investors, management, and customers. The key things here are that you have to identify who these stakeholders are. Executive involvement is a must in this process. They've got to represent some of your stakeholders. In order to get buy-in in your organization for this strategy, executive involvement is key. So who are those executives? Typically, chief executives do get involved in strategic planning, depending on the size of the strategy and how it's affecting the organization. Particular roles might be the chief executive officer, the chief operating officer, and the chief financial officer as well. These are common roles that are involved as stakeholders in any strategy plan. You also have to prioritize how much involvement these stakeholders are going to have. How involved in the decision making are they going to be? How involved in the planning are they going to be? Some of them might be a little bit more involved in the planning than others, depending on the strategy. And the implementation. The implementation is the stakeholders' responsibility. So when you go to implement your strategy, they are responsible for spearheading it and making sure that it's implemented correctly and making sure the process runs smoothly and that it's being followed within the organization as well. So who's going to be involved? What type of level of executive involvement? What type of chief executives are you going to involve? How involved are they going to be? And they need to make sure that they understand their role in the implementation process as well. Last year, when we were thinking about putting together a strategic plan at my company, the reason why we were looking to do this is because we had actually lost a very large customer. And as often is the case with this situation, it really came down to price. This organization felt like they just could get the same services somewhere else for a lower price. Companies will often leave and lose loyalty in an organization due to price. How do you keep up with that potential possibility that a company will leave you? Well, you've got to put together a solid strategy to help to ensure that this doesn't happen in the future. Understanding that we needed to do that because of the significant revenue loss, we had to put together this sound strategy fairly quickly. And we wanted to set a timeline of one month to complete the strategy and then implement it very quickly. We had already identified our stakeholders and had full commitment from our stakeholders as well. We had no problem getting those stakeholders and getting that commitment with the situation at hand and the loss of this customer. It was quite easy to get that support. We also asked our sales and marketing departments to get involved as they would play a key role in our success here. Sales would really help us to understand what's going on in the marketplace in terms of pricing. Are we doing the right thing by our customers in terms of a pricing structure? Do certain markets need to be at different prices and others at lower or higher prices depending on what's going on with competition? Marketing could also help us to understand the marketplace and competition as well, understand what's changing in the marketplace, what trends are happening in the marketplace, and get us a good understanding of what our customers are really looking for. What are we providing that they love? What are we not doing that they need? We did not need to utilize outside consultants as we had our own internal consulting department, so we were lucky there and they were actually able to help us really put together a sound strategy. But we did decide to consult several of our largest customers through the efforts of sales and marketing to get their perspective and utilize those perspectives to develop our strategy. Cuz let's face it, without our customers, there's really no purpose for us being here. And we're lost, and so we need to focus on what their needs are and what's working for them and what's not working. And in the end, if you take care of your customer, the money takes care of itself. If you take care of your customer and focus on that and let them know that it's all about them, they will stay with you long term. In a situation like this with a good strategic plan, you won't have to worry about losing a large customer in the future like we did. Let's take a look at some guidelines of how to set the parameters of the strategic planning process. In this slide, you'll see several guidelines listed. So you want to identify the stakeholders and prioritize their involvement. This is critical, again, to establishing buy-in in the organization. Executive involvement must be the key here. Establish the timeline for the process. Typical strategic plans are usually planned over a three month period and they have a three to five year projection. Dynamic industries such as internet companies as well as technology, typically will make plans in two days and they'll only look six months out. And that's because they have such dynamically changing industries and they change so quickly. Determine if you will use a consultant or an outside advisor. Remember, I said the advantage to this is that their experience, they have knowledge of the marketplace and they're not influenced by politics or company relationships. They have that fresh perspective. And identify the business issue, your organization or industry that prompted the decision to develop a strategic plan. You have to have clarity of purpose here. There needs to be a clear understanding as to why you actually develop the strategy plan to begin with. What's the purpose? This will help you identify any challenges or opportunities and determine future involvement by individuals in the organization as well as departmentally. Who's gonna be involved? Who's gonna support it? Marketing, sales, operations, facilities. It really depends on what the strategy is and what the plan is that will help you determine who's going to get involved and what role they're going to play. Let's do an assessment activity in terms of the parameters for a strategic plan. I'm gonna give you several questions to think about. I want you to take some time to jot down some information, take some notes and think about some of these questions and then refer back to them at the end of the course. First, I want you to think about the strategy plan that you're trying to develop in your organization. Who are the stakeholders and should they all have the same level of involvement? And why or why not, which you argue for the same level or different levels of involvement? Should you involve a consultant? Why or why not? And establish a reasonable timeline for the development of the plan and the scope of the objectives. Should you plan for both short and long term and why or why not? So take a moment, look at these questions, think about what I'm asking you and write down some information and then refer back to it at the end of this course.