Ep #203 Mid Year Check In : Your Vision, Strategy and Tactics

We are halfway through the year and it's time to do a check in on the goals and milestones you set waaayyy back in January.  It's likely you aren't where you thought you "should" be at the 6 month mark. Don't beat yourself up - we always underestimate how long something will take! it's time to refocus, re-strategize, and ensure your actions align with your vision.

I share with you a powerful framework to help you achieve your goals with intention and clarity, avoiding common pitfalls like overwhelm and scattered efforts. Get ready to make the next six months your most productive yet! 

Get the CEO checklist at https://www.foodbizsuccess.com/ceo and know exactly what to do when you put on the CEO hat 🎩 in your business.

If you would like help to create this foundation to create your own beautiful business, Master Your Business is now open for applications. We will officially start in January, but you don't want to miss the Q4 bonus classes to get your business ready!

Food Business Success is my signature program that helps you launch your delicious idea and grow it to $100K. Includes step-by-step videos, tools and 5 months inside the Fuel membership for coaching + community. And it's guaranteed to make your program fee back or I'll refund your money. Learn more at https://www.foodbizsuccess.com/program

Pick up your copy of "Key Ingredients" on Amazon here.

Check out my YouTube channel at www.foodbiz.tube for how to videos to start and grow a packaged food business.

Transcript

Sari  0:00  
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the package food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell, I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journey so you can learn what worked and didn't work and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now let's jump in!

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited to come to you solo on this one. We have had some amazing podcasts recently with some awesome guests and doing the Q and A show with April for the 200th episode was so fun, and we had Chuck Aikens around SEO and Scott with Elevated Gains. And so it's been so fun. But my goal today is to keep this short and sweet and really get you to think about a really important piece in your business. So the reality is, we are halfway through the year, and in fact, when this comes out, we're going to be a little more than halfway through the year, mid July. And what I am doing with all of my one on one clients and my members in Fuel is reminding them, a gentle nudge, that we are halfway through the year. And for us to be intentional and take a look at what are we doing? What do we want to still go after? Let's kind of reshift, reevaluate and take a little pause to do things with intentionality, to make sure it's still aligned. And so I want to give you the framework that I have been using with my clients. I just got off an amazing call with one of my favorite clients, with Jessica, shout out to her, with Fireworks Butters. And we were doing this work, and all of my other one on one clients, we are doing this. So this is something you should be doing as well. Little nudge, little hint. Get out some paper. Make some time on your calendar to do this as a CEO, because you are the CEO of your business, even if you have just started or you haven't even started at all. Here is the strategy, the framework that I love to use. So as you're thinking about your business, we want to look at three things. We want to look at the vision, we want to look at the strategy, and then we want to look at the tactics. And a lot of times what I see, you all do, people who I work with, it's very common with entrepreneurs, is what we do is we just go and do a whole bunch of tactics without really thinking through, does this actually get me like, am I going in the direction that I want to do? And we try to do too much of it. We are like, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and we're all over the place. And what ends up resulting is overwhelm. We don't finish things. We don't get things over the finish line so that we can actually measure, is this working? And we're constantly like doing the squirrel, squirrel, squirrel method of our business, and it's just not a very strategic way, a very productive way to do your business. Listen, it is about trade offs. You are not going to be able to do everything all at once, right? And being a CEO means that you are going to have to constrain. And constraint takes courage. I was just at a networking event this morning. And somebody was talking about that, because we were talking about this exact topic, because I coach the woman who runs the business, the networking event, so I love that she brought this up for all of us to discuss, and she said, what the gal that was sharing in our group was saying, it's the hardest thing in the world for me to turn down clients, but I have made a commitment that I'm only doing these kind of clients. I'm only doing this kind of work, and it takes a lot of courage to say no. I love giving you guys tactics, right? I'm going to throw a lot of stuff at you but it is up to you to be discerning and to say what actually fits my vision and my strategy. So let me break that down for you just a little bit more. So a vision, and we do this inside Master Your Business, which more information will be coming out about that. So if you're interested in Master Your Business, be sure you get on the waitlist and that's masteryourbiz.co.

