Do you know what direction your company is headed in? And what about the rest of your team, do they know? Our guest today is Anthony C. Taylor, and he shares with us the importance of strategic planning and communicating those strategies.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Move from implied to explicit communication wherever possible.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at:
- Get a copy of our guests’ book: CLICK HERE.
- Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop:
- https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
- Connect with our guest on social:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOHLNRrpk3rGUdg7qUQjiog
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Anthony Taylor is the CEO at SME Strategy. Anthony has facilitated strategy sessions for organizations big and small across North America and beyond. He is the author of two books and the host of the Strategy and Leadership Podcast. He holds a degree in business administration, with a specialization in marketing. Anthony brings an electric energy that captivates and inspires people around him. His love for people and his commitment to their success comes through in his facilitations and everyday life
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Tom DuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open today, I’m wondering if you know the direction your company is headed in. What about the rest of your team? Do they know? Well, our guest today is Anthony C. Taylor, and he shares with us the importance of strategic planning and communicating those strategies and plans to the rest of your team. Now Anthony is the CEO at SME Strategy. He’s facilitated strategy sessions for organizations, big and small, across North America and beyond. He’s the author of two books and the host of the Strategy and Leadership podcast.
(00:48):
He holds a degree in business administration with a specialization in marketing. Anthony brings an electric energy that captivates and inspires people around him, his love for people and his commitment to their success comes through in his facilitations in everyday life. And I think you will see that come through in our interview, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it. Thank you so much for being here, and really the topic of focus for today’s conversation is all orienting around strategic planning and understanding that, and that’s really your expertise in this. And so talk a little bit about strategic planning, what that means to a leader or to an organization that could be applicable at any phase.
Anthony Taylor (01:33):
Just a background on me, started off as an entrepreneur, had a lot of different businesses, made mistakes the hard way, and I learned and did all that. I wasn’t a big four consultant, that’s where a lot of strategic planning originates from. I’m more of a ground up, boots on the ground, make mistakes, strategic planner. So strategic planning fundamentally is just about choices. As an entrepreneur, as a small business, as a franchisee, you have limited time, money, energy to spend and you have to make sure that you get the best bang for your buck. And so I found strategic planning as a tool to, well help me mitigate risk because I had a business partner that ripped me off and helped me maximize impact because I was working with mission-based organizations that wanted to do as much as they could with what they had. And so we borrowed from really smart people, built a framework that helps people step-by-step, think about fundamentally where they are, where they want to go, what’s going to get in the way and what they need to do to get to that next place. And so yeah, that’s strategic planning in my mind.
Dr. Tom DuFore (02:36):
In this idea of strategic planning, and we do a variation or maybe a version of this when we help our clients go through the franchising process to help them franchise their business, but it’s very focused on the franchise side of things. It’s really this franchise strategic business plan and helping them analyze that whole focus. And you are really looking at an organization as a whole many times, or maybe for a big company, a large company, it might be a department or a division that you may be working with. So how can an organization start to go through this planning process and then start also looking to execute on that strategy? And that is sometimes where I see people are great at planning, they create a great plan and then that execution sometimes falls short or just never happens. So talk a little bit about that.
Anthony Taylor (03:27):
Yeah, so I think the distinction as we think about strategic planning is we really work with the executive team or the leadership team distinct from the franchisor only because there’s a lot of people, it’s like a team sport, really holistically looking at where do you want your business to be while the franchise, it’s interesting, the franchise model is, it could be at the very bottom or at the very top depending on how you’re looking at it, but really marketing, production, operations, sales, all of that. But it’s ultimately like, “Hey, if we’re here in 2024, 2025, where do we want to be in 2027? And then at the individual level, where do I want to be in 27, 2030, 2040?” And what I love about franchising is that if you see yourself at 2030 or 2040, whatever, and you say, “Hey, I want financial independence, I want a business that I can turnkey. I don’t want to have to make all the mistakes that someone else made,” well then franchising is a great opportunity for you.
(04:28):
And then if you already have a franchise or many, then you say, “Hey, what does that look like in the future? And then how do I build my system structures, processes to support all of that?” But really it’s just the conversation that teams have about where they want to take the business and then making sure everybody’s on the same page. If you are, let’s call it a master franchisor and you have a team of people that are leading what you’re leading, it’s a really great opportunity to get all your smart people in the room to make sure that they’re building the same thing. How we position it and stop me if I’m going over, Tom, is we help people escape what we call the multiple destination trap.
(05:06):
You have so many options of what you could do. Unfortunately within a franchise you have fewer, but if one person thinks growth looks like 5 million, another person thinks growth is 20 million and another person thinks growth is 1 million, well, you’re not going to the same place. So getting your leadership team or getting you and your spouse on the same page in terms of what good looks like at a fixed point in time is the first step of then figuring out where you want to go and then fundamentally working backwards in terms of what are the improvements, what are the iterations, what are the things, systems, you need to put in place to get you there?
Dr. Tom DuFore (05:39):
In preparation for our interview, one of the ideas or concepts that came up in prepping for this is talking about change management. And one of the things that came up that I found interesting I was hoping to get your perspective on is how change management ensures success in business. And I found that to be a provoking thought, and so I’d love for you just to expand on what you mean by that.
