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Episode Summary
You’ve got a VTO that says $30 million in revenue, a list of rocks for the quarter, and somehow your executive team is still fighting over the same decisions every meeting. That’s because you ran a planning process. You didn’t end with a strategy. I had Greg Meredith back for his third appearance because he and I just co-led a Milestone 13 — Strategic Plan engagement with a mutual client, and watching him work the room reminded me how much most owner-operators leave on the table. We got into the difference between strategic planning (the process) and strategy (the outcome), the five winning positions you can pick to take the high ground in your market, why the opposite rule is the test for whether you’ve actually made a real decision, and how your doctrines (what you believe about the market that the rest of the room may not) are where the executive team fights you didn’t know you were having actually live. Strategy without a Business Operating System never gets executed. An operating system without strategy is everyone running through the forest with no idea which way is out.
Top 10 Takeaways
- Strategic planning is a process. Strategy is the outcome. Most owners end with the first and call it the second.
- Strategy is your company assets aimed at a winning position. If you can’t name the position, you don’t have a strategy.
- Five winning positions exist (singular, integrated, preferred, potent, scaled). You pick one to win and let the others support.
- The opposite rule: if a smart competitor wouldn’t pursue the opposite of your strategy, you haven’t made a real decision.
- Trade-offs come first. You can’t say yes to your biggest priorities until you’ve said no to everything else.
- Without trust on the executive team, the tension required to make real strategic decisions overwhelms the process.
- Your doctrines are what you believe about the market that others don’t. Leave them implicit and your team fights forever.
- Your bullseye is multi-dimensional: cultural, operational, client, and financial. Not a single revenue target five years out.
- Your company assets aren’t on the balance sheet. They’re the rare, hard-to-imitate things that make you, you.
- Strategy gets the room to alignment. The operating system gets the strategy executed. You need both, in that order.
Sound Bites
“Process is great, everybody needs a plan, it’s better to have a plan than not have a plan, but you better end with a strategy at the end, or it’s been a helpful exercise that you’ve left a lot on the table.” (@00:10:00) — Greg Meredith
“Using company assets to create a high-impact winning position.” (@00:11:39) — Greg Meredith
“You have to say no to shit. You have to say no, because we have a finite amount of time, people, and money, so we’re gonna do these things and not these things.” (@00:19:42) — Ryan Tansom
“The tension needs to be part of the process, and without the trust, the tension overwhelms the process.” (@00:33:05) — Greg Meredith
“It’s gravity, it’s not earthquakes. We want to put in that consistent pull. Here’s where we are, here’s what we’re working on, not we’re going to have this one-time event that’s going to shake everything up.” (@01:21:54) — Greg Meredith
About This Episode
Greg Meredith is the founder of Simply Strategic, where he has led more than 75 strategic planning engagements with owner-led businesses ranging from $2M to $500M in revenue. He came up through private equity (where he and Ryan’s frequent guest Pat Hobby were colleagues) and has spent over a decade refining a 9-keystone framework that ends with an actual strategy, not just a plan. This is Greg’s third appearance on the show. Ryan and Greg recently co-led a strategic planning engagement for a mutual client, and this conversation captures both the framework and the field notes from being in the room together.
Resources Mentioned
- Simply Strategic — Greg’s firm and the 9-keystone strategic planning methodology.
- 7 Powers by Hamilton Helmer — Referenced as one of the best books on strategy.
- Good to Great by Jim Collins — Source of the flywheel concept (Keystone 5).
- The VRIO framework — Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Organized. Referenced as the business school foundation for thinking about company assets.
- ITR Economics / Kim Clark — Referenced for economic cycle analysis tied to revenue forecasting.
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 5 — Predictable Revenue — Where the strategic plan lives in the iBD framework
- Module 3 — Owner’s Playbook — Strategy as part of the broader value growth plan
Milestones:
- Milestone 13 — Strategic Plan — The output of the keystone process
- Milestone 7 — Value Growth Plan — Strategy pegged to the valuation and cash flow targets
- Milestone 12 — Five-Year Forecast — Where the bullseye numbers get pressure-tested
- Milestone 11 — Annual Budget — Where strategic initiatives get resourced
Concepts referenced:
- Business Operating System — The Phase 3 “persist” layer that turns the plan into execution
- The iBD Ownership OS™ — The wrapper that connects ownership goals, strategy, and operations
- Three-Statement Model — The financial foundation strategy decisions get tested against
- Quarterly Boardroom Rhythm™ — Where doctrines get pressure-tested every 90 days
- The Four Value Levers — The asset categories that drive the winning position
- The One Thing — Trade-offs and prioritization in the planning process
- Theory of Constraints — Saying no as the precondition for saying yes
Related episodes:
- Ep. 489 — Kim Clark - The Profit War Room - Inflation Is Coming. Do You Have a Battle Plan — ITR economics and forecasting against the strategic plan