Kristin Arnold – Do you have/need a strategic plan?
You’ve probably been told that you need a business plan, or a marketing plan, but do you have a Strategic Plan? I asked my friend Kristin Arnold to come on and talk about how a strategic plan is different than those other plans, what it is and why you should have one, regardless of the size of your business.
Listen to this new episode for insight into strategic planning and two different ways you can go about it for your business.
Kristin is considered to be the foremost expert on moderating panel discussions and emceeing events. She is the author of seven books, has a MBA in Marketing Strategy, inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame, and earned the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation and the Certified Professional Facilitator | Master (CPF|M) designation.
Here’s a link to Kristin’s page for creating your down and dirty strategic plan: https://extraordinaryteam.com/quick-strategic-plan/
Contact Kristin: https://extraordinaryteam.com
Social: Find Kristin on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjarnold/
If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com
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Do you, or should you have a strategic plan? Listen to this episode and find out. Hey, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. I am really excited to have my friend Kristin Arnold on from, and now I just forgot what you want me to call you.
I am a high stakes meeting facilitator.I should know that I should know that. I just think of you as my friend though. So I asked you to, I asked you to come up, I asked you to come on because so many of my national speaker association friends, I was going to say NSA, but people are going to think, shh, don’t talk about that. Are just so smart.
And we talk at conferences. I’m like, no, no, we need to talk here about the audiences. And you’re so good with strategic planning. This is, this is what you do. I said, come on, let’s talk about this. So tell everybody first, you know, a lot of small businesses on here that don’t think in the corporate mindset, what, how do you define a strategic plan?
So I think most of us think business plan, you know, we need to have a foundational business plan, not necessarily to go get a loan from the, from the bank or anything, but just, you know, what business are we in? Who are our clients? What products and services we provide? How do we do research and development?
How do we deliver those services? That’s a business plan. And, and usually there’s an operational plan every year that you put together a budget. Yep. Something that says, here’s what I’m going to do for the year. Well, I think that that both of those are really great plans to have. And then there’s a third layer.
We call this a family of plans, a third layer, which is a strategic plan, which looks out beyond a year, looks out beyond what you’re currently doing and says, Where do you want to go with this business? How big do you want to grow it? How, how do you want to operate? What do you want to be known for?
Something it’s a destination versus where you are.
Love it. And so a strategic plan thinks broader than just one year. Okay. So it’s the scanning the horizon. Where do we want to go to as opposed to I’m steering the ship today?
Yeah. Because most people do incremental planning. You know, you’ve got your, your your business whether you’re a photographer or you’re a wedding organizer, or you’re providing services to that industry, you know, you kind of say, here’s what I did this year.
I want to do 10 percent more. I want more, more is better. Well, okay. But there are some, some strategic decisions that you might want to make. Like, do you really like the client segment that you’re working with? Maybe there’s some that you like better than others and you want to steer in a different direction, or maybe you’re trying to increase your rates.
Maybe you’re trying to add a new product or service. These are all strategic decisions that generally don’t happen in a very short period of time. It takes a longer period of time to kind of steer that ship. So a strategy, a strategic plan, helps you focus on that.
Yeah, I had a client one time who told me as a DJ, and there were two of them, and he said, I want to do 250 weddings a year.
I said, okay, why? And he said, well, I’ll be seen as a bigger player in the market. I said, okay. Why is that important? And he said, well, you know, then some of the better planners will refer me and stuff. I said, okay. I said, so how many are you doing now? And it was about half of that. I said, so what do we need to do to get there?
Can you and your other DJ do that many events? He’s like, no, no, no, we would need to have more people. I said, okay. And what does that mean? Well, more equipment. What does that mean? More insurance. And what does that mean? More, more vehicles and all those other things. And I said, and who are you turning away now that you could now sell?
He said, well, these are lower dollar people. I said, okay, so they’re less profitable. So is this really where we’re heading? We’re heading to take on less profitable business so that my ego can say I did 250 weddings a year, which was really kind of the answer, right? That was kind of the answer. I said. Is that important or is money in the bank important?