Anthony Taylor (06:04):
It sure is a strong word. In my experience, success is just figuring out something that works before you run out of money or patience. Another pro of the franchise model, and by the way, I’m not here to sell franchising, but just saying there’s a lot of good from it, but change management is really about you are where you are, you want to get to a certain place and there’s just stuff that has to adapt, change, be put in place to make it possible. So let’s say you’re running an organization and you went from a manual system to a digital system. Well, there’s change management in falls. Let’s say you used to get refills for free and now there’s no refills for free. Well, there’s change management there too.
(06:46):
Let’s say you’re growing from a $2 million business to a $5 million business to a $10 million business and there’s systems, structure, processes, policies, people, all of those things are examples of change management where people have to go from the way we do it now to the way we’re going to do it in the future, they need to understand what that is and why that is. They need to be bought into it so that they’re moving the process forward versus resisting it, and then they need to incorporate the changes within the system. You see some businesses that go from a half a million dollar solopreneur to a 3 million, 5 million, 10 million, 20 million dollar franchise. That is really just change management done successfully because you said, I built a system and that system is now repeatable and that people are fundamentally following it. So how can you put a system in place that people will follow, is fundamentally like the heart of change management.
Dr. Tom DuFore (07:42):
I like how it ties into the strategic planning where there’s an intentionality behind that change. So recognizing where you are first and then where you want to get to and then looking at the change management plan that needs to go in place to get there and understanding that. So I think that’s a really excellent point.
Anthony Taylor (08:03):
So we were working with, one of our clients is a large franchise and they run massage clinics and that kind of stuff. And so let’s say you have to change suppliers, you have to move from, and I’m thinking of a salon in this case, so it’s similar but different. It’s like, “Hey, we need to change products.” Well, something, a product that people have used and gotten used to using for so long and then you have to change it for whatever reason, that is a big change that arguably could be the best decision in the world, but it’s change. And humans, air quotes, dislike change, rather they dislike negative change. And so change management, by helping people understand that the changes are good for whatever x, Y, Z reason, even if it means changing something as trivial as the shampoo, being able to manage as a franchisee to help people understand and get on board with it versus being like, “I like the old shampoo. This is the worst. I’m not washing anybody’s hair,” it exists so much, but your ability to get people bought into whatever changes you make will help you be more profitable.
Dr. Tom DuFore (09:10):
I think that ties into really our pre-show conversation talking about communication structure and leadership and tied into that, I’d love for you to just jump into that a little bit and talk about how that communication structure and leadership and how all of that impacts what we’re talking about here.
Anthony Taylor (09:25):
So as a franchisee, you have fewer levers to pull as it relates to the business. Like the businesses is the business, but where you as a franchisee have an impact, and please correct me, Tom, if I’m speaking out of turn, is the people side of things. And so being able to manage the people, making sure that they are happy, that they like working for you, they like working within the system, they understand why things happen. And so think of communication within your organization like a highway or rather a series of highways or interstates or whatever, and so it’s like the flow of information.
(09:59):
So how can information go from you, the master franchisee or franchise or whatever, all the way down, how can you get the communication from them and then how does it make it way up through your levels of leadership and employees? And that is, often breakdowns happen because there’s insufficient flow of information or beliefs about information that are incorrect. And so by successfully communicating up and down, you can make sure that your people are happy, you can make sure that your customers are happy, you can make sure that your other franchisees are happy, if that is the case ,or unhappy, and then you can be able to manage that. But it really is a structure and system that needs to be put in place versus something that’s ad hoc and done reactively.
Dr. Tom DuFore (10:44):
Well said. And to me, this again is pointing back to the whole emphasis of our conversation on strategic planning. If you haven’t planned for how that communication is going to flow, well, you probably have lots of, in your example, roads or highways that are zigging and zagging and loops around and dead ends and so on, versus if you had done a little planning along the way. So maybe, I don’t know if you can give an example or for instance or something to help add a little color to this communication concept.
Anthony Taylor (11:18):
So the reason you buy a franchise probably is because you want to decrease learning cost and mistake cost. So being able to apply a good framework to it will help. So I’ll give a non-specific example and then I’ll give a specific example. So the other day I was driving to a meeting that I had to go to and I knew more or less where it was, I didn’t put the details in my GPS. I said, “I’ll figure it out.” And I’m cruising, listening to my music and I’m like, “Oh, I just missed my turn.” No big deal. I’ll take the next one, since we’re talking about highways. Well, that ten-minute trip turned into a twelve-minute trip. No big deal, right? Who cares about two minutes? But imagine that your franchise operations are doing a million dollars. Well, what’s 20% of a million dollars? Well, 200K, and that’s your cash, not just something else.
