Description

I just spent four or five episodes teaching you my strategic planning framework... and then one article, sent to me before a board retreat, showed me what it was missing.

Today I'm getting honest about the strategic planning mistakes I made for years as a women business owner, and what I'm changing now. I walk through Richard Rumelt's four hallmarks of bad strategy, the three-part kernel of good strategy, and the one step I was skipping before every annual plan.

If you're scaling a wellness business and your plan reads more like a wish list than a solution, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• The listener email that called me "literally the only person" she hears talk about what goes wrong... and why I keep doing it
• What I got RIGHT in my strategic planning series... and the one ingredient that was missing the whole time
• Rumelt's four hallmarks of bad strategy, and which ones I was guilty of
• Why "grow revenue by 10%" is a goal... NOT a strategy
• The real staffing problem I diagnosed in my own business last year, and where our staff satisfaction scores landed this quarter
• The three-part "kernel" of good strategy, and how my nonprofit board used it to decide what to say NO to

Take Action:

Pull out the strategic plan you started during the last few episodes and look at it again. Before you add another goal, write down the specific problem your business is trying to solve... then decide this week whether your plan actually solves it.

Resources from this episode:

• The Perils of Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
• Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
• Annual Strategic Planning Workbook/Template
• The Unfiltered Female CEO Newsletter — sign up at wellwomenbusiness.com
• Well Women Business CEO Reset Retreat — Costa Rica, January 15–19, 2027 (application only)

Please subscribe and leave a review for the Well Women Business Podcast wherever you listen. It helps the podcast reach more women, and I read every single one!