And we work on making you more profitable and you don’t have to do that many events. So again, strategy thinking about, yeah, it sounds good, but let’s look at the reality of that is, Ooh, wait a minute.
What does it take to get there? You know, so most people think incrementally, like I’m just going to do more.
I’m going to work harder. I’m going to work faster, which is not the answer. And then, so in strategic planning, you start with the end in mind, like, Oh, I want to go. You know, if you were trying to drive to Wichita, Kansas, don’t ask me why I pick Wichita, but you know, you would, you would pull out a, pull out a map and I did it myself, you know, you would, you would look at a map quest and figure out, Oh, okay, well, it’s going to take me this long.
It’s going to take me, you know, here’s where I need to stop. Oh, I could drive it. I could fly. I could walk it, you know, you have so many choices. So. The idea is to figure out where you want to go and then what’s it going to take to get there. So it’s, you’re backing it up rather than inching forward.
Right.
Right. Figuring out where, where you want to get to. I had a another client who was part time and he lost his full time gig, full time job, and he was going full time for his DJ business. And I said, okay, great. So next year, how many weddings do you want to do? And he said, as many as possible. I said, wrong answer.
We can’t find that target because that target doesn’t exist. What that is. I said, how much money do you want to clear? Right. And then we’ll back into that and back into that. And what do you need to charge and all those things. And some other people who this other person who had three different price points and on the most popular day of the year, they were offering all three price points.
They said, well, it’s the most popular day of the year. Why don’t you just offer your top price point? Cause you can only do one event. So. You know, take the one that’ll pay the top. And like, huh. And the next year I saw them and they said, my average sale is doubled because I don’t just don’t offer the cheap stuff on the popular date.
I said, right, supply and demand. Let’s be more, your word, strategic about this. All right. So, so where do you start? Where do you start? You’re, you’re a florist and your business is doing fine, but you’d like to, you know, You know, do better, whatever that means in their mind.
Okay, Alan, do you want the blue pill or the red pill?
You want the quick and dirty way or you want the strategic way? I can handle the truth.
So what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you two different ways. Okay. One is what’s your vision? You know, if you want to do 250 gigs, Okay. Well, what does that look like? What would have to happen in your business?
And that’s when I suggest you take a bunch of sticky notes and you write down every single idea that comes to mind, you talk to brilliant people like you, and here’s the other things that you mentioned. You talk to your. Your buds around and you get a whole bunch of sticky notes and what will happen is after you’ve collected all this wisdom from your, from your mastermind, you then see these categories emerge and you go, Oh, this is one category.
This is another category. And this is another category. I, I recommend no more than three pillars. Or what I call strategic initiatives. These are things that are, they’re probably cross cutting, they’re probably going to take longer than a year to execute, and they’re strategic. And I don’t know how it works out, but it always works out that if you did this, anyone who’s listening to this, you do this, you’ll probably come out with five key areas, buckets, categories that you then now have the stickies that start your action plan, which is awesome because you rack and stack these stickies in like a timeline.
And now you generally, you’ll see the first year pretty clearly. And then you’ll see a couple of other things that are two years and maybe three years out. So it’s a nice way of building your, your strategic plan. So they could be things like your website updating versus replacing equipment, right?
What do I need? What do I need to get their products? What do I need to do? What do I want to do? So these could be those pillars. Absolutely. Things like that. Okay.
What happens, Alan, is we look at that plan and we go, Oh my God, I want to do it all today. You know, and it’s like, no, it’s a three year plan or a two year plan or maybe even a five year plan.
And it’s like, no, you got to pace yourself because you still have to keep your business running. I call that keep pace. The trains running, you know, you’ve got, you got to keep feeding your family. So you can’t just stop everything that you’re doing now and say, no, I’m going to do all of this. You’ll kill yourself.
So that plan is more of a, a really long range guide. And I suggest that, you know, every. Week, every month you have a sit down meeting with yourself and your team and you go, okay, how far am I going to move this plan this week, right? Or how far am I going to move it this month or this quarter? So that’s the way that you can kind of close that gap between what you’re doing now and where you want to go.
