STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR GROWTH

Strategic Planning

for Growth

By Craig Marton, President and COO

In this three-part ebook, discover why

strategic planning is a game changer for

any company.

Get leadership insights on how to bring

strategy alive and gain buy-in, as well as

real-life tips on implementation.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Why does a growing company

need a strategic plan?

Bringing strategy alive with

goals and accountability

Implementing strategy to

succeed and compete

About the Author

Table of Contents

Developing a business strategy takes time and resources. It

requires the effort and commitment of many people.

So, why do we need a strategy? Why should we make time to plan one, two,

three or more years out?

Why does a growing company

need a strategic plan?

In Part 1 of this series, learn why strategic planning is essential to

the overall growth, success and profitability of your company.

Our Story

These are the questions that I asked my current team at Sunset Transportation as

we began developing our three-year strategic plan. Our company has been

recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Missouri for the past

several years. Sunset is targeting reaching $100 million in revenue by the end of

2016.

It’s critical that our business model is capable of adapting to meet the demands

that come with that level of growth.

Let me share with you what I shared with our team. A strategy is necessary for

many reasons, but I’m going to focus on a handful of reasons in particular.

A strategy sets direction and priorities

Companies need a strategy to set direction and establish clear

priorities. It defines our view of success and prioritizes the actions to

make it become reality. The strategy will tell us what we should work

on, and what we should work on first.

Without a clearly defined and communicated strategy, we may find that our

highest priorities — the ones that will drive the greatest success — are being

given less attention than they deserve.

A strategy helps get everyone on the same page

If we have people, teams, even whole departments working to achieve different

goals, or going in different directions, we will drastically reduce our ability to be

successful. Once we define our strategic direction, we can get operations, sales,

marketing, finance, and all other departments moving together to achieve the

company’s goals.

A strategy simplifies decision-making

If we have trouble saying “NO” to new or proposed ideas, we need a strategy.

Why? The strategy prioritizes actions necessary for success, making it easier to

say “no” to distractions.

A strategy drives alignment

Organizations, like ours, have intelligent and hard-working people putting their

best efforts into areas that have little to no effect on strategic success. Often,

we’re focused on the wrong work — because our activities aren’t aligned with

our priorities.

By design, our strategy answers the question, “How can we best align all our

resources to maximize our success?”

LASTLY, a strategy communicates the message

In some organizations, leaders walk around with a virtual strategy locked in their

heads — they know where they believe the company needs to be and the actions

that will get it there. Unfortunately, in the cases where the strategy is locked in

the leaders’ head, the strategy isn’t documented and hasn’t been communicated

thoroughly. As a result, there is no real buy-in to the strategy, and no one is

acting on it.

When all of us—our supplier partners and even our customers—

know where we’re going, we have even better opportunities to

maximize our success.

Once we recognize the need to plan, we then have the responsibility of

becoming the facilitator for accelerating the buy-in and commitment of all

stakeholders; employees, customers and owners.

Very few managers truly understand their role in facilitating strategy. So, part of

the strategic plan must include tools, like short term or annual goals, to keep the

organization on the designated strategic path. And then, we need to hold

ourselves accountable for achieving the annual goals.

Why is a strategy important to your organization?

In the next chapters, I’ll be sharing more about goal setting and other key

elements of strategic planning.

The next step is bringing the strategic plan to reality.

We do this by setting shorter term goals and/or annual goals that are aligned

with the strategy—and then, we hold ourselves accountable to ACCOMPLISH

them.

Setting priorities and establishing accountability

One of the primary purposes of a three-year strategic plan is to set direction and

priorities.

Bringing strategy alive with goals

and accountability

In Part 2 of this Strategic Planning for Growth series, we'll cover

best practices in setting realistic, actionable goals for your

business.

Goal setting, with clear actions effectively implemented to generate the desired

results, is the process that breathes life into a Strategic Plan.

More specifically, setting and establishing accountability for critical goals (key

priorities) is a major component of a company’s cultural transformation.

At Sunset Transportation, like any organization, an essential component of

executing our strategic plan is organizational alignment, meaning: “Everyone

pulling in the same direction.” From the strategic plan, this alignment flows to

annual goals, priorities, specific actions, measurable results, and committed

timelines. Each person, each function and each team must have specific goals

and responsibilities that are aligned with all of our goals to achieve the desired

annual objectives.

It’s like strategic “building blocks” with each block representing a

key piece of the whole structure.

Success is dependent on our ability for everyone in the organization to

understand and accept responsibility for their role (building block), with

leadership coordinating the blocks to construct a sturdy, sustainable structure.

Here are some more vital reasons for setting goals:

Goals are motivational

If I asked you to travel the country with me, what image comes to mind? Can you

visualize walking or driving or flying somewhere? Do you feel like you have a

sense of purpose or direction?

What if I asked you to drive to Orlando, Florida with me in 30 days, play golf

every day at a local resort for a week, and then return immediately afterward?

Can you visualize yourself in a car, heading southeast towards Orlando, with a

clear purpose in mind?

The difference is the first statement is an ‘objective’ — objectives are directional

but not specific. And, the second is a ‘goal’ because it produces a clear and

measureable sense of purpose and expectation. It is more likely to stimulate

action. The first example seems more like a dream or an aimless adventure.

Well-stated goals provide a sense of meaning, purpose and direction.

Goals provide clear expectations

Setting clear goals is an excellent way to focus attention on what we want to

accomplish. The more specific the expectation, or goal statement, the more

likely it is that we will have complete buy-in. And, people will concentrate their

effort and actions towards accomplishing the goal.

Goals drive individual performance

When goals are clearly set, measured and monitored, they provide us

with a sense of forward progress in what might previously have

seemed like a pointless grind. It gives us a sense of pride in our

accomplishments and identifies what we need to do to improve

performance.

Recognition for achieving milestones builds confidence towards longer-term

goals—which is particularly important when goals are challenging.

Goals enable teams to work towards a common purpose

A common understanding of the team’s purpose helps everyone comprehend

what the team is intending to accomplish and why. This reduces the likelihood

that team members will be pulled in different directions, working on lower

priorities, or getting into unnecessary conflict. Goals also challenge teams to be

innovative and set higher standards for themselves and the company.

Goals support company culture

Setting goals is an opportunity for the company to strengthen its work culture.

For example, if ‘teamwork’ is important to us, then goals that enable and

encourage ‘teamwork’ will support company values and drive corresponding

behaviors. If becoming ‘process-driven’ is important to our organization, then

process goals will encourage a process-minded culture.

By setting goals, we increase our ability to meet objectives, build

confidence, improve team communication, and increase overall pride

and satisfaction.

Sunset Transportation has been extremely successful over the years, as

evidenced by revenue and profit growth, as well as customer and employee

loyalty.

To continue that success and to achieve even greater levels of performance

going forward, we recognize the need to transform our culture from family-

oriented and people-driven to family-oriented and process-driven with a clear

strategy direction, supported by specific goals, metrics, expectations and

accountability.

How have specific goals energized your business or career?

In the third and final chapter, I’ll share Sunset’s recently completed Strategy

Snapshot, which is a concise tool charting our objectives, goals and initiatives.

When I joined Sunset Transportation, it was fast

becoming a leader in third party logistics.

Recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in Missouri for the past

several years, our revenues were reaching new heights, and we needed to

implement strategy and goals to sustain and accelerate this trend.

Implementing strategy to succeed

and compete

In Part 3 of this Strategic Planning for Growth series, we'll cover

the Strategy Snapshot, a key concise tool used to chart your

company's objectives, goals and initiatives.

Strategy that transforms

A key part of adapting to the increasing demands of customers and the industry

in general is transitioning from being “people-driven” to being “process-driven.”

A people-driven business has the potential for inconsistencies and typically

requires a few people to make all the important decisions – typical with start-ups

and small family-owned enterprises.

As organizations grow, so does the need to transition from people-

driven to process-driven.

Because of our company’s successful revenue trend, this was true at Sunset

Transportation. We needed to become “process-driven” and establish

standardized process, systems and procedures for handling repetitive situations

and higher volumes of work, as well as, to delegate more and more decision

making to the true process owners.

Process-driven means establishing and standardizing key processes, procedures

and systems to:

Reduce variability and increase predictability

Enhance consistency and repeatability

Improve problem solving capabilities

Establish a basis for training and development

Establish a baseline for performance

Proactive Growth Plan

By having proven processes in place, we will retain our existing customers while

attracting additional new customers.

Proven processes are important because every company must have a plan to

address the risk of losing some existing customers; due to economic downturns,

business consolidations, business failures, etc.

Think about it: what would happen if one, two or three large customers left for

any of these reasons? In my experience from decades in the manufacturing

industry, companies come and go for many reasons.

For example; during the recession of 2008 and 2009, a significant number of

manufacturing companies in America with revenues less than $100 million no

longer exist today. And, another large percent were absorbed by competitors or

investors, with new owners, alliances and decision makers.

It’s critical that the company has a revenue plan with specific goals and actions

to achieve our growth strategy to assure our business is always capable of

maintaining the current revenue level and greater.

Improved Ability to Compete

Transforming our business from people-driven to process-driven has

improved our ability to compete more effectively too. We’ve become

more efficient, more agile, and better able to assist our customers on

short notice or with difficult circumstances.

As an example: we believe our carrier due diligence and on-boarding process is a

“best-in-class” procedure. This has allowed us to build a network of carriers

capable of handling nearly any request our customer may need—quickly and

efficiently.

It has also provided us with a method to assure our carrier partners meet our

strict requirement of performance: tenure in business, high pick-up and delivery

performance, with little or no claims.

We built our strategy with our stakeholders in mind. Our stakeholders include:

employees/associates, customers and owners, as well as our external business

partners.

Implementing the strategy

To assure alignment, we chose to build the strategy in layers – from concept to

specifics. First, the “Strategy Snapshot,”an easily understood illustration of our

objectives, goals and initiatives to be used as a constant reminder of our

strategic journey.

Then, we defined our current, or “as-is,” condition by taking a deep look into our

company and the industry – and, developing a SWOT analysis (strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities and threats).

This clear view of “where we are” and “where we’re going,” served as a platform

to map our three-year strategic journey. This map made defining the steps

(goals, actions, etc.) and accountabilities much easier.

Buy-in, communication and commitment

A critical component of a strategy or effective improvement plan is

being able to manage the transition from “as-is” to “desired state.” In

other words: getting buy-in from the entire organization.

And, making sure the strategy can answer the following questions …

What does success look like? Is it achievable? Is it measurable? Is it

sustainable?

Is it easily communicated to the entire organization?

Does every person in the organization understand their role? And, is every

person capable, committed and motivated to make it happen?

What are your best practices for strategic planning? How did you get

employee buy-in?

About the Author

Craig Marton is a seasoned leader dedicated toexcellence with integrity. His experience includes

strategic planning, organizational change, mentoring andimproving performance. He is president and COO of

Sunset Transportation, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis.

Copyright © 2016 by Craig Marton All rights reserved.

Learn more about the author and contact him through

SunsetTrans.com