Gill Moakes 0:00
Welcome, welcome to the heads together podcast. Thanks for joining me again this week, you'll be glad you did. Because Have I got a treat for you this week, I'm joined by Sara Hattery. Sarah is a value creation and growth strategist. And she is the founder and CEO of Biz Ops solved. In our conversation together this week, we are going to be doing a deep dive into planning. It's that time of year, isn't it? It's that time of year kind of the fall autumn time when we start thinking about what next year is going to look like for us. And I think I know Sara shares this belief that, you know, so often planning is a bit meaningless. If you don't do it, right. It can be something that's a bit of a tick box checkbox exercise. You put together a plan, it sits in a Google folder for the entire year until you get it out next year, and realise that you didn't actually achieve the things you wanted to achieve. So you just put them on the list again for next year. We don't want planning to look like that we want planning to be a meaningful exercise. And the reason I was so keen to bring Sara onto this topic at this time of year is because she is an absolute guru around this, she is fantastic at breaking this subject down. So that it becomes absolutely doable. It becomes really meaningful, you finally get why you're doing it. And she just I honestly, I promise you by the end of this, you know, you really are going to want to be running off getting a piece of paper and just starting to do it. Because I know Sara and I know she's gonna give us such actionable steps to take to really make planning meaningful, and to make it something that is meaningful for the entire year of your business, not just something you do now and forget about until this time next year. So anyway, she's going to explain it way better than I can. And I'm so excited for you to meet her. Without any further ado, let's dive in. Welcome, welcome to the heads together Podcast. I'm Gill Moakes. And I am obsessed with cutting through the noise when it comes to growing your business each week via intimate coaching conversations and inspirational stories. I share what it really takes to get the results you want, in a way that feels right to you. I am all about attracting higher ticket opportunities, building authentic relationships, and creating the abundant full fat version of your dream business. I mean, how many of us have even away creating a light version of what we really want? The thing is, I honestly believe when you're outstanding at what you do, there is no limit to what you can achieve. So are you ready to put our heads together and make it happen? Let's go.
Gill Moakes 3:38
Hi, Sara, how are you?
Sara Hartary 3:40
I am well Gill it's early over here. But I am thrilled to be on your podcast. Thank you so much for having me as a guest.
Gill Moakes 3:48
Oh, my goodness thank you for joining me. And thank you for getting up so early. I know it's so early for you. And I really appreciate this. I really do.
Sara Hartary 4:00
I only do it for you.
Gill Moakes 4:01
Oh, thank you so much. I am so excited to have you with me today because we have the best chats don't we as two business owners, I'm very excited to bring one of those chats to my audience because they are going to learn so much from you, just like I have. So I wonder if you could just start kick us off by just explaining a little bit about what you do and who you work with.
Sara Hartary 4:28
Sure. So my specialty is internal business operations, which sounds terribly boring. But because I am such a lover of it and I am such a nerd on this topic. I can't think of anything more exciting to do. But long story short what this means is I make businesses run at their very best. And I love to do this transformation work with business owners. Because these folks are so good at what they do. You know, they're specialists in their area. They don't want to deal with the back office operations. You know, that's not where their love lies. And that's exactly where I like to play, make their businesses run better.
Gill Moakes 5:18
Oh, my goodness. I mean, I feel like there's just so much in what you just said in the fact that business owners, we don't start our businesses to do the op side of things, do we? And yet, I think so many business owners get really stuck in the op side, and it takes it sucks a lot of the joy out of their business for them.
Sara Hartary 5:44
Oh, that's such a good way to put it. It is so true. The the tagline that that I use for biz op solved, which is my company talks not just about the outcome for the business itself of the work that we do, but it focuses on the benefit that it brings to the owner. Because those things are so intertwined. When we're talking about entrepreneurs, the tagline is we make businesses more valuable. And owners lives better on like it. And those two really are so connected.
Gill Moakes 6:18
I just love that as a tagline. There's something for me, there's something absolutely bloody magical, when you have a tagline. That is it, there is not a single spare word in that tagline. So let me say it again. So let me see if I , it is so good. We make companies more valuable and owners lives better. I mean, that is just the essence of what you do. I love it.
