Ep 17 - A 3-Step Framework for Turning Any Idea Into an Actionable Plan

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a whirlwind of ideas floating around in your brain? Well, I want you to know you're not alone. The real question is what do we do with all these ideas, and how do we decide which ideas really belong in our business plan? Today, we're diving deep into a 3 part framework that's about to turn your brainstorming chaos into strategic clarity. Don't miss out on this tactical gold mine. Tune in now and amplify CEOs. Let's do this. Are you a successful business owner who has a laundry list of ideas And struggles to achieve your big goals? Welcome to the CEO Amplify podcast. I'm your host, Donna Dube, and my goal is to empower you to drive meaningful change and amplify your profits without the overwhelm. Join us as we provide actionable solutions for visionary CEOs like yourself to uplevel your CEO skills, Streamline operations and master strategic prioritization. Learn how to scale your business to new heights, working smarter, not harder.

If you're ready to reclaim your time and accelerate your growth, let's dive in and start this exciting adventure together. Remember, the only limit to your business growth is the one you set for yourself. Well, hello CEOs, welcome back. It's an interesting time of the year, Quarter four are still almost 90 days for us to still do things in 2023, but our brains are starting to shift into 2024. The new year can be a fresh start, and for some can be really quite appealing. This is the time of year when we have an abundance of new ideas. The time of year when these ideas keep bubbling up into our heads. And as visionary entrepreneurs, I know you're prone to having lots of Ideas, chasing squirrels and shiny objects.

So how do we know what to concentrate on? How do we go from idea to plan? The journey from idea to plan is thrilling, but also riddled with pitfalls. And perhaps the biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs make is rushing into execution without proper planning. It's like building a house without a blueprint. You know that famous quote by Brian Tracy, that 1 hour of planning will save you 10 hours of implementation. And this is so true when we get new ideas. To avoid costly error, we'll discuss three Crucial criterias or a framework for evaluating any idea. Now I want to be clear here. When I'm saying we're evaluating an idea to go from idea to plan, I'm not talking about a full Mapped out plan in our project management tool.

It's more about thinking about the idea and having a strategy and framework for evaluating whether it should even go in our planning process for 2024. So out of all the ideas you have bubble up bubbling up in your head, let's say you have 50 of them. There's gonna be some that are gonna be really great ideas, But some that you're not ready for. Some that aren't gonna make financial sense. And then there's gonna be some that just might be your next big thing. And we need A simple, but strategic way to be able to filter the ideas we have in order to know which ones we need to consider planning for. Before we dive into this framework, I just want to point out what we are not going to do. We are not going to say this idea goes to our plan because of how excited we are about it, Or how cool or awesome we think the idea is, based on the fact that someone else is doing the idea, or based on how much revenue we think we can make.

Now, of course, Revenues got to come into the equation. There's no doubt about that, but it's not the whole piece. And this is one of the biggest Mistakes I see entrepreneurs making when it comes to planning. You get super excited about the potential of the revenue you could make. And then all of the planning boils down to, I wanna make this much revenue, I'm gonna sell this Product, program, or service for this much, therefore, I just need to sell x amount. And certainly, I'm an advocate for doing this reverse engineering. I think it's vitally important. And personally, in my experience, something that a lot of entrepreneurs don't do.

Why I created the They get paid like a CEO resource for exactly this problem, because entrepreneurs don't do the reverse engineering and not look at the whole picture. But in this case, from going from idea to plan, we don't want the revenue number to be the only factor we look at when deciding what ideas we're going to move forward on, and what ideas we're going to park for another time. So for this exercise, I want you to think in about an idea you have for your business for next year. It can be any idea. It can be something simple. It can be something outrageous. Doesn't matter. I just want you to have an idea in your brain as we work through this.

And we're gonna systematically work through the different areas of your business with this idea that you have. Okay. So first up, you're gonna put on your sales hat, and you're gonna ask yourself, does the price of this idea make sense? Can I really sell x number of them? If you do sales calls, how many sales calls would I need, And can I realistically do that number? What else might be I selling at the same time that I need to be able to stagger and and have some space in between. These are all of the things you can think of around selling this new product or service. Okay. So that's the sales part. Now with that same business idea that you had, we're gonna move into your marketing. So put on your marketing hat, And we're gonna look at how much traffic do I need? How many leads do I need to be able to sell That product, program or service.

And many of you are probably pretty comfortable with this side of things. But if you're not, Please hop over and grab the get paid like a CEO resource. You can get it at ceoamplify.ca under resources, and this will really help you walk through this process. Alright. So we looked at the sales side. We looked at the marketing side, and then the 3rd area is capacity. Do I have capacity to actually deliver this new idea? And what about my capacity in other areas? Am I gonna have to pull away from doing something else in order to implement this new idea? Oftentimes, we see new and exciting things and our focus automatically turns to those new things. They're exciting, we're energized, we wanna spend time on them.