And so it’s a lot of prioritizing then within those pillars. My first NSA meeting ever, Mark LeBlanc was president. It was a winter meeting. And the last thing he said to us on the last day of the conference, and you know how it is drinking from a fire hose, especially when you’re new to the group. He said, you have all your ideas.
Write them down, put them in the order that you think they’ll have the most impact on your business. Keep the first three things and get rid of the list and work on those things. Cause you can’t work on everything. You’re just going to dilute all that time. And I took that pill, drank that Kool Aid, whatever you want to call it.
And I’ve never had more than three big things. And this, this is what you’re talking about is these big strategic things. The little things I call your today list. This is my to do list. Like, I want to create a new website, I want to write a new book, I want to learn a new language or whatever. That, you can’t do that today.
But you have to answer your email today, and you have to answer the phone today, and you have to do these other things today. And it’s, if you never get to the big things, because you’re, you’re living in today only, You’re just going to stay where you are, right? You have to have those meetings and do that.
I had another episode just recently about hiring a virtual assistant. Best thing I ever did because I don’t need somebody in my office, but I do need somebody to do the things. They just take my time and I don’t have to do them. And it was funny because I said, you know, we’re worried that I’m going to get somebody, but they won’t be able to do it as well as I will, or as fast as I will only to find out that they do it better and faster than you.
Amen. Exactly. So, all right. So you come up with these different pillars, you have these things here and what are some of the challenges you see people, because when you’re helping people do this with their strategic plan, what are some of the challenges you see people running into?
I see it more in the execution side.
I don’t, I don’t necessarily see it in the development side because that’s what I meant. Of course they have me
facilitating it. Of course. Of course. And that’s what, that’s what they need. But so you have these pillars, you have these stickies there. And again, now it is about the execution. Now it’s about doing something other than writing stickies.
So in the execution, what are some of the pitfalls that you see a lot of people making that are easy to avoid if you thought about it ahead of time?
So I highly recommend not making it into a big science project. So people like to make these big, I call it credenza where it’s like this big notebook of crap.
And it’s like, no, your plan should fit on one sheet of paper, like one sheet of paper. So all the minutiae and the detail doesn’t necessarily have to be in your plan. It has to be accessible so that you can grab it when you need to, but for the most part, your plan. Shouldn’t be more than a page. I mean, you’ve got your strategic initiative, you have your vision, your mission, and your core values, which hopefully you’ve already had.
But you’ve got your strategic initiative. You’ve got how far do you wanna get this year? How are you gonna measure that success? And then if you have a team, who’s the main person who’s moving that agenda forward so that when you come together every. Let’s just say every month you can look at each other and go, so Alan, how are we doing on that initiative?
And it’s not to say that Alan, you have to do it all, but you’re the official nudger. You’re the official galvanizer of everybody, the resources, whether you’re outsourcing it or you’re using fellow team members or you’re collaborating with other people that, that, that initiative isn’t dying on the vine.
So an accountability, if you’re a solopreneur, like a lot of people listening here, if you’re is accountability to others, something that can keep you on track? Well,
I really like having a mastermind group that, you know, whenever you meet in the mastermind group, you’re reporting on progress. But there’s nothing to say that you can’t report on progress to yourself.
There’s a great book out there. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. The e myth, it’s an old, old book. He actually wrote a e myth revisited. Revisited. Yep. And you know, he says, you know, create your org chart. And. With a solopreneur, you are, your name is in all of that org chart. You need to have a business meeting with your org chart about how your business is going.
Yeah. I it’s, I think it was Sam Walton is accredited by saying when I started a business, I knew I’d be wearing a lot of hats. I just didn’t realize they’d be wearing them all at the same time. Pretty true that as I sit here with my last year’s P and L compared to the year before right next to me, because I am the accounting department.
I’m not the accountant. I have the account. But I am the finance department in my business because I know about it and I watch that kind of stuff. But then I outsource the things I’m not, even though I’m solopreneur. I outsource the accounting. I outsource some of the graphic design and things because people are better than us and they’re going to save us time.
It’s on those investments. So being accountable.
So the other thing that I think is a good idea is to figure out where your two fers and three fers are.