Sara Hartary 6:46
Yes. It's the brand promise, it's the experience promise, and it's the mission all wrapped up together.
Gill Moakes 6:54
Yeah. So how how do you do that? That's an easy, easy to answer question for you. If you could just let us know how you do that in 10 words or less?
Sara Hartary 7:05
Well, as it turns out, that's been a little bit more difficult to fit into ten words. But the the best way to describe it is take 25 years of experience of running organisations and businesses. Understanding, you know, profit and loss, understanding employee motivation, understanding client needs, you know, combining it all together, understanding what does and doesn't work. But then dialling this in to this idea of value creation. And you know, that's a component of the tagline the word value. As I've refined the explanation around value creation, I think it makes so much more sense for business owners, why we do the things that we do inside their business operations.
Gill Moakes 8:00
Okay, so tell me a bit about that, then how do you define that? How do you talk about value creation with your clients?
Sara Hartary 8:10
If I go on too long? Or if I'm too excited about value creation, then you would just stop me?
Gill Moakes 8:17
Do you know what I don't think that would be possible? And and here's the reason why I really was so keen for you to come on the podcast, and you graciously agreed to, I am so keen for entrepreneurs who are, maybe not all of my listeners will be at the stage where they can hire a fractional COO or someone who can actually take over that op side of their business. But there is so much that you talk about in terms of value creation for businesses, that I think it's so important for entrepreneurs to adopt this mindset at the beginning of their journey, not 25 years down the line into their business. Would you agree with that?
Sara Hartary 9:03
Oh, 100%. So I'll let me back up a tiny little bit, make sure we have the audience following all the way. Please, this is a topic that not everybody's is involved in. So the best way to think about the work that I do, it kind of falls under the umbrella of Chief Operating Officer. And this is a combination of strategy for the business. And then where the rubber meets the road in all the different areas whether it's sales and marketing, whether it's you know, the development of your services, the delivery of your services, you know, billing and collections, all of those pieces together all the bits, and what, all the bits, all the bits that nobody loves, but are absolutely necessary for a good business to operate. And what I found in the work that I would do is that you know, I could go into an organisation and I could see exactly what needs to happen. But I wanted to coach up these organisations and I wanted to educate these owners, so that life would be better for them, you know, so it didn't feel so hard, so difficult. And the best way to help owners think about this, and I think this is true, whether you're a business owner with a large business, whether you're a solo preneur, thinking about, you know, having a bigger business, this works in both ways. I call it eager, eager about value creation, okay. And I spell that E A, G, R, and that stands for earnings. So this is your profitability, you want to focus on improving that. Got it G for growth, you want to increase your growth, and R for risk reduction, you want to reduce that risk that you have. And I think this is particularly true back to your point that you just made about why starting some of these practices, when you are just beginning to scale can end up being so valuable, because one of the greatest risks that we see impeding value for business owners is too much reliance on the owner, they become a bottleneck
Gill Moakes 11:26
Oh my goodness, and that can happen a lot sooner than you think, can't it?
Sara Hartary 11:30
Sadly, yes. They say we're the the only family without the shoes, are the cobblers so we're not going to we're not going to point too many fingers around how many business operations people are perfect behind the scenes or not. But yes, in other words, I absolutely empathise empathise with my clients, because I know how hard this can be. And sometimes you just need a little help, a little guidance, a little best practice that isn't theoretical, that you can actually apply in your day to day business life and it's not too heavy or difficult.
Gill Moakes 12:06
Actually stuff you can apply. Because we're drowning in theory at the moment, aren't we? You know, we've we've never had the opportunity to consume so much advice. As we have right now. It's really overwhelming for people. That's one thing I love about your approach. And the approach of biz op solved is, is that kind of everything is real, it's real. It's actionable, it actually makes a difference for for the specific business, rather than everything be very theoretical and high level. Yes, absolutely. Going back to the EGAR little acronym, which I love, earnings, growth and reduce risk, are those the things that that go into the value creation is that where those feed the value creation process, don't they?
