How to create a strategic plan

I’ve seen a lot of chatter about what strategy is and isn’t recently.

Creating a strategic plan doesn’t need complicated. It’s is not something that only executives can create behind closed doors.

I want to give you a way to create a strategic plan in a way that is very straightforward. I like to keep things uncomplicated.

For Trust Insights, our general strategy is growth. Growth of our clients, growth of our team, growth of our community. Those are the overarching goals. That’s our direction.

To break it down more discretely, I like to dust off some of our frameworks to keep the planning organized. If you’re new to creating a strategy (or even if you’re not) a tried and true way to think about your plan is the STEM framework. STEM stands for Strategy, Tactics, Execution, and Measurement. Your Strategy statement is why you’re doing something. Your tactics statement is what you’re going to do. Your Execution statement is how you’re going to do it. Your Measurement statement is how you’re going to determine whether you were successful.

If you’re struggling to write down your strategy statement, I’ll give you a pro-tip. Write a user story for each goal and tie everything else back to that.

As a [persona], I want to [intent]. so that [outcome].

Let’s see if it works.

Strategy: As the CEO, I want to grow the Trust Insights community, so that we can drive the awareness of our services and expertise to the right audience.

OK, that’s not too bad. There is a clear purpose for the goal. We want to help marketers solve problems. We want to offer support. We want to network. We want to be the people that you come to when you have a problem that needs solving. And then you tell your friends. And they tell their friends.

That’s the strategy. That’s what we want to do and why. Next up is Tactics. The tactics should wind up being a list of things you plan on doing that tie back to your strategy. In this instance, my tactics should all tie back to growing the community. If they aren’t, they are a distraction.

Tactics: To grow the Trust Insights community I will advertise the community across our digital assets.

That’s pretty basic but it’s a solid start. Now, how will I do this? That’s the Execution.

Execution: To advertise the community, I will use the invite as a call to action in at least 2 pieces of content a week. To advertise the community, I will create at least 2 social posts a week with the invite link. To advertise the community, I will highlight the benefits of the community in the weekly newsletter.

Lastly, how will I know if this works? Measurement. This is the piece that is most often forgotten in a strategic plan.

Measurement: To determine if the Trust Insights community is growing I will take a baseline of how many members there are on January 1, 2022. From there, I will keep a tally of the membership numbers every week to track growth.

For each of your goals, repeat the process. That’s your strategic plan. Sorry not sorry to anyone that wanted to keep the art of creating a strategy mysterious and unapproachable.

How is your strategic planning going? Let me know in our Free Slack Group!