In this three-part ebook, discover why strategic planning is a game changer for any company. Get leadership insights on how to bring strategy alive and gain buy-in, as well as real-life tips on implementation.

1. Strategic Planning
for Growth
By Craig Marton, President and COO
In this three-part ebook, discover why
strategic planning is a game changer for
any company.
Get leadership insights on how to bring
strategy alive and gain buy-in, as well as
real-life tips on implementation.

2. 1.
2.
3.
4.
Why does a growing company
need a strategic plan?
Bringing strategy alive with
goals and accountability
Implementing strategy to
succeed and compete
About the Author
Table of Contents

3. Developing a business strategy takes time and resources. It
requires the effort and commitment of many people.
So, why do we need a strategy? Why should we make time to plan one, two,
three or more years out?
Why does a growing company
need a strategic plan?
In Part 1 of this series, learn why strategic planning is essential to
the overall growth, success and profitability of your company.

4. Our Story
These are the questions that I asked my current team at Sunset Transportation as
we began developing our three-year strategic plan. Our company has been
recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Missouri for the past
several years. Sunset is targeting reaching $100 million in revenue by the end of
2016.
It’s critical that our business model is capable of adapting to meet the demands
that come with that level of growth.
Let me share with you what I shared with our team. A strategy is necessary for
many reasons, but I’m going to focus on a handful of reasons in particular.
A strategy sets direction and priorities
Companies need a strategy to set direction and establish clear
priorities. It defines our view of success and prioritizes the actions to
make it become reality. The strategy will tell us what we should work
on, and what we should work on first.
Without a clearly defined and communicated strategy, we may find that our
highest priorities — the ones that will drive the greatest success — are being
given less attention than they deserve.
A strategy helps get everyone on the same page
If we have people, teams, even whole departments working to achieve different
goals, or going in different directions, we will drastically reduce our ability to be
successful. Once we define our strategic direction, we can get operations, sales,
marketing, finance, and all other departments moving together to achieve the
company’s goals.
A strategy simplifies decision-making
If we have trouble saying “NO” to new or proposed ideas, we need a strategy.
Why? The strategy prioritizes actions necessary for success, making it easier to
say “no” to distractions.

5. A strategy drives alignment
Organizations, like ours, have intelligent and hard-working people putting their
best efforts into areas that have little to no effect on strategic success. Often,
we’re focused on the wrong work — because our activities aren’t aligned with
our priorities.
By design, our strategy answers the question, “How can we best align all our
resources to maximize our success?”
LASTLY, a strategy communicates the message
In some organizations, leaders walk around with a virtual strategy locked in their
heads — they know where they believe the company needs to be and the actions
that will get it there. Unfortunately, in the cases where the strategy is locked in
the leaders’ head, the strategy isn’t documented and hasn’t been communicated
thoroughly. As a result, there is no real buy-in to the strategy, and no one is
acting on it.
When all of us—our supplier partners and even our customers—
know where we’re going, we have even better opportunities to
maximize our success.
Once we recognize the need to plan, we then have the responsibility of
becoming the facilitator for accelerating the buy-in and commitment of all
stakeholders; employees, customers and owners.
Very few managers truly understand their role in facilitating strategy. So, part of
the strategic plan must include tools, like short term or annual goals, to keep the
organization on the designated strategic path. And then, we need to hold
ourselves accountable for achieving the annual goals.
Why is a strategy important to your organization?
In the next chapters, I’ll be sharing more about goal setting and other key
elements of strategic planning.

6. The next step is bringing the strategic plan to reality.
We do this by setting shorter term goals and/or annual goals that are aligned
with the strategy—and then, we hold ourselves accountable to ACCOMPLISH
them.
Setting priorities and establishing accountability
One of the primary purposes of a three-year strategic plan is to set direction and
priorities.
Bringing strategy alive with goals
and accountability
In Part 2 of this Strategic Planning for Growth series, we'll cover
best practices in setting realistic, actionable goals for your
business.

7. Goal setting, with clear actions effectively implemented to generate the desired
results, is the process that breathes life into a Strategic Plan.
More specifically, setting and establishing accountability for critical goals (key
priorities) is a major component of a company’s cultural transformation.
At Sunset Transportation, like any organization, an essential component of
executing our strategic plan is organizational alignment, meaning: “Everyone
pulling in the same direction.” From the strategic plan, this alignment flows to
annual goals, priorities, specific actions, measurable results, and committed
timelines. Each person, each function and each team must have specific goals
and responsibilities that are aligned with all of our goals to achieve the desired
annual objectives.
It’s like strategic “building blocks” with each block representing a
key piece of the whole structure.
Success is dependent on our ability for everyone in the organization to
understand and accept responsibility for their role (building block), with
leadership coordinating the blocks to construct a sturdy, sustainable structure.
Here are some more vital reasons for setting goals:
Goals are motivational
If I asked you to travel the country with me, what image comes to mind? Can you
visualize walking or driving or flying somewhere? Do you feel like you have a
sense of purpose or direction?
What if I asked you to drive to Orlando, Florida with me in 30 days, play golf
every day at a local resort for a week, and then return immediately afterward?
Can you visualize yourself in a car, heading southeast towards Orlando, with a
clear purpose in mind?
The difference is the first statement is an ‘objective’ — objectives are directional
but not specific. And, the second is a ‘goal’ because it produces a clear and
measureable sense of purpose and expectation. It is more likely to stimulate
action. The first example seems more like a dream or an aimless adventure.
Well-stated goals provide a sense of meaning, purpose and direction.

8. Goals provide clear expectations
Setting clear goals is an excellent way to focus attention on what we want to
accomplish. The more specific the expectation, or goal statement, the more
likely it is that we will have complete buy-in. And, people will concentrate their
effort and actions towards accomplishing the goal.
Goals drive individual performance
When goals are clearly set, measured and monitored, they provide us
with a sense of forward progress in what might previously have
seemed like a pointless grind. It gives us a sense of pride in our
accomplishments and identifies what we need to do to improve
performance.
Recognition for achieving milestones builds confidence towards longer-term
goals—which is particularly important when goals are challenging.
Goals enable teams to work towards a common purpose
A common understanding of the team’s purpose helps everyone comprehend
what the team is intending to accomplish and why. This reduces the likelihood
that team members will be pulled in different directions, working on lower
priorities, or getting into unnecessary conflict. Goals also challenge teams to be
innovative and set higher standards for themselves and the company.
Goals support company culture
Setting goals is an opportunity for the company to strengthen its work culture.
For example, if ‘teamwork’ is important to us, then goals that enable and
encourage ‘teamwork’ will support company values and drive corresponding
behaviors. If becoming ‘process-driven’ is important to our organization, then
process goals will encourage a process-minded culture.

9. By setting goals, we increase our ability to meet objectives, build
confidence, improve team communication, and increase overall pride
and satisfaction.
Sunset Transportation has been extremely successful over the years, as
evidenced by revenue and profit growth, as well as customer and employee
loyalty.
To continue that success and to achieve even greater levels of performance
going forward, we recognize the need to transform our culture from family-
oriented and people-driven to family-oriented and process-driven with a clear
strategy direction, supported by specific goals, metrics, expectations and
accountability.
How have specific goals energized your business or career?
In the third and final chapter, I’ll share Sunset’s recently completed Strategy
Snapshot, which is a concise tool charting our objectives, goals and initiatives.

10. When I joined Sunset Transportation, it was fast
becoming a leader in third party logistics.
Recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in Missouri for the past
several years, our revenues were reaching new heights, and we needed to
implement strategy and goals to sustain and accelerate this trend.
Implementing strategy to succeed
and compete
In Part 3 of this Strategic Planning for Growth series, we'll cover
the Strategy Snapshot, a key concise tool used to chart your
company's objectives, goals and initiatives.

11. Strategy that transforms
A key part of adapting to the increasing demands of customers and the industry
in general is transitioning from being “people-driven” to being “process-driven.”
A people-driven business has the potential for inconsistencies and typically
requires a few people to make all the important decisions – typical with start-ups
and small family-owned enterprises.
As organizations grow, so does the need to transition from people-
driven to process-driven.
Because of our company’s successful revenue trend, this was true at Sunset
Transportation. We needed to become “process-driven” and establish
standardized process, systems and procedures for handling repetitive situations
and higher volumes of work, as well as, to delegate more and more decision
making to the true process owners.
Process-driven means establishing and standardizing key processes, procedures
and systems to:
Reduce variability and increase predictability
Enhance consistency and repeatability
Improve problem solving capabilities
Establish a basis for training and development
Establish a baseline for performance
Proactive Growth Plan
By having proven processes in place, we will retain our existing customers while
attracting additional new customers.
Proven processes are important because every company must have a plan to
address the risk of losing some existing customers; due to economic downturns,
business consolidations, business failures, etc.

12. Think about it: what would happen if one, two or three large customers left for
any of these reasons? In my experience from decades in the manufacturing
industry, companies come and go for many reasons.
For example; during the recession of 2008 and 2009, a significant number of
manufacturing companies in America with revenues less than $100 million no
longer exist today. And, another large percent were absorbed by competitors or
investors, with new owners, alliances and decision makers.
It’s critical that the company has a revenue plan with specific goals and actions
to achieve our growth strategy to assure our business is always capable of
maintaining the current revenue level and greater.
Improved Ability to Compete
Transforming our business from people-driven to process-driven has
improved our ability to compete more effectively too. We’ve become
more efficient, more agile, and better able to assist our customers on
short notice or with difficult circumstances.
As an example: we believe our carrier due diligence and on-boarding process is a
“best-in-class” procedure. This has allowed us to build a network of carriers
capable of handling nearly any request our customer may need—quickly and
efficiently.
It has also provided us with a method to assure our carrier partners meet our
strict requirement of performance: tenure in business, high pick-up and delivery
performance, with little or no claims.
We built our strategy with our stakeholders in mind. Our stakeholders include:
employees/associates, customers and owners, as well as our external business
partners.

13. Implementing the strategy
To assure alignment, we chose to build the strategy in layers – from concept to
specifics. First, the “Strategy Snapshot,”an easily understood illustration of our
objectives, goals and initiatives to be used as a constant reminder of our
strategic journey.
Then, we defined our current, or “as-is,” condition by taking a deep look into our
company and the industry – and, developing a SWOT analysis (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats).
This clear view of “where we are” and “where we’re going,” served as a platform
to map our three-year strategic journey. This map made defining the steps
(goals, actions, etc.) and accountabilities much easier.

14. Buy-in, communication and commitment
A critical component of a strategy or effective improvement plan is
being able to manage the transition from “as-is” to “desired state.” In
other words: getting buy-in from the entire organization.
And, making sure the strategy can answer the following questions …
What does success look like? Is it achievable? Is it measurable? Is it
sustainable?
Is it easily communicated to the entire organization?
Does every person in the organization understand their role? And, is every
person capable, committed and motivated to make it happen?
What are your best practices for strategic planning? How did you get
employee buy-in?

15. About the Author
Craig Marton is a seasoned leader dedicated to
excellence with integrity. His experience includes
strategic planning, organizational change, mentoring and
improving performance. He is president and COO of
Sunset Transportation, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis.
Copyright © 2016 by Craig Marton All rights reserved.
Learn more about the author and contact him through
SunsetTrans.com