Sara Hartary 12:56
They do. And just a really quick longstory here as a management consultant for decades now, one of the challenges that I've had in demonstrating to clients, the changes that are happening, because some of them feel so seamless, clients might not even notice that they're happening. But typically, what clients have been looking at has been either the revenue number, or they look at margins for the services or products that they offer. But rarely do we look at enterprise value. And getting a little bit more educated about what your business is worth, versus just the money flowing through it is very interesting. It is a bigger picture. It's a bigger number. It's a longer term, because I think for a lot of business owners, the single biggest asset that they have is their business. And for a lot of folks, their business is ultimately going to provide for their retirement in some form or fashion, whether it's going to provide income, passive income for them, whether it's going to you know, a sale of it is going to fund future goals and dreams. And so when you understand sort of the bigger picture of what your business was worth, then you're much better prepared for your own goals in the future beyond this sort of day to day rat race that I think we find ourselves in.
Gill Moakes 14:38
So true. I think this is a an area where some people think that thinking of enterprise value and thinking of that end game if you like of at some point, you may want your relationship with your business to change whether that's by selling it or stepping back or whatever that looks like. Some I think again that there's no time that's too soon to start looking at your business like that quite often with the a lot of the women I work with will tend to see their business as themselves.
Sara Hartary 15:15
That's not just true for women.
Gill Moakes 15:17
No of course, I only work with women. So I and I, but I'm absolutely sure it's true. across the planet.
Sara Hartary 15:24
Yes yes yes. Just reassuring. Yeah, absolutely. It is true. So it's really interesting. I think, as a woman, I feel least moderately qualified to comment on what it's like, as a female entrepreneur, we have a tendency to, you know, try to do everything ourselves, put everything on our own backs. Because we know we can do it, you know, we're highly capable. And we just have more of a tendency to do it ourselves. And I think as you start to scale and grow, a couple of things happen, we get into massively into the risk reduction area, which is you have businesses that are too reliant on the owner. And that creates two problems. The first is it constrains your ability to grow. Because you can only get as much done as what can flow through you, you know, whether that's your oversight, whether that's your decision making, whether it's like the actual your hands touch the hands. The other piece of it from a risk reduction perspective is Who else could take over the business? Yeah, like, it just becomes too reliant on that one person. That's where the value lives. And so a big thing that I work on with owners, one of the very first things I tend to work on with owners is this rich, risk reduction piece. And one of the first steps of that is awareness. Because I think a lot of times, we just don't think about it, we've done it for so long. We're so used to it. We rarely step back and say, Wow, maybe too much is going through me, what can I do about it?
Gill Moakes 17:10
This comes down to you don't know what you don't know, all the time. And that's where you just need that external pair of eyes on your business to help you with this. It's not, this is just not an exercise you can do on yourself, is it?
Sara Hartary 17:27
No, it really isn't. But I want to inspire the audience listening to this podcast and reassure them that you won't necessarily find yourself in this predicament. If you start to put just a couple of things into practice, you can ease this before it becomes something that impedes your business growth. You know, it's planting season, it's the fall
Gill Moakes 17:57
is one of my favourite times of year, along with winter, spring and summer. I am, I'm such a seasonal person. So I love every single season. So I say that every every time we move into a new season, oh, it's my favourite time of year. Part, the thing I love the most about it is that that's starting to gear up for looking at next year, just starting to take stock of where you are this year. And then and really just beginning that planning process. So I'm really excited to talk to you about this.
Sara Hartary 18:32
Oh, good. Yes, me too. I mean, this is just a great, you know, so maybe for home organisers, January is their hot month. For me, November and December, are the times when business owners are really saying like, Hmm, I'm going to be a little bit, you know, reflective of my last year, I'm going to think about my goals for the upcoming year. You know, I think that's, this is the perfect time to do it. And I wanted to talk about some of the best practices around planning, I was hoping you would ask me, I always talk about the best practices around planning, and sort of diluting into whether you know, you own a bigger business or whether you're solopreneur. Because, you know, the you can start these things early, and they can become part of your habit. And, you know, part of getting to the way that I do this, besides my own experience has to do with the complaints that I've heard from clients about oh, yeah, we had somebody come in this kind of goes back to your comment about you can find anything on the internet like it's information overload from a theory perspective. And there is a tonne of theory around best practices for strategic planning and operational planning. But without exception, every client that I've worked with has said Well, yeah, we did it. And then we kind of put it on the shelf or abandoned it after about three months, you know, they weren't living it. And then how do you get your return on investment for that? I talk about ROI a lot. If you're gonna take the time to go through this type of an exercise, don't you want it to last all 12 months? I mean, I do.