Okay. Curious.
So you’ve got, you’ve got your pillars, you’ve got your strategic initiatives, and there is probably two or three things that really run across those pillars.
Like if you update your website, for example, that might actually enable you to upgrade your technology, which enables you to upgrade your products and services or
your marketing or your inquiries and your process there and your automations and things like that.
So what you find is that independently, there’s something that jumps out that you go, Oh my God, it’s over here too, and it’s over here and it’s over here.
That’s what I call a two fer if it runs in two, a three fer if it runs in three, a four fer, you know, so that’s a highly leveraged activity. That’s one that you really want to say, oh, this is a good one. Start it earlier rather than later and put more focus and thought in that because you’ll get a a higher return on that investment.
Right.
And I think what’s important with that is when you see something that looks big like that is to then break it down and say, okay, this is just a bunch of steps that all work its way into this thing. Cause a lot of people don’t get started on their website because they think it’s too big of a job instead of saying, let me go get some photos.
Right. Or, or let me, let me rewrite a guy who was reviewing somebody’s website today. And I get to this one page and I said, Why is it worded this way? He goes I don’t know. When we put the site up, that’s what the SEO people said. I said, do you do that? He goes, not really. I said, well, it says it on your website, so people think you do that.
And then, so one of those things I’ve said to people in privately and on, on stages. When’s the last time you read the words on your website or read the marketing piece and stuff and or looked at the pictures and said, Oh, wait a minute, we’ve redesigned our room since then, or gosh, you know, you look at the pictures and it looks like the dating picture from 10 years ago, instead of what you look like now, things like that.
So if you break some of these down, they won’t feel quite as daunting. What about giving yourself. deadlines for things.
So, so before you, you switch into that, which is a good one. I like that. I think, I think the way that people break things down is different. Okay. So I think, I think I think part of us, we want, we want to be real scientific about it.
Like first we’re going to, we’re going to look at our photos and we’re going to, you know, look at, look at our verbiage and we’re going to SEO this and, and, and before we know it, it feels like a big science project. And for some people they love science projects. Like I, I am going to map out what I’m going to do and I’m going to have accountabilities.
I’m going to have some deadlines. I mean, and they’re brilliant at it. You know, their project manager is extraordinary. Most normal people don’t think that way, especially, and I’m making a huge leap that you’re talking about a lot of creatives that are running some of these solopreneur businesses. So here, here’s my advice.
Is that you do you you go? Okay. I I got this big project. It scares the crap out of me Well, what would be one thing that you could do just one thing that you go, yeah, that that’s good. And then do that that week and then just let it go. And then the next week you might still work on that pillar or you pick a different pillar because you’ve got the squirrel syndrome, shiny penny.
You know, you don’t like to focus on too much at the same time, but you do one thing every week. That moves your strategy forward, or, you know, once you get into it, sometimes you find out. Oh, this is a lot easier than I thought. You know, there’s different ways to carve things up versus this week. I’m going to look at all the verbiage next week.
I’m going to look at all the pictures. It’s like, well, maybe. You would rather just take a page. I’m just going to look at one page and I’m going to update that page today. And that’s the way that I’m going to go through my website. So there’s lots of different ways that you can cut the onion, slice the onion,
One of those things, you know, to get the job done.
And those, you know, which gets into your next question, which is about accountability, which is, You decide how fast or how slow you want to go because the challenge is, is that you want it all done yesterday. I was just working with a, with a team in November and they were very disappointed that they didn’t get as much as they wanted done.
And I’m like, but, but wait a minute, let’s take a look at how much you did do. Right. So it’s kind of like, is the glass half full or the glass half empty? Right. Anything that you do is going to be better than if you did nothing.
I was talking to somebody the other day about writing a book and I said, please don’t write a book.
Just write some words. Just write words. Editing turns words into books. We don’t write books. We just write words. And they’re like, Oh, I said, right, because you can’t write a book today. Well, he could, it won’t be very long or very good, but you can’t get right a book today, but you can write some words. And, you know, I remember the first book, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I reached out to my speaker friends, and then the second one became easier, and then the next one, the next one, the next one, and, you know, the last one, nothing.