(12:05):
And so when you talk about, “Hey, I’m going to roll out a new initiative,” or when I’m talking about, “Hey, I’m going to change our supplier,” when we talk about, “Hey, here’s our goals,” the difference between being effective the first time or something to have to take two or three or four communication touch points to get there, those are all time, time and materials that it takes you to get the job done. And I’m not saying that you will always get it, in fact, you’ll rarely get it the first time, but I think it’s being able to decrease the mistakes, decrease the duplicate work that happens will increase the profit that’s in your genes at the end of the day. So that’s why strategic planning, anticipating the future, that’s why good structured communication planning, that’s why good change management planning done on the front end, good project planning, will always pay dividends on the back end, but most people don’t think about it because it takes time and it’s harder to do than just figuring it out.
Dr. Tom DuFore (13:04):
Well, Anthony, for someone who’s tuning in and maybe they say, “Anthony, this sounds great, I’d love to learn more,” how can they learn a little bit more about what you’re doing or get in touch?
Anthony Taylor (13:13):
Yeah, so the number one thing we help teams with as I mentioned, is helping them escape that multiple destination trap. Typically, do it over a two or three-day offsite, but we also have webinars and workshops that you can tap into if you want to increase your leadership, EQ, IQ. So connect smestrategy.net on the internet. Don’t ask me why it’s .net, or Anthony C. Taylor on LinkedIn is a good place to connect and tap in. And we have our own podcast, the Strategy and Leadership podcast if you like to keep building your ability as a leader.
Dr. Tom DuFore (13:43):
Perfect. Well, we’ll include those links in the show notes. And Anthony, this is a great time in the show. We make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it.
Anthony Taylor (13:56):
I wrote a book about entrepreneurship lessons I learned the hard way, so you don’t have to, it’s called I Wish I Knew, but I had a business partner rip me off or embezzled a hundred grand worth of money because I was trusting, optimistic, figured it would be good. And man, I learned a lot of lessons. That was my hard knock MBA. Yeah, having better mentors, not being so excited about the opportunity of growth, I would’ve saved myself a bunch of money, but that’s a big miss. It’s why I do strategic planning now to help people avoid that.
Dr. Tom DuFore (14:26):
Wonderful. Well, let’s talk about a make, on the other side, a highlight or two.
Anthony Taylor (14:31):
Oh man, I’m so grateful for where I’ve been able to be here. We’re year 13 in business, had just so many cool contracts and cool organizations we worked with. My team just did a strategic planning session in Paris, France. I was able to facilitate in Fiji doing the Reserve Bank’s strategic plan, just all of the clients that we have, just so many makes because we get to have a big difference with them.
Dr. Tom DuFore (14:56):
Well, let’s talk about a multiplier. The name of the show is Multiply Your Success. Have you used a multiplier to grow yourself personally, professionally, organizations you’ve led along the way?
Anthony Taylor (15:06):
No, man. I mean try to scale and amplify everything but building off mistakes. You don’t know a mistake is a mistake until after it’s made. You don’t know a make is a make until it’s made and you don’t know if that make’s going to turn into a multiplier. I recorded a video on YouTube called The Strategic Planning Process in Under 15 Minutes. It’s 11 minutes long. That video has 1.8 million views. And I recorded it with a screen capture and apparently a snotty nose, and that was a multiplier that’s delivered tons and tons of value. And I just was unafraid to fail and that’s what gave me that multiplied success.
Dr. Tom DuFore (15:44):
Excellent. Well, the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?
Anthony Taylor (15:50):
I have the freedom to do what I want, this is why you do franchising anyways, to spend time with my family, to be able to have an impact for people all over the world. More succinctly said, there’s a quote by a guy named James Mitchner and it says, “He’s the master in the art of living. No one knows if he is working or playing because he’s always doing both.” And to me, that’s the win, is I get to work and play and I get to make a difference to your listeners and to you. I don’t have a ball today, so that’s my success.
Dr. Tom DuFore (16:21):
Well, as we bring this to a close, Anthony, is there anything you’re hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Anthony Taylor (16:27):
I think the biggest advice I would give to somebody in a leadership position is to move from implied to explicit wherever possible. Because different folks interpret different things, different ways and the more clear, focused and explicit you can make a communication more specifically, the more effective you’re going to be and it’s going to be less costly and more impactful in the long run.
Dr. Tom DuFore (16:52):
Anthony, thank you so much for a fantastic interview and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when Anthony defined strategic planning, and I thought he said it so well, “Strategic planning is about making choices,” thought that was excellent. Takeaway number two is when he talked about escaping the multiple destination trap and he had said, “If leaders on the same team are not on the same page, it becomes problematic,” and I thought that was just a great reminder for you to make sure your team and you are all on the same page as you’re launching into growing the business. And takeaway number three is how he defined success. And this success definition was not at the end, but in the middle of our interview. And he said, “Success is just figuring out something that works before running out of money and patience,” and isn’t that true?
(17:51):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win came from the end of the episode when he talked about moving from implied to explicit communication with your team. What he was talking about was with implied communication, there are things that may be implied but easily misunderstood because someone else is trying to interpret what a message might mean or certain body language or tones that come along with communication versus being very explicit to say very clearly this is what you’re doing and how you’re doing it or the direction you’re headed. And I think that if you do that, it’s going to be a win for you, a win for your staff and team, and a win for your customers and everyone else you serve. It’s going to win all around when you gain that clarity. And so that’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.