Gill Moakes 20:24
Why, why on earth would you invest time and an energy into doing it if you weren't going to implement it to make it of use?
Sara Hartary 20:34
I think the reason that this happens is because we don't connect, the way we execute with the plan, that we decide the plan is something that we set at the beginning of the year to make some choices. And then we just run off in that direction somewhere. And we don't worry about how far off the plan we are, as we go through the year unless we have this moment of realisation. And then we get all cranky that we've deviated from it. Yeah. Just for example, but I wanted to just describe the way that I do this so that you'll absolutely get the return on investment, like I want to give your audience the tools to be able to do this because it works whether you're big or small, is that ok?
Gill Moakes 21:27
I would absolutely love that. Thank you. Okay, cool, said Nordea, the better right now.
Sara Hartary 21:36
We need a moderator. If we go back to the value creation principles, we go back to being eager. So the earnings, the growth and risk reduction. The first step that we want to do for planning is, if it makes sense. In other words, if your business has been around long enough to have a type of retrospective for the prior year, start there. And ask yourself these questions. What were the three best things that I accomplished last year? How did I do them? And how did they help my business? Then ask yourself, what was the big failure that I had last year? Why did it fail? And how did it affect my business? Then ask yourself, If I could have done something like my, hey, I thought about doing that, but I didn't. Now having the benefit of hindsight, would you have been able to do it? And what would the benefit have been to your business? So first, take that time to acknowledge what you've already accomplished from the prior year to learn from it.
Gill Moakes 22:53
Perfect. Can I just say everyone, before you go on I have to just share with everyone? Didn't I tell you, you were gonna get specific, actionable advice? I told you told you. This is what Sarah does. It's specific, it's actionable. You've hopefully you've got a pen and paper and you've written down those three things like I have.
Sara Hartary 23:17
We're gonna have a little more writing I want I want folks to know that I make this information available on my website.
Gill Moakes 23:25
Oh, I will pop a link to that in the show notes.
Sara Hartary 23:28
Yes, please do, please do. Okay, so now we've done our retrospective for the prior year and we're ready to come into this year. The thing we want to validate is our mission and vision. This is not a what do you what do you call it over the across the pond? Frou Frou
Gill Moakes 23:47
Frou Frou Frou Frou Frou over here tends to mean something completely different? Sarah
Sara Hartary 23:58
my my so my apologies to everybody. I my British slang is rusty at best. So if I say something offensive, please apologise.
Gill Moakes 24:11
Frou Frou Frou Frou, let's go with?
Sara Hartary 24:15
Okay, we want this to be a lot more concrete. The way I like to describe this is you know, your vision statement, your mission statement, these aren't designed to be you know, giant warm hugs. These are designed to be usable. So when we talk about our vision statement, we are going to talk about where we want the organisation to be or our business to be in three to five years. And what we're doing here is we're trying to define this North Star, right, this is our direction that we're headed. The mission statement is how we do this. And so a good way to think about that is you know, if I were to say how are you going to get to the North Star And the mission is a combination of the way you approach something, and the work that you do. When it comes to planning, I like to mix the mission statement into the annual focus. And so what I would tell our audience is to say, Come up with your focus statement. For the next year, it needs to imply action, it needs to imply some scope or boundaries of what you're trying to accomplish. And it needs to obviously align with where you want to be in three to five years.
Gill Moakes 25:38
Oh that's good. That is good. So suddenly, that pie in the sky, which you can sometimes feel like vision statement, suddenly gets broken down a little into a focus statement for the next year. Okay, I love that. Okay.
Sara Hartary 26:00
So if you have been in business a while, if you have a team, if you've ever found yourself in a situation of trying to communicate what you want out of the business, or where you're kind of headed, fees are two really awesome ways to do that. So the vision you want everybody to be aligned with your vision, of course. But how do you make that real for them. And it's this focus statement. So now we've all created our focus statement for the year. And the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to break that down into three to five big rocks, or we'll call them key objectives. And what we want to do here is we want to say, if I do these three to five things, I will accomplish my focus for next year.
