Designate a Core Planning Team
Representatives of (or all of) the senior management team typically serve as a Core Planning Team. Add others who bring their knowledge of your customers and internal operations. Two to three members is the ideal size.
Every great business needs a plan.
A strategic plan is a roadmap for your business that will help you achieve your goals. At Launching Labs, we use Growth Management River Trip materials to guide planning sessions. We work with your team to help identify strengths and weaknesses, assess your opportunities and threats, and develop strategies to achieve your desired results.
Through the proven visual planning system developed specifically for management teams of privately held businesses, we give you the direction and focus you need to achieve your goals.
The River Trip is customer focused strategic planning, simplified. This strategic planning process has been used successfully by businesses and not-for-profit management teams in more than 40 industries.
This process works!
Fast, Fun and Simple
Strategic Planning through guided team discussions helps identify the top needs to address today and plan for tomorrow.
River Trip Metaphor for Business
Have you ever been on a whitewater rafting trip in the springtime, when snow runoff is cascading through the canyons? Or during autumn, with calmer waters (except through the rapids)? Strategic planning for a growing business has similar characteristics:
Preparation is essential.
Paddlers learn and practice skills they don’t use every day.
It takes a team effort to be successful.
And… it‘s always exciting, usually with an element of the unexpected.
The river rafting metaphor offers guidance for each of the five planning phases, and highlights the collaboration which growth requires. Immerse in the preparation, master the skills, participate fully and enjoy the adventure.
The River Trip Process
Assign Leadership Responsibility
Select a senior business leader, ideally with deep industry experience, to provide leadership and coordination for this process. This will include preparation assignment guidance, planning meeting leadership and Core Planning Team communication.
Discuss Time Frames
When must the planning be completed? Should we allow time for gathering critical market, competitor or customer information? When will plans tie into budgeting? Are there seasonality considerations for timing?
Get Started With Planning
Each member of the core planning team will use the first process map (Crossroads Issues) to interview a thought partner or two. Let’s sit down and talk about your business and where you can take it.
HEAR FROM OUR CLIENTS
We thought, being intelligent people we would be able to figure out all that was needed to be able to promote our new book “Stacking-Your Skeletal Blueprint for Posture.” Well, it soon became apparent that it was not the case. Without the guidance of these hard-working people, all our work would have been in vain. They are creative and tenacious in their approach.
We, my wife Deb and myself, are so very pleased with our direction and thank you for believing in our project.
Launching Labs Marketing helps us with public relations, marketing consulting and social media. Our news has gotten great pickup, the credibility it provided allowed us to land partners like University of Colorado and Coldwell Banker. We’ve noticed an uptick in traffic to our website and increased ad sales. The team is quick to respond and easy to work with, which makes my life easier.
Launching Labs brings focused dedication resulting in superbly worded news releases and excellent utilization of Facebook ads, twitter, and other social media channels. I am impressed with how they track so many details with knowledge of each interacts with each other. Highly versatile in their roles, they bring innovative ideas to my projects. In addition, they contribute superb editing and offer graphic design ideas. I trust in and follow their advice.
“As the former CEO of 5 companies who has used the services of the principals of Launching Labs for the past two years, I would highly recommend them to any company who needs an experienced, results-driven and detail-oriented marketing services and social media savvy team to get them launched. I have invited them to use me as a personal reference with any company inquiring about their services”…Bruce Fredrickson