I recorded the audio in two days here using my podcast. Equipment here. And look at all those books behind you. Yep. Yep.
You’re a veritable author extraordinaire.
You know, it’s funny when I wrote the first book, I didn’t feel like an author because I feel like most people could write a book just telling a story that you know, telling who you are or whatever.
Then the second was like, ah, kind of feel like an author now. Well, 10 books in. Okay. I’m good. I could, I’ll accept that. I’ll accept that on there. But again, even for me, I’m thinking. I never have my more than three big things right on my pillars. There were three big things. Do I want to put another book on the list now?
Because if I do, that’s time and effort I won’t have for something else, so I’m trying to prioritize. Well, I have a new book that came out in 2023. I don’t need to publish one every year, so maybe, maybe I won’t do one this year. Maybe I’ll put the effort towards something else. I just don’t know what that is yet.
But I’ll put the effort towards something else. And I think that’s the other thing is, you have to make choices. Because anything you spend time on is time you don’t spend on everything else. That you could, which includes, by the way, your family.
And that’s kind of why I like the idea of having a vision.
You know, you can have a vision for your business and a vision for your personal life, including family and stuff. I think it’s helpful to know, you know, if you’re going to Wichita and let’s say you’re coming from Scottsdale, Arizona, where I am, I am not going to Oregon first.
Well, if you’re flying, you might be, according to the airlines.
Well, let’s just say I’m driving. I’m not, I’m not going to go to, well, I’m not proud, I’m not going to fly to Oregon, hopefully either. Maybe my luggage will, but you know, there are some things that you go, no, that’s not in my vision. It might be feeding my ego. It might be feeding my, I, I feel like I need to be doing that because everybody else is.
No, you do you, you know, you could drive, you can fly, you can literally fly, you can, you know, you can walk, you can scooter, you can do all different ways. So, you know, I think it’s really helpful to ask other people. Like if you, if you were starting in my position, wherever your starting position is, so you got to know what your current state is.
And I’m trying to get here. And I think I have about three years to do that or five years. What advice would you give me? And just listen, don’t, don’t judge. Because what people will do is they go, Oh, I, I can’t do that. And it’s like, well, no, it’s not that you can’t, it’s that you won’t, it’s not a desirable option when a lot of people say, well, I had no choice.
No, no, no, no, no. We all have choices. You just aren’t paying attention to the choices that you don’t like, or might be hurtful or harmful. Or might
be difficult. Or might be difficult. And you’re avoiding difficult we were just talking before we started recording about Adam Grant and his book Hidden Potential, which is another podcast that I did.
And one of the things he said is, the people You need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. You need to be, be okay doing something that you’re not good at. And the book actually starts talking about people who learn multiple languages, polyglots, who were not good at language when they were children, which was, and you’d think they would learn better when they were children, but they did it as adults because they became, okay with being uncomfortable, okay with trying something you may not be good at.
And I resonated with that because that’s, I taught myself Spanish as an adult and I’m three years learning French now and I just started learning Italian. And my favorite days are the days when it is kicking my butt, because I feel like I’m learning when it’s kicking my butt. If I’m just able to do the lessons and ace them all, it’s like, boom, Well, did I learn anything today?
Or am I just repeating what I already know? And that’s the whole moving forward, right? Whatever forward means for you is moving forward. That gives me a sense of I’ve accomplished something. I’ve moved forward. Whereas if I perfect lesson, perfect lesson, like, okay, well, I knew that already. I knew that already.
So I want it going to be. So if you’re going to move forward, you have to be kind of uncomfortable, be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Otherwise, just stay where you are, right? And, and the whole listening to other people, you might hear something that is uncomfortable, but maybe you need that. Maybe you need that little push, that little nudge or, you know, something like that.
And just because they tell you to do it doesn’t mean you have to, you know, it’s still your advice. Okay. So I want to get over to the other pill. Okay. Okay. We did the red pill first. This is the quick and dirty pill. And this is a more holistic pill that I think might be. Helpful for solopreneurs or smaller teams where you’re looking at your business a little bit more holistically.