Gill Moakes 26:53
Okay. So what could can we give someone an example of what of the kind of size if you like, I'm just thinking, you know, if we've got a focus statement for the year, and we want three to five objectives, these aren't small task level things, are they?
Sara Hartary 27:13
No, because there is one level below this, which is, you know, your initiative or your project that supports this. So we want to think of these as objectives. Right. So these are not tasks. These are objectives. For example, if the thing that we want to do is to become more established in our industry, as an expert, let's just say, then some key objectives that we might have in there, we might have a content creation and publication strategy. We might have, you know, getting a collection of certifications. And we might have, you know, starting to participate in certain events, for example. So those would be three, you know, key objectives related to that focus statement. So things that will require multiple steps to accomplish. Yeah. But all aligned to contributing to that focus. Stay line.
Gill Moakes 28:22
Makes complete sense. Okay, cool. Well, here's the twist. I love a twist.
Sara Hartary 28:29
For each of these key objectives. We want to avoid doing things that are not beneficial for the business. So remember those EGAR principles, earnings growth and risk reduction? Every key objective gets tagged with a primary element of value creation. Are you doing this because it reduces risk? Are you doing this because it's going to improve your profitability and your earnings? Or are you doing this because it leads to growth?
Gill Moakes 29:09
Okay, okay. Got it.
Sara Hartary 29:11
And this wonderful litmus test, makes sure that you are not following a pet project that feels disconnected from your focus for the year.
Gill Moakes 29:27
Oh, that's interesting. So my mind obviously, you know, and, and our listeners are going to be doing the same thing straightaway we all go to our own businesses, and we think Hey, God, what so what am I doing? What initiatives am I doing at the moment, and we're all desperately trying to tick off? Which of those eager columns if you like, the initiative's we've all got going on it comes under. I mean, it's a really interesting one for me because as a particularly as someone who's a bit of a self confessed I'm a lover of shiny objects and someone who loves to try new things do new things. For me, this is a very, very valuable tool because I am all for trying new stuff. I love variety and doing new things. But I think for me, I can see this being really helpful to just just use as a framework for keeping myself focused on that bigger picture.
Sara Hartary 30:30
Yeah, absolutely. And I think for those of us who who are shiny object chasers, this helps ground you. It there's not to say that you can't have a shiny object among your key objectives, you know, something that really doesn't increase your earnings growth or reduce your risk. But knowing that that's the case will help a lot. Yes. And I think this is a really interesting place where owners can connect with their teams even better, because when an owner is explaining, here are the things we're going to do for the next year, when you can tie it back to saying, here's why we pick these things. Here's their significance. And this is how we want to stay focused on them, then this is a great way to speak the same language with your team. And it I think builds a lot of support internally. Oh, yeah, towards work that folks are doing. Because they know it's not a shiny object. Yeah, exactly.
Gill Moakes 31:41
I think it's actually imperative to, to share with the team, why they're being asked to do something that nothing will get buy in, like getting someone to really understand the why behind the thing they're being asked to do. As soon as they understand that everything changes. In my opinion, in my experience, it's, it's really, really important.
Sara Hartary 32:08
Absolutely. So here's where I'm going to start talking a little bit in two cases, right. So I want to talk to your audience who are business owners with teams. And then I want to talk to your audience who are maybe smaller solopreneurs, working our way towards growing something or just solopreneurs and perfectly happy that way. So everything, this is all great, all of the different types that we have in the audience, you can still do this, right. So the thing that happens under those key objectives, I call them initiatives, or projects. And these are the collection of things that you want to get done in order to accomplish that key objective. So if we go back to our example of, let's say, you know, becoming more of a content guru, then things that could fall under that would be, you know, maybe publishing articles, having a LinkedIn strategy, being a speaker at certain events. And so each of those things would would be initiatives that fall into that. And then you want to hold yourself accountable. And so you want to put in the way you're going to measure if you're successful. So you would then attach into these things to say, Okay, well, I'm going to have at least 12 articles, I'm going to make sure I have, you know, at least 12, LinkedIn posts, obviously would not, but so you're going to put these measurements in because you do want to know what success looks like. So if you're imagining yourself as a solopreneur, you've done these things for yourself. If you're standing in the shoes of a business owner who has a team, you're communicating out to them. This is what we're doing. This is why you can work with them and giving them that retrospective, you know, that I described at the beginning of the show, doing that work with your leadership team, having them look inside their own groups to come back with that is very important, because then they can contribute to here's how I think we're going to hit that key objective. And here's how we should measure ourselves. You want their buy in on how you put those initiatives style there. And here's a little insider tip.,
Gill Moakes 34:40
oh, we like insider tip.
Sara Hartary 34:42
Oh, yes. Even if it's about business ops. Part of the problem that we talked about is plans become stale through the year. Well, here's how to prevent that. Each of those initiatives needs to fit inside a quarter. So inside of three months, you need to be able to start and complete that project in three months or less, and hit those measurements and do that within three months or less
Gill Moakes 35:19
Woah, okay, so. So my mind has gone to well, what if it's a project that's going to take more than three months? Then you break it down? I guess it becomes more than one initiative? Yes, you do. Oh You do. Oh, I'm having my own little aha moment. It's like the tables have turned Yeah, I like Yeah. Okay. So each quarter, it's very, very clear. Where whether you have achieved what you set out to achieve, because the initiative or the project was contained within that quarter, it should be done, it should be finished by the end of it. Okay. I like it.
Sara Hartary 36:01
Now, there are two reasons why we do this. And I want to share this. So my background is in information technology. And, you know, I started out my career as a COBOL programmer, if you can believe it, but I started as a programmer.
Sara Hartary 36:06
I cant believe it's Sara you're far too young.
Sara Hartary 36:25
But what I you know, have continued to work, you know, off and on in it for a while, I mean, more than 20 years in project management, programme management, professional services. But for for our audience out there who are familiar with Agile software development, or iterative software development, one of the things that we focus on is this idea of, you know, a backlog or list of things that need to get done, and a timetable in which to do them. So if you're a developer, you know, those are called sprints. And the things have to fit within the sprint, you have to be able to start and finish them inside of a sprint. Now in it, maybe that's a two week sprint, in strategic and operational planning, and doing this value creation work on your business, our sprints, if you will, our quarters. So you want to be able to start and complete these initiatives within the quarter, because it doesn't matter what you start, right? It matters what you finish,
Gill Moakes 37:36
I love that. It doesn't matter what you start, it matters what you finish.
Sara Hartary 37:41
So here's the other reason to do it this way, when we try to start all of our projects at the beginning of the year. And this is where I think the sort of community of planning falls down, when it comes time to really working with owners, is we say, okay, these are the initiatives you want to accomplish through the year, like even if we look back at our chart of our key objectives and our initiatives, that's the idea of our shopping list, if you will for the year. Okay, well, now, how do you stick with that? The way you stick with that is you break it out by quarter. Don't think you have to start everything in the first quarter, you don't. So start and finish the things that you put into each quarter. Now you have some flexibility, right? Maybe there are some dependencies between different initiatives. But you can put all those things and you can map them out. This is what we'll do in first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter. Now you have a real shot at getting all of those things done. Yeah. And at the end of every quarter, you need to do this kind of retrospective back on it. You have to look at Did you complete your initiatives or not? You have to make a decision? Do I roll this thing forward into the next quarter? And if I do, you know what has to change on that quarterly plan so that I can actually get everything done. Maybe you've abandoned an initiative, but at least you know that you did and why. And maybe you've just kind of put it back into the list, you're going to work on it another time. But whether you do this as a solopreneur, this discipline of taking a look at what you said you were going to do and what you actually did, is going to make you so much better at being able to understand how much you can undertake at a time. I think we have a tendency to undertake too much. And if you are a business owner with a team that works with you, this is a great way to hold your team accountable. Like did you get these things done? How did they How did they do? How do we think that the next quarter is lining up to try to accomplish these. Now all of a sudden, everybody's clear about what we're trying to do and why. And we're being held accountable for actually getting it done.
Gill Moakes 40:13
This is like, this is very enlightening in a way for me not, not so much in terms of it being something I don't know, although some of it is new to me, because this is something I work with clients on. But it's taken me back to when I worked in a corporate role and goals, quarterly goals, annual goals, it was so meaningless. And, you know, nothing ever. Plans were, were something that we worked on for ages at the end of each year, and then had to be approved by the next level up and etc, etc. And this was, it was an industry in its own self would be creating these plans. Were they ever looked at again until the following autumn? Absolutely not? Did they have any impact on the day to day working? Absolutely not. And I think what you're showing us here, and really kind of spelling out here is that that is under our own control. We Yes, we can invest time and energy into doing something and then not see the value from it. But it's probably because we're not doing it in this way. We're not breaking it down enough. We're not making it you know, starting and finishing initiatives within a quarter. That's a biggie, for me. That's a real takeaway for me.
Sara Hartary 41:47
Yeah yeah, absolutely. I mean, and this, this is the thing that as a business operations nerd, really irks me, right, like, so if you've taken the time. And you know, again, going back to this return on investment, right, if you've taken the time, the thought power, I mean, shoot that it's essentially expectation setting. And so you know, I have a background and certified in project management. And the thing that I always look for in a good project manager is expectation management, we have to do it for ourselves, as business owners. And this is a great way to do that. So if you've taken the time to say, This is my vision, this is my focus for the upcoming year. Here's how I'm going to get there. And that's what this is all about. And then you say, Okay, great. Now, how do I not only hold myself accountable, but how do I improve my chances of being successful. And you don't want this to feel heavy, you just want this to become part of your normal as we call it ops tempo, right? Like, you want this to be just the normal way you do business, it changes planning it changes, it turns it on its head.,
Gill Moakes 43:06
Completely, and I'm just thinking, you know, for, for all the solopreneurs out there who are thinking, Well, you know, it's just me, this feels like overkill, you know, I would highly recommend you do this, do it this year, do it this autumn. Go through this process, even if it is just you, and you don't have any team whatsoever, because I tell you what this is going to do, I can see already, this is going to cut through the overwhelm. And one of the biggest things I hear from solopreneurs is around overwhelm. It's around, okay, I have this big vision that I want to bring to life. But everything that needs to happen to do that is too much. It's overwhelming. You know, with my clients, I always start with the big vision. But then we keep breaking it down, we keep working backwards, backwards, backwards, until we get to that very first small thing that we need to accomplish. So I just I think this is so important for people of any size business to master, so that they do feel in control. And they can kind of address that overwhelm.
Sara Hartary 44:23
I love that you said that. So I'm thinking and I'm grinning from ear to ear at what you are doing for your clients. Because if we take that and we overlay it with the message that I'm bringing here, then it's not so much that you've identified this, you know, one off task for them or you've uncovered some nugget that you know, maybe they do maybe they don't do this, combined with what you're helping them do to identify these key objectives and these initiatives which which is ultimately what you're doing is then Now these entrepreneurs have the tool to be able to keep track of this. And we don't overcomplicate it, you know, if you're a solopreneur, if you have three key objectives for the year, if you have one project in each quarter for them. I mean, I think you'll have a difficult time with just four initiatives and three key objectives. But I mean, even if you have one key objective, for goodness sakes, and four things you accomplish in the year, you are still so much further ahead than you would have been with them.
Gill Moakes 45:36
Absolutely, you let go of that scattergun approach. And really kind of, I couldn't agree more, I think if you have one project in each quarter, that's still going to be a project that you start and finish in that quarter. The the achievement that comes with doing that, and also this is habit building, too. Because sometimes I think that confidence is built by celebrating our own achievements. And, I couldn't agree more that's a perfect way to write. And so seeing yourself when you're doing, you know, following your advice, Sara, and doing that reflective work at the end of each quarter, and being able to finally really tick a box of a project completed in the time you said you were going to complete it. That's satisfying. And that is massively confidence building
Sara Hartary 46:04
It is I love that you said that. And you know, what's what's interesting, and this comes up a lot with my clients. Well, how much time is this going to take Sara? Yeah. And so I just want to take a minute, and let's map out exactly how much time this is going to take our business owners out there. Okay, the retrospective, taking a look back at last year, between 30 minutes and an hour, depending how reflective you are.
Sara Hartary 46:32
So this isn't a big chunk of time, it says not a big huge commitment. It's a it's a thought process. Really.
Sara Hartary 47:12
It is okay. Setting your Northstar? Well, if you're working with a coach like Gil, like you, I just write down what you've already done, but and setting your focus for the year. Okay, well, let's give ourselves loads of time to enjoy a cup of coffee of that over that. So another half hour to an hour. Okay, what are the big things we're going to try to get done over the next year in order to get us closer to that focus? Okay, how long do we think that is? Probably less than half an hour. So where are we now at two hours, two hours total. And then our list of projects that we already kind of know what we're going to do, because we did the retrospective, right? So we've already thought about this. So now we've built this plan. And if you're working with a bigger team, you know, you figure about that same amount of time for your leadership team to do this, and then come back together. I think the thing that's, that's a little extra for the bigger teams, is you're gonna have to pair down and align, what these other groups are coming up with, because you're going to know what their kind of throughput is, you're going to know whether there are dependencies between projects. So this whole thing now is taking what maximum four hours? Yeah. And then holding ourselves accountable at the end of a quarter, an hour. Okay, so now all of a sudden, doing this thing, which is absolutely transformative for your business. Takes less than eight hours out of your wait for it. Year. Do you think you can find eight hours out of your year to do something like this? Probably.
Gill Moakes 49:02
Doesn't that put it in perspective. I mean, the fact that we can't all be in the same room at the moment and instantly exit to go and start doing this. Sara, because I have got you I would love it. If we could just do like a can we pull this all together so that people are really positioned perfectly to go and make this happen for their own businesses? This autumn?
Sara Hartary 49:30
Yes. Yes. Okay, quick recap from talk down. Step one, reflect on last year. Get those lessons learned, either on paper or into your mind. Step two. Clarify that vision and that mission, the North Star and the approach. Clarify you're focused for the upcoming year. Step three, break down that focus into no more than five, but three to five key objectives. These are going to live throughout the year to get you to your focus. What are we on now step four. Inside of each of those key objectives, make a list of what the projects need to be to accomplish those key objectives. And give yourself measurements, metrics, some sort of data to determine that you've successfully hidden them. Step five, sit down, and map out how those projects are going to fit across the quarters of the year. Make sure you're not overloading things, make sure you're not starting everything all at once. Step six, go do the thing. Do it, at the end of every quarter. And again, don't be afraid to do this. Like if something comes up or some great opportunity comes up for your business. Don't be afraid to pursue that, but have the discipline to come back and just take a look at your plan. Make sure that it stays aligned. But hold yourself accountable for what you've done. Take a look at the next quarter and make sure it's not overloaded. Adjust out for the rest of the year as necessary. And keep chugging until it's time to do this again.
Gill Moakes 51:31
Wow. I honestly don't think anyone has ever summed up a planning, summed up the value of planning and the simplicity of what it can look like in your business as well as that before. So thank you so much. Yeah. Oh, honestly, I think that is going to resonate hugely. So I'm really keen that we let people know how they can contact you. If they want more advice around this subject. Where do they go to check you out?
Sara Hartary 52:07
Yes, so definitely the website, this op solved with one s.com. Okay, and I'm very present on LinkedIn. And all of the services that we offer are tailored specifically to business owners, and value creation. It's all about making your company more valuable, and your life better.
Gill Moakes 52:32
Perfect. I'm going to link to your website, I'll make sure there's a link as well to your LinkedIn profile. So connect with Sarah, she has so much valuable stuff to say on this subject, as well as all of the the entire landscape around making your value your company more valuable. She's an absolute guru in this area. So do connect with her for sure. Sarah, I just want to thank you so much this has been so it's been exactly what you promised it would be which is just actionable, doable stuff that we can implement straightaway in our businesses. So I'm so grateful for that. Thank you,
Sara Hartary 53:17
Jill. Thanks for having me. You know, I could talk all day about this stuff.
Gill Moakes 53:20
Well, thank you. Anyway, bye for now.
Sara Hartary 53:25
Okay, bye.
Gill Moakes 53:26
I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that getting our heads together this week has filled your mind with what's possible. If you love the show, would you do me a massive favour please? Would you leave a five star rating on Apple podcasts? It would really help me put more heads together, reach more ears and expand more minds. Until next week. Bye for now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
