Ep. 353 — Anthony Taylor: Why Your $40M Goal Has No Gas in the Tank

5 min read

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Episode Summary

Your leadership team just walked out of an off-site with a $40M revenue goal, a beautiful VTO, and a ten-year BHAG taped to the wall. Nobody asked what ownership actually needs to pull out of the business along the way. So the plan is fiction. I closed out the ownership-and-leadership alignment mini-series with Anthony Taylor of SME Strategy, who has facilitated Milestone 13 — Strategic Plan for the Reserve Bank of Fiji, Xerox, and the University of British Columbia. We got into why strategic planning is fundamentally about choices (what you’re doing and what you’re not doing), why most plans skip the constraints conversation entirely, and how the golden triangle of good, fast, or cheap (pick two) applies to an equity valuation target the same way it applies to a remodeling project. The line that landed for me: if you want to drive a thousand miles, do you have enough gas in the tank? Most owners pull fuel out faster than the team can put it in, then wonder why nobody hits the goal.

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## Top 10 Takeaways
  1. Strategic means choices: what you’re doing and what you’re not doing. Not saying no means you’re not strategic planning.
  2. Your team’s $40M revenue goal is fiction if ownership is pulling all the cash out at the same time.
  3. Set the Milestone 3 — Net Worth & Valuation Targets first, then back into the distributions, taxes, and reinvestment the plan actually needs.
  4. Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two. Your equity target obeys the same triangle as everything else.
  5. Most people can see three years down the road clearly. Ten-year plans only make sense in special cases.
  6. Optimism doesn’t get you to the destination. Hope for the best, build for the worst, and prioritize by risk.
  7. Don’t half-ass two things. Whole-ass one. Adjacent business lines fail when they pull cash and people from the mothership.
  8. Set the goal and starve the resources, and your team checks out. They already know it’s a lost cause.
  9. Annual full plan review, quarterly progress check, monthly direction conversation. That’s the cadence.
  10. Focus on the process, not the person. Misalignment conversations work when there’s psychological safety to surface them.

Sound Bites

“Strategic is just about choices. What are you doing and what are you not doing? That’s it.” (@TBD) — Anthony Taylor

“If you’re not saying no to anything, you’re not strategic planning.” (@TBD) — Anthony Taylor

“The number one way to kill your team’s motivation is to not give them the resources they need to be successful, because they will know it’s already a lost cause and they’re going to give up.” (@TBD) — Anthony Taylor

“There’s a famous philosopher, Ron Swanson, who says, don’t half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing.” (@TBD) — Anthony Taylor

“The ownership group is sucking all the cash out and they still expect you to hit the goal. And laughter happens.” (@TBD) — Ryan Tansom

About This Episode

Anthony Taylor is the founder of SME Strategy Consulting, a strategic planning facilitation firm based in Vancouver, Canada. He has facilitated alignment off-sites for organizations across 17 states and internationally, with clients ranging from the Reserve Bank of Fiji and the University of British Columbia to Xerox, Little Man Ice Cream, and Ram Restaurants. He hosts the Strategy and Leadership Podcast (220+ episodes, 15K YouTube subscribers) and is the author of two books, including I Wish I Knew, written after a partnership scam taught him the hard lessons about alignment, trust, and seeing around the corner. This episode closes out a mini-series on aligning ownership goals with leadership execution.

Resources Mentioned

  • SME Strategy — Anthony’s strategic planning facilitation firm. — smestrategy.net
  • Strategy and Leadership Podcast — Anthony’s show, where Ryan was a guest.
  • I Wish I Knew by Anthony Taylor — Lessons from his partnership breakup, written for entrepreneurs to see around the corner.
  • Cameron Herold — Referenced for the “vivid vision” concept and his story as COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
  • Ron Swanson (Parks and Rec) — “Don’t half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”
  • Nassim Taleb — Referenced for barbell investing as a mental model for strategic planning.
  • Jim Collins — Right people, right seats, right time.
  • Clifton StrengthsFinder — Referenced for how different team members carry different time horizons.
  • Intentional Growth Financial Scorecard — Ryan’s free assessment to score how well you’re running the company as a financial asset.

Connections

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