So we do a vision first. And you guys know, I love the 10x model where we're going to do a big, juicy, big vision, right? That 10x goal, that it's the mountaintop, and it's not an annual goal. We got to drop that, right? What we're actually going for are milestones annually but they're supporting the big vision. It's got to be compelling, it's got to be emotionally salient. It's got to really resonate with you and get you excited, right? None of this like, well, I should be doing this, it's like this gets me up out of bed, and I'm super excited about it. So we have the 10x goal, vision, whatever you want to call it like, that is the big driver. That is the mountaintop. Then we're going to say, okay, that's my vision. I'm really clear on that. I got it. I feel really emotionally connected. Now, what are the strategies, my priorities, how we frame it in Master Your Business. They're interchangeable, I would say, but how am I actually going to get there? This is the road map, and let's just take the mountaintop example. I live in Colorado. We do a lot of hiking, right? You could look at the same end goal, the mountaintop, and be like, there's actually three different trails that will get me there, right? And so it's okay to have a couple, I would say no more than three. So three strategies. So for a lot of packaged food businesses, it's usually something like wholesale, maybe Amazon is a strategy. It could be e commerce, your own direct to consumer site. It could be farmers markets as a strategy. It could be food service, specifically under wholesale, right? There's these buckets that are like, let's say your vision is to be in a 100 retail locations, or your vision could be more around units sold or a certain dollar amount. If that gets you excited. Now, you guys know I sometimes make people pry apart the money goal from the vision, because we struggle sometimes with the money goal. But let's just say I want to sell 10,000 units and like surprise and delight 10,000 customers, or something like that, right? That's a little more emotional resonant. And so if that's the goal, then how am I going to get there? What am I going to focus on? Because life is about trade offs. You cannot do it all, all at once. And so where are you going to make decisions? Where are you going to constrain and say, these are the things, based on the team that I have, my time, the season in life. Some of you have this as your full time job, and some of you have other jobs. Some of you have a lot of family obligations, trips coming up, marriages, like all sorts of things get in the way. But let's just be realistic about, what are the strategies that you can handle? And we want you to decide ahead of time. So it could be a wholesale strategy, could be an ecommerce strategy, it could be Amazon strategy, right? There's so many different things we can do. Then we decide those are my strategies. And again, no more than three, I would say you could even do one, right? One, two or three. Okay, so then we have a whole bunch of tactics underneath that, and this is where it can get really overwhelming, because I'm telling you all these things that you could do, and of course, wanting to share amazing people and options with you, and you're going to get stuff from all these places, other podcasts you listen to, emails you get. People are like, you should do this. You should do this. Just, you know, here's the service. Do influencers. Do lead ads. Do SEO. Do Google ads and Tiktok and LinkedIn and Instagram reels. You need to maybe hire a salesperson, or get on Faire. The list goes on and on, all the things you could do. 

