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A Solid Foundation for Your Success
Ever take your management team on a retreat where you all sang motivational songs and exchanged high fives? Did you walk away with tons of enthusiasm and 50 different initiatives? Looking back six months later, what did you actually accomplish?
Don’t feel bad if that sounds familiar—it happens to a lot of well-intentioned organizations, both large and small.
It’s caused by the lack of a fundamental team skill involving five factors—focus, process, accountability, prioritization and execution. CEO Strategist’s strategic planning process strengthens these five factors, building the skill sets of your management team to ensure that objectives are met and initiatives completed.
The End Game
Rick Johnson, founder of CEO Strategist, starts the accountability process by guiding ownership and the CEO through the building of an “End Game,” which is then presented to a strategy team that’s been selected by the CEO to challenge, question, tweak and even revise until an agreed-upon form is developed and “owned” by the entire company.
Rick rolls up his sleeves and works closely with your strategy team to develop specific core initiatives supported by realistic action plans that meet or exceed End Game objectives. The final strategy is presented to the CEO, owners or board of Directors for approval. Once approved, monthly accountability review sessions that have been built into the process to keep the strategy team and all supporting functions on target to meet objectives are initiated.
CEO Strategist provides expert guidance during the entire strategic planning process that is based on real-world experience. Rick’s 35 years of industry experience include running businesses as the CEO and doing Turn-A-Rounds for financially troubled companies ranging in size from $50 million to $400 million in revenue.
In addition, Rick founded his own company in 1980, grew it to $25 million in sales and then sold it in 1989. He knows what it’s like to face the numerous problems in distribution today. He knows what it’s like to meet payroll, plan for growth, deal with recruitment and retention problems, vendor issues, and strategic account development. Rick’s walked in your shoes, and not many consultants in distribution today can make all of these claims.
Real World Experience is Critical for Strategic Planning
When you hire CEO Strategist, you don’t hire inexperienced MBA graduates that learn on your money and your time. You don’t hire former industry executives who've hung out a shingle but never actually owned a business... some may have never even held the role of President or CEO!
When you hire CEO Strategist, you get "real world" experience backed up by formal education and training.
Rick trains your team in the entire process so that continuous improvement is introduced, and the planning process takes on a life of its own. CEO Strategist’s guidelines provide tremendous value--not just in the finished documented plan itself, but also in the process and what your team can accomplish based on what they've learned.
True Value is Defined
The true value of engaging CEO Strategist to help your team in the strategic planning process is defined by results. These results include:
- An “End Game” owned and supported by the entire company, not just the CEO or ownership.
- The commitment and 'buy-in' by management, the CEO and ownership to execute and hold themselves and each other accountable for success.
- Clarity of core initiatives with realistic action plans, prioritized according to the most beneficial impact to the company's bottom line and core values.
- Deferred initiatives that are continuously reviewed to ensure that they to will be incorporated into the execution phase as prioritized initiatives are completed.
- An on-going monthly accountability review session as part of the corporate culture.
- A strategic plan with built-in commitment, empowerment, and teamwork at its core.
What’s that worth to your company?
What is it costing your company to not have a long-term executable strategic plan? It could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost profit and lost opportunities.
Rick Johnson is a strategic planning expert who not only understands strategic leadership from an academic prospective but Rick has lived it and understands what it takes to create success in the real world of distribution.
Don’t take Rick’s word for it…
He will be happy to provide you with numerous references that he has worked with to develop successful long term strategic plans.