And that's when we tend to drop the balls on other areas in our business. So we have to look at our capacity. We also have to look at our cash flow. In order to reach the number of people we would need To sell this new idea, how are we gonna get there? Are we gonna have to run ads? Have we ever run ads before? And what kind of costs will be associated with that? What's it gonna cost us to be able to implement this new idea? And do we have the cash flow in order to cover the costs? Well, we're waiting for that return on investment, because, of course, we're going to have to put up some cost to get this new idea implement And into place before we actually sell it. And then the other side here is the impact on our team. By implementing a new idea, we're moving away or could be moving away from the priority and focus that our team already has. And if we're doing that, we have to evaluate who on the team has been working hard on that project, on that priority, and now we're possibly moving them away from that and deprioritizing that to the new idea. What is that gonna do for our team morale? And is this a complete pivot away from what we were doing? And if it is, is our current team skilled and ready to be able to deliver this new idea? Do they require training or more development in order to pull this off successfully? So when we ask ourselves these questions, we start to see how interconnected The different parts of our business really is.

When our business has grown and we have a team and we have more than one offer, Pulling one lever and introducing a new idea can really create a ripple effect, unchanged through all the other areas of our business. And so, I'm not saying that the idea you have isn't a great one. It still might be, but you have to ask yourself, is my business set up for this? This could look like it's a great idea. We could sell it well. We have our marketing under control. But maybe we have an issue with capacity. And so before we go full out on this new idea. We need to solve the issue with capacity before we go implementing.

And then the other area is there a return on investment. Are we actually going to make revenue and more importantly, profit? Is it feasible? Can we deliver on the promise? If those are all yeses, then we can move on to the 3rd area, which is, What is the risk associated with the idea? Perhaps the idea is something brand new, and we could be miscalculating the actual capacity we need to put this into action. We could be miscalculating the amount of revenue we think we're gonna make. Maybe this idea is really close to a competitor's idea, and it's not gonna help us stand out from the crowd. So we have to weigh the risk against the reward. So each time you have an idea, I want you to go through this process of evaluating if this idea is worthy of going into a planning process. This is before you even get to planning it. You wanna go through this framework each time you get a good idea.

You wanna ask yourself, is there a good return? Can I be profitable from this? Can we deliver on this product, program, or service in terms Capacity, our operations, our cash flow, our team, and then finally, is it worth the risk? So as you're naturally coming up with ideas, have a place where you can capture your new ideas, and then Quickly go through this framework, these 3 questions. Is there a good return? Can we deliver? And is it worth the risk? So when you go through that, now what do we do with this idea? If the answer to those 3 questions is yes, Congratulations. You've got a green light. This idea passed the initial evaluation framework and can now be brought forth as something you want to work into your 2024 strategic business plan. And that's where you're gonna dive into the idea more and actually work out the plan. If you asked yourself those 3 questions for your idea and the answer was no, don't despair. It doesn't mean you failed, not by any means. It's actually a win.

It simply means that this particular idea might not be the right fit for your or business at this time. I suggest you put this idea on the back burner. Put it in your ideas parking lot for now. While you work on adjusting your capacity, work on adjusting your team, and work on adjusting the risk so that you can successfully execute on that new idea at a different time. It's really about learning from the process and gathering feedback. And if you ask yourself those questions, and the answer is maybe, well, this is where you might need to take further research and do further testing. Exploring the maybes by conducting experiments, doing surveys, or piloting your idea On a smaller scale, can really help you collect data to allow you to make an informed decision. Remember CEOs, turning an idea into a plan is a journey, not a sprint.

I want you to take your time with this, gather the necessary information, and stay adaptable as you navigate. Remember, visionary CEOs, that not every idea you have is going to be one that fits with your current business in your current state. Take every idea you have and walk through this quick framework. Ask yourself those 3 questions to determine if this is really a profitable idea, one that you can deliver on, and one that makes sense for in terms of risk. Alright. Thanks for joining us today. And if you found this episode helpful, please share it with your fellow entrepreneurs. Don't forget to subscribe for more insightful episodes.

Until next time, keep dreaming, keep innovating, and let's turn those ideas into successful businesses. Thank you for joining me on this episode of CEO Amplified. I appreciate you being part of our thriving community of ambitious business owners. If you enjoy today's episode, kindly ask you to share this podcast with a friend and take a hot minute to rate and leave a review. It would mean the world to me. Your feedback helps me reach more people and continue providing valuable content. Thanks so much for your support. Keep shining, and we'll catch you on the next episode.