So you’re ready to get organized and step into the role of visionary in your business? Great! But once you do all that visionary work and build that business strategy, where does it live? How do you communicate it to your team? How do you keep yourself accountable to it? How do you make plans and build projects around it?

So many questions and all the answers below 😉Here are 4 ways to plan your business strategy using a project management tool like ClickUp.

 

What Even Is Business Strategy?

As an entrepreneur and the visionary of your business, it’s your actual job to know where you want your business to go and how to get it there. No pressure, right? As a quick overview, your business strategy is traditionally:

• Your Mission
• Your Vision
• Your Core Values
• Your Position in the Market
• Your Brand Strategy

 

Your Mission and Vision Statements, according to HubSpot, are broken down as follows:

 

A mission statement is intended to clarify the what, who, and why of a company. On the other hand, a vision statement describes where the company wants a community, or the world, to be as a result of the company’s services. A mission statement is the roadmap for the company’s vision statement.

 

Your Core Values are the compass, if you will, of your company. They are what guide you during tough decisions and ultimately are the foundation of your company culture. What do you care about? What do you stand for? What do you not stand for?

Your Position Statement defines where you sit in the market: What do you do, who do you help, and why would someone buy from you versus your competitors.

 

Important Sidenote:

If you don’t have these core, foundational elements of your business (or you “think” you do, but nothing’s written down on paper and you have a hard time verbally explaining your business when someone asks — I see you), apply for a Rebel Office Work Party. Our CEO Strategy Day is a great opportunity to not only get super clear on this but also build in the systems and get your tools organized to support your strategy.

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Your Brand Strategy comes down to your plan for curating the experience you offer your audience, clients, stakeholders, customers, literally anyone including how you show up, speak, look, manage situations and more.

Defining these core strategic elements of your business can be frustrating, especially if you are having a hard time getting clear about where you even want to go. Take your time, do it right, and when you’re ready, put it to work.

 

Why Keep Your Business Strategy in Your Project Management Tool?

Once you’ve mapped out and gotten clear about where you actually want to go, it’s time to put that business strategy to work. Which is exactly what your Project Management app is for.

Not only can you use your project management tool as an accountability system to house and communicate your business strategy, but it can also help you execute those projects and hit those milestones that get you closer to your big vision.

 

 

 

Why Use ClickUp to House Your Business Strategy?

As you may already know, there are so many options for project management tools. Popular ones include Asana, Trello and ClickUp. Here at Rebel Office, we use ClickUp.

In my experience, it’s the most adaptable to any business. I can make it do and set it up in the most specific way to work for MY business. With many different views, ways to customize statuses, the wide range of formatting features in tasks… it’s the ultimate project management tool.

Additionally, I can embed spreadsheets from Google Sheets and Airtable, along with so many other apps and tools, to create my projects in a way that truly are all-encompassing. While my marketing team is updating our content master spreadsheet in Airtable, I can see the latest version in ClickUp without having to leave the app.

Let me break down 3 very specific ways that we use ClickUp at Rebel Office to keep our Business Strategy top of mind and integrated in everything we do.

 

3 Ways to Plan Your Business Strategy Using ClickUp

Strategic Overview Document

A favourite ClickUp feature of mine is Docs. Google Docs, who? My team and I can create core documