Episode 12: The 4 Steps to Success for Your 2022 Business Game Plan

Crafting Your 2022 Business Game Plan: Mission, Vision, Values, and a Money Roadmap

What is your business game plan for 2022? More importantly, how are you going to ensure your goals are met?

Join me as I cover four essential steps for a successful 2022 business game plan. 

Step 1: Defining or redefining your MVV (mission, vision, values)

Your mission statement should be a declaration of purpose. The mission can change to reflect a company's priorities and methods to accomplish its vision. As an entrepreneur, your company's mission statement should be concise and specific to your customers, understand your purpose, and how you provide value to them. 

Questions to ask:

• What do we do?

• How do we do it?

• Whom do we do it for?

• What value are we bringing?

• Why do you exist as an organization?

• What does your company do, or provide, for its customers?

• What do you want to be remembered for?

• What's your company's overall intention?

• What is it your business does well? How do you do it?

Tips: Test your mission statement by asking yourself whether your competitors could use the same message. If so, get more specific.

A vision statement describes the organization as it would appear in a future successful state. It should be inspirational and aspirational. Your vision statement is a broad view of how your company is going to leave an impact on customers and the greater community. 

Questions to ask:

• If your company were to meet all of its goals, what would it look like in 5-10 years?

• What will your business have accomplished in the next decade?

• Where do you want your company to be in the future?

• Where do you see your business going?

• Paint a graphic mental picture of the business you want.

• What problems do you expect to solve in the next few years?

Other notes: Vision statements are generally internally shared rather than with the public.

Core values describe what the organization believes in and how it will behave. These provide a moral compass for the company: how you will hire employees and build a company culture. These are the fundamental beliefs of your company (and possibly you, if you're a small business). Your values tell the world what you're about. They give your employees a reason for what they do - and your customers a reason to cheer for you.

Questions to ask:

• What are my guiding principles?

• What are my core beliefs?

• What do I stand for?

• What am I opposed to?

• What is important to this company?

• How do you wish to treat people, employees/contractors, contributors, customers?

Tips: Don't ignore your core values when choosing whom to work with. Your employees and contractors should be in line with your personal and/or business core values.

Step 2: Mapping Your Money Roadmap

What is your revenue goal for 2022? More importantly, how are you going to reach it? What do you need to do monthly, quarterly, or even daily to get there? That information is what the money roadmap exercise uncovers.

It’s great to set a goal but it is even better to know what you need to do to reach that goal.

Step 3: Get Visible

What are your plans to make sure that people know you exist AND know what you do?

Step 4: Track, track, track

You must track your metrics to know if what you are doing is going to get you to your goals.

Wishing you an abundant 2022!

If you need help with these four steps, I offer a Business and Systems Game Plan session.

Book a call and let’s make 2022 your best year yet!

Podcast Transcript:

0:01 Kiva Slade

Hello and welcome to Collab with Kiva. I'm your host Kiva, Slade. From the marbled halls of the US Congress to my racing themed office chair. I've learned that there is no perfect path to the life of your dreams. My journey over the past 20 years has included being a legislative director for a member of Congress, policy director for a nonprofit, stay at home mom, homeschooling mom, jewelry biz owner, and now the owner of a service based business. Whether your journey has been a straight line, or full of zigs and zags. Join me and my guest as we share insights hope in lessons learned from our email entrepreneurship journeys. May the collaborative sharing of our stories be the tide that lifts your boat? Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to this the first episode of 2022 of collab with Kiva. I'm your host, Kiva Slade, and today, we are going to delve into the topic of planning. Yes, I know, it's your favorite topic, wink, wink. But even if it isn't, there are some advantages to creating plans. Yes, we have learned since 2020, in particular, that we need to hold those plans loosely, and not hold them very tightly. But at least having a general framework for where we are going, and what we are going to do is far more beneficial than having nothing at all. So let's dive in. One of the first ways that I work with clients is helping them reassess their mission, their vision, and their values. Whether your company is a company of one, or you are the CEO, and you have 500 employees, mission, vision, and values are super important. Not only do they serve as a North Star, to guide your company, they also help you with the attraction of those who work with you, who partner with you, who buy your services. And for those that work with you, it helps them feel aligned. And it definitely increases by in for the work that they're doing. So when we're looking at your mVV, that's mission, vision and values. What what do they look like? When was the last time you took a look at those? I want you to take some time to write them out. What is the mission for your company. And for some, that mission is going to look different depending on the type of work that you do. So the vision is also going to look different. And then obviously, there are the values. Okay. And for many that are solopreneurs, those core values at first for your business might look quite similar to your own personal core values. That's totally fine and acceptable. Just in case you were thinking it was it. So let's dive a little bit deeper. Okay, so for mission, when you're thinking about the mission for your company, it should be your declaration of purpose. So your mission can change to reflect your company's priorities and the methods to accomplish its vision. In it really should be concise and specific to your customers. It should understand your purpose and how you provide value. So some questions you can ask yourself as you look to define or reassess your mission. What do you do? Or what do we do? How do we do it? Hmm, do we do it for what value are we bringing? Why do we exist as an organization? What does your company do or provide for its customers? What do you want to be remembered for? What's your company company's overall intention? What is it your business does well,

4:52

and they want you to test your mission statement by asking yourself whether your competitors could use the same message If you feel that they can, I want you to get even more specific. So moving on to your vision statement, the V in our M V V. A vision statement describes your organization, as it would appear in a future successful state. It should be inspirational, and aspirational. Your vision statement is a broad view of how your company is going to leave an impact on customers and the greater community. So here are some questions that you can ask yourself. If your company were to meet all of its goals, what would it look like in five to 10 years? What will your business have accomplished in the next decade? Where do you want your company to be in the future? Where do you see your business going? Paint a graphic mental picture of what the business that you want. And what problems do you expect solve in the next few years? And for some, if you're like myself, you might say Kiva, I need a little bit more than that. So I gotcha. So some examples of vision statements. For example, the organization Feeding America, there's a simple it's four words, a hungry, a hunger, Free America, okay? They are all about reducing hunger in this country. Okay, make a wish that people everywhere will share the power of a wish. Habitat for Humanity, a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Teach for America, one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. So when you think of those are one of my favorites, the organization Kiva, we envision a world where all people, even in the most remote areas of the globe, hold the power to create opportunity for themselves, and others. Definitely inspirational, definitely aspirational. So they all describe what's going to take place in that future successful state of those companies. So if you have trouble visualizing your business, imagine being profiled in the news. What are you and your company going to be recognized for? Just so you know, most vision statements are generally internal. So they're not always shared with the public. But if you don't have one at all, you can't even share it internally. So that's why I'm encouraging you to make one. So lastly, let's discuss core values. They describe what the organization believes in, in how it will behave. These provide a moral compass for the company, how you will hire employees and build a company culture. These are the fundamental beliefs of your company, and possibly yourself. Your values tell the world what you're about. They give your employees a reason for what they do, and your customers a reason to cheer for you. So some questions you can ask, what are my guiding principles? What are my core beliefs? Who rather excuse me? What do I stand for? What am I opposed to? What what opportunity is important to this company? How do you wish to treat people, employees, contractors, contributors, customers? And I want to encourage you never take nor your core values when choosing whom you work with, especially those that are entrepreneurs. Your employees and contractors should also be in line with your personal and business core values, depending obviously, on which of those you have if you're solopreneur. They, like I said, are more likely kind of combined. Okay? So that's the first step, reassessing your mission, vision and values. Second step, when we're talking about planning is your money roadmap. Let's be real. You've set some financial goals for this year, haven't you? How do you achieve them? How will you achieve those?

9:45

So let's just say for the sake of example, you have a revenue goal of $300,000 for this year. That sounds great. Wonderful. Kudos. Congratulations. I hope you hit it. How, though are you going to hit it? So your money roadmap, and I take my clients through an actual spreadsheet that lists out what brings money in. Alright, and how much of it do we need to have come in, in order to hit that $300,000 goal. So if you're a service based provider, and your goal was $300,000, you have a program that you offer that has a monthly fee of $3,000. How many people do you need to go through that program to hit $300,000? If that's your only offering, but for many, that's not. So maybe you have some other offerings, you have a project that you offer four times a year. And it's $4,000. And so how many people do you need to go through that project? Okay, and then maybe there's something else that you offer, whatever it is, we pull out all the things that are your moneymakers. And we start to delve into how much you need to have that you know how many people through that program, how many people every single month are paying you. And that information not only gives you a number of sorry, a process of how to get to that $300,000. But it also lets you realize some other key details. If you need to have X amount of people sign with you every single month, that means you need to have a Y amount of discovery calls to get those leads in. So while your financial goal is great in terms of a number, it also ties into your marketing. And it's important to understand exactly how it is that you're going to get to where you want to be come December. And tying into your marketing means that people need to know that you exist and what you do, which is the next part of planning. What are you doing to be visible? Are you on LinkedIn, some other social media platform podcast? News, do you have a newsletter that you share? What takes place in your business, that increases your visibility, so people know that you exist. And they know what you do? And how that actually impacts them and how it's beneficial to them. So once you've figured that out, and once again, that does definitely tie into what you have chosen as your revenue goal. It's important to track track track track your metrics. If you need to have 50 discovery calls a month. And you're averaging five there's it's a high possibility here probability you will not hit that goal. So it's important to track what's taking place in the your business. What's going on? Are the leads coming in? Where are they coming in from? Do you have a website? Is that that how people mainly find you? Are you a referral based business? There's a lot of factors that go into this. And I'm obviously scratching the surface with those right now in this episode. But it's really important to scratch that surface and to make sure that we're actually tracking what's happening in our business. So we know how to adjust our sales as an that's sai l while we're moving forward to get to our goals, okay.

14:15

And so as a recap, I want you to take time to reassess your mission, vision and values in your business. Create a money roadmap so you know exactly how you will get to that financial goal that ties into your visibility. People need to know you exist, they need to know what you do, and they need to know how that's gonna impact and or transform them. And you need to make sure you track track track track. So with those things being considered if you are in need of a business game plan him, definitely reach out to me on my website, the 516 collaborative.com. And we can go through these things together and in much more detail in order to make sure that your journey in 2022 is just that, your journey to your goals. So reach out to me and we can get your game plan going. In addition to that, I want you to make sure that if you don't reach out that you do these things for yourself, because they're definitely important. And we all know that if you don't plan what's gonna happen. All right, so you need to play in in order to succeed. So, again, quick recap, readjust, reassess your mission, vision and values, map out your money. Make sure people know you exist, what you do so increase that visibility and make sure you are tracking all the important metrics in your business. This is Kiva and I will see you on the next episode of collab with Cuba. Thanks. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of collab with Kiva. You know my heart, and it wants you to know that you are uniquely made and that your business path is unique to you. I hope that now you have some clear takeaways from this episode that have left you inspired and motivated to keep pressing forward on your unique path. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And of course, your reviews on Apple are greatly appreciated. If you are a small business owner, and you are ready to build out your business playbook, and you're ready to document and delegate what takes place in your business so it can grow beyond you. Make sure you visit me on my website, the 516 collaborative.com and let's schedule a time to talk. I'll see everyone next time. Bye

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.