So what's really important is that we evaluate all of those tactics, and first we make sure that we don't have too many. We got to decide. We got to constrain and I think it can be really helpful when I tell my clients, it's a no for now, put it on the parking lot list. It's still going to be there. Nothing is so urgent that you can't pick it up at another time once you've got something over the finish line. But I think the worst mistake you can make is not focusing all your energy on one or two tactics and getting it over the finish line, so you have something to measure, so you can feel like you are succeeding and that there's progress. We are most happy as human beings when there is progress. We have to feel like we're taking action and seeing results. Otherwise, you're going to do a little bit here and a little bit here and a little bit here and a little bit here, and nothing's actually going to get done. And then you're going to feel really frustrated, and that's when we quit. So we're going to be very intentional about saying no and there's going to be some FOMO. That's what happens when there's so many options, but you have to decide what feels good for you, and you can think about things through a couple of filters. And I don't know, I probably have talked about this before, but I really love the impact versus effort filter. You could like brainstorm. Here's all the things I could do, here's all the things on the list, and then what is low effort and high impact? I will do those things all day long, right? Low effort, high impact versus high effort, high impact. So some things are going to take longer to get set up. Lead ads might be an example of that. Setting up Amazon and really getting it working would be an example of that. So there's going to be things that are like big effort at first, but they should hopefully have a high impact. And we have to measure it. We're not always going to know. There's lots of people say, this works for me, you should do this, but you need to figure out if it works for you and it makes sense. Not all tactics are going to work for everyone. Let's evaluate it through that filter. Now, there's going to be some things on that list that are low effort and low impact, and those are things that we either decide not to do or we delegate. And then anything that's high effort and low impact, it's just a no. Now I know you're not going to know exactly whether these tactics are going to be where they fit on that filter. That's why you come join Fuel. That's why you come work with me. That's why you come get support from a community of other people. We have people posting all the time. They're like, hey, have you heard of this new service? Or have you heard of this online retailer or wholesaler, what do you think? And that way we can get feedback from other people who are doing it, so that you can check in and you're not just guessing. So many of you are all by yourself operating in a vacuum, and you're just making decisions from very poor information. You're like, I think they are telling me this, but like, let's actually check it against people like myself, who are seeing this all the time, and different activities you could be doing, and the impact versus effort and community members who are also in it with you. They're doing this work. I just cannot emphasize how important it is for you to find community and coaching and support so that it helps you make better decisions. It helps you stop wasting so much time, and it reduces the friction, which when you have a lot of friction, then we don't get things over the finish line, we don't make progress, and then we quit, sometimes permanently, sometimes temporarily. So that's one really great filter to think about impact versus effort. When you think about all of these tactics, also think about what really lights you up, what gets you excited? Where do you already have talents and skills? Who are there, who are your who's? Who are the people who could help you with these things? If you're like, I really want to do e commerce, and I don't know how to do lead ads. Okay, well, let's find some who's and one of the things I would suggest is come do the Holiday Ready Bootcamp. That is the first week in August. And Zach Spucler, who you heard on the podcast a little while ago. He is an incredible expert at lead ads, and we're going to be talking about specifically for the holidays, what are things that you can do, and we're going to walk you through it, and you're actually going to get access to his lead ads course. Now, if you're still like, I cannot do that. It's not in my skill set. I don't want to do it. Then we hire a who. You can always go work with him individually, or work with other people who can do it for you. But it's actually not as hard as you might think. And I am here. I used to be a seventh grade teacher, so I feel like I have a really good skillset in breaking things down and trying to explain it, and I have a ton of patience for any question that you have, there's no question that is stupid. I want everybody to succeed. I want it to be a really nurturing place inside Fuel. But yeah, that Holiday Ready Bootcamp. We are going to go over some awesome, awesome things that are all just tactics. Well, there are some strategies. Well, first we're going to define the vision, then we're going to have strategies, then we're going to talk about tactics, right? But if you want help with that, come do the Holiday Ready Bootcamp, finding things that you're like, I really am excited about this. I can do this. And I want to do it. I have energy around it versus other things that you're like, I have a lot of resistance. I don't think I want to do that. I don't know anything about it. I have no experience, no skillsets. You know, there's a lot of stuff you probably do in your regular life that you can transfer over, and then there's some stuff that's going to be totally new, and anything that's totally new, oh my gosh. Please go get a guide. Go get support. Go get people who have done it before. I just went white water rafting with a friend over the Fourth of July week, and you better believe we had a guide. I'm not doing that on my own. I certainly when I jumped out of an airplane. I had somebody on my back who knew what they were doing. You guys are doing new stuff. I have made that mistake a few times, I will never do stuff I do not have any idea, no clue, things I'm not good at, without getting support, without finding people who know how to do this, that I can either hand it off to them, or they're going to help guide me, right? And sometimes it's a time versus money trade off there, but go find support. That's my plea to you, to stop the insanity and really like give yourself a leg up. Speed up the line. Get there faster, feel more successful. So you want to keep doing this, but that's what I have for you today, is I want you to take a piece of paper. Listen, I could create a worksheet, but it's as simple as this vision. And if you want to go watch my 10x workshop, a lot of my clients, they're pulling out that worksheet that I had in the 10x workshop, and I believe it's at foodbizsuccess.com/10x so you can go get that replay. But basically, you know, there's a whole worksheet that'll help you define what that vision is, what your 10x goal is. So pull that out if you did that with me back in January, or go get it if you haven't done it, and then we wanted to find the vision. Then we want to think about up to three, no more than three. What are the strategies that I'm going to employ? How am I going to get to the top of the mountain, my vision? And then what are all the tactics that I could do? And then do the impact versus effort filter and think about what really lights you up. Where do you already have experience, talents, desire? Enthusiasm is the most contagious emotion, and I promise you, if you're doing something that lights you up, that you are enthusiastic about, even if you're learning about it, you're going to be like, so much more successful. And I think the energy that you're putting out in the world is going to be so much better. It's like, if you really have no energy around going and talking to buyers, then if you force yourself to do it, it's not going to go very well. Versus, I have a lot of excitement and energy around creating recipes and doing social media and creating emails, then you're like, I'm excited to do it. And the energy that's going to come from those emails and those social media posts is going to be contagious, because you're enthusiastic about it. So I want to give you permission to F the shoulds and choose things that first are low effort and high impact, or selectively choose one or two high effort, high impact activities and make sure you feel enthusiastic. You don't have to know how to do it yet but there should be a level of like, I'm excited to go figure it out, and I'm excited to try this, and then go get help. Come join us inside Fuel, if it's open. When this podcast airs, it'll be open today. It actually closes at midnight today. So you could still get into Fuel. You can join Food Business Success at any time. Get on the waitlist for Master Your Business and come to the Holiday Ready Boot Camp. And finally, I'll put the link for the 10x goal workshop and go and take that workshop and do that work. So that's it. That's what I got for you today. Go out do this work. It's July. Mid July. You have plenty of time, but only if you start the planning now. You can achieve some really big things in the next six months, but do this work. Until next time, have an amazing week!

The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join Food Business Success, which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out, and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own food business success.