So if I was to ask you, what are the key pillars that are important to you running your company? What, what kinds of pillars would you give me?
First pillar for me is, am I enjoying what I’m doing?
Okay, so enjoyment would be one spoke of a wellness. So now we’re going from fillers into spokes. Okay, so enjoyment.
What would be another?
Am I providing value? Okay, value.
Okay. Right. So I’ve got enjoyment. I’m going to write them down. Okay. Value. Okay. What else?
Profitability.
Oh, that’s important. I need to feed my family. Right. Save for
retirement. Right. And, but I said profitability as opposed to sales, right?
Because, because I’m paying attention to profitability because it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep, right?
Let’s do that. You know, I, I I, I really applaud that, that exclamation mark on that because a lot of people look at the top line versus your bottom line.
Right. Yeah, I mean, again, my, my profit and loss statement is sitting here next to me, and I’m looking at it, but then I’m drilling down deeper to say, okay I’m down a little bit, but that’s okay, because I know why, on top line, I’m down more on the bottom line, but I also know why, and it just happened to be I had to pay some taxes in this year that were really for last year and whatever, so it’s an anomaly, it’s not It’s not reflective of my business being less profitable.
It’s just reflective of when the money hit and in what calendar year or something like that. But again, drilling into that. So for me, it’s enjoyment, providing value, profitability, and then the other would be family.
That you have a family or what is it about your family? No, that
I, that I take the time to be with my family.Time with family. Well, time, time and attention. You know, thinking about them is fine. Speaking with them, zooming with them, being with them, of course. But just making sure that all of my time doesn’t go to my work. So you’ve got these four spokes. Yeah. Now, listeners, you can have different spokes than Alan.
Yes. . It’s all right. Have, just have a profit, have a profitability, one, , whatever. Yeah. Have your profitability one. And you know, you might want to think about what your vision is, that that might also influence where your spokes are. Right? So if you’ve got a spoke that goes from zero in the center to 10 at the outset.
You would say for enjoyment currently on a scale of zero to 10, how much do you enjoy your business? Would you say Alan zero to 10, 10? I love my business.
Awesome. You know what, can we pause just for a second? I’m gonna actually do this on a little . I could do it on a, on zoom, but I’m just gonna do this because I like using these guys.
There we go.
So, so those, those of you listening, Kristen has taken out a little dry erase, a little handheld dry erase board.
Right. Okay. So this is enjoyment. Yep. Okay. So you’re at a 10. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah.
I love what I do. Okay, so. So in the future, three years from now, where do you want to be 10 or I assume you want,
I want to be at a 10 or I’ll be retired.
Okay. So that’s just going to be both. And it’s not planning to be retired. It’s if I’m not enjoying it, that’s when I retire.
Okay. So when it comes to value on a scale of zero to 10, how much value do you really think that you bring to your clients?
I would like to say I bring at least an eight. I, I would, some would say more, maybe a couple would say less, but they’re probably not listening.
So in three years, how much value do you want to be bringing to your clients? That or more. Okay. So nine. Eight. Sure. Yeah.
So it’d be nine. Okay. So we’ve got this going on. So then when it comes to profitability on a scale of zero to 10, what’s your current profitability? 10 being the most profitable that you ever could possibly dream.I would say I’m a seven.
But I’m intentional, but I’m, but I’m intentional. No, I’m, I’m okay with the seven. I’ve actually been a 10 and, and what it took to get to 10 was being away 178 nights. And I don’t want to do that. Seven’s good.
Yeah. And that’s a really great point is that not everything is a 10. You don’t have to be a 10 in everything.
Now, a lot of people listening because 2022 was such a crazy wedding year because of the pent up demand on the pandemic that what happened, Kristen, is the calendar looked great until you had to live it. I’d start doing all of that work. That was me in 2019. I was away 178 nights. I flew 150, 000 miles. I was like, yeah, I had to live that.
I don’t want to do that again. Okay. So your last pillar is family. Yeah. Okay. So on a scale of zero to 10, where would you say family is? Family is seven.
Okay. And where would you want it to be in three years?
I want it to be nine. Okay.
And what, for those of you listening, Kristen is drawing lines, there’s an axis, just imagine a big X, and each of those lines is the spokes going out to that, now she’s connecting where I am and where I’d like to be into this beautiful graph, so if you’re not, you can go to YouTube and see this.
So, you’ve got a differential of one between value.
And a differential of two between family. Okay. So this would be a really good, you know, and you have no differential between enjoyment and with profitability. So I would say your two pillars would be, how do I want to provide more attention and time to my family? And how do I want to provide more value?
And then you together a little plan that say, how, how do I want to do that in the next three years?
Love it. So that’s down and dirty. That’s a quick and dirty. I like that. I like that. And, and again, if you’re listening, some of mine were intentional that it was intentionally not attend for profitability because what it would take to do that would detract from other things.
Absolutely. and intentionally not attend for value. Because I think if I can’t find ways to provide more value, then I’m being stagnant to my audience, which is stagnant to me. The joy, I just love what I do. So it doesn’t feel like work. And then family, my family is scattered around the country in California and Pennsylvania and Florida.
And so it’s, Have to be more intentional and give more time to be able to go to see them. So listen to the words that you’re using. They’re all very strategic words and thoughtful. And especially if you’ve got a team around you, even if it’s just a team of two or three, Oh my gosh, it might be your partner.
It might be your kids. It might be your, your family. That’s helping you in the business. Having these conversations about why seven is just fine because we live in a society that thinks 10. More? Bigger? Better? Well, no, not necessarily. These are, it’s just a nice way to have that conversation, even if it’s just in your own head.
Right, and part of it is my own philosophy that I’ve come to with, which is, I don’t ever want to be the best that I can ever be at something, because that means you can’t ever be better than that. So, I’m always leaving room that I could always be better. So the thing there in joy that’s a 10, I, I, I don’t, I can’t imagine enjoying it more than I do.
Cause I love it. And if I do, that’s even better, but money, I could make more money at the expense of what? I want to know I can provide more value. So I don’t want it to be a 10, right? So those are, again, intentional. Strategic, whatever, whatever the right word is with my speaking, I don’t want to be the best I can ever be.
I want every time to be better. Therefore I go to speaker conferences domestically and internationally. I have other speakers watch and tell me how can I be better understanding that there, if there isn’t room for improvement, then that’s not fun for me. It’s not fun for me to know I can’t be better. I actually had somebody come up to me at a conference recently say, I haven’t seen you speak in about five years and don’t take this the wrong way because I thought you were good back then, but man, you’re so much better now.
I said, no, no, no, that is a compliment. That’s a compliment. That’s a compliment. But don’t take it the right way. I said, no, I won’t take it the wrong way. You took it exactly the way you intended it, which is I have improved no matter the fact you thought I was good back then. That’s what I want to know in my life.
So Alan, for example, what you were just describing for me is probably a core value of yours is continuous learning. So rather than having are these four or another spoke might be continuous learning. Right. So, so these spokes. are completely dependent on what drives you, what’s important to you. It comes from either something that’s really important in your business, a core value, something that brings you joy and energy.
So that’s why I kind of like the quick and dirty method. And sometimes you’ll go, I need to add a spoke. Or maybe that spoke isn’t as important
anymore. Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. And thank you for that visual. Cause it, it really does showing me the gaps in there that really, that really does help. So, well, we could talk forever, but I try to keep these to about 30 minutes or so, and we’re probably over that already.
So thank you so much for joining. We have in the show notes, we have links. People can find out more about you, including you gave me a link to the quick Strategic plan, right? So what’s on that page?
Some visuals too. Okay. So you’ll be able to see a different scenario that I had with a typical client and you’ll be able to see the, the reigns that are a little bit more pronounced than yours.
A little bit more pronounced. Okay. From there, kind of what they did with it. So hopefully that that’s helpful.
So it’s extraordinary team. com. And it’s slash quick hyphen strategic hyphen plan, but the link is in the show notes. So you’ll be able to get it there. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing your wisdom with my audience.
I look forward to seeing you to the next conference.
Thank you, Alan.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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