Strategic Planning

Starting out fast is only helpful if you’re headed the right direction.


Once we have a good sense of the company’s current reality (by observation or through a formal assessment process) we recommend the company undertake a strategic planning process to validate its beliefs and defined its initiatives.

Every business needs an owner-inspired strategy that provides the framework for focus and sets constraints on what the business will do and will not do.

An annual strategic planning session is a best-practice we recommend. In fact, it takes a few years to get into the rhythm of using the strategic planning process to drive actual behaviors.

In the early days, it’s important to create a framework and a language that defines what you want your company to stand for and what you’re trying to achieve. Often, these notions are dismissed as “fluff”, but successful leaders understand they are foundational anchors that provide safety as company culture is being formed.

The outcomes of a good strategic planning sessions are as follows;

  1. Agreement on Current Reality
    • Strengths
    • Weaknesses
    • Opportunities
    • Threats
  2. Alignment on Mission Vision and Values
  3. Definition of key initiatives to achieve the 3-year plan
  4. Break down of annual targets to the current-quarter (12 week) goals for each department or key leader.
  5. All of the above should be undergird with a 1, 3, and 5-year financial model, with the 1 year financial model being expressed as an actionable operating budget immediately following the retreat or strategic planning session.
  6. Annual budgets become connected to the strategy through the financial model of the business plan.

We just felt like they were the right people, highly seasoned business professionals, people of great character and integrity. They were easy and approachable. And Cathedral just helped us be better. We got a better multiple and ultimately a better price and better terms for the deal than we would have even imagined going in

Daniel Adkison

Former President and COO of Wright Business Graphics

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Our team of experts is available to help your business build value in a variety of ways including: assessments, strategic planning, corporate financing, M&A support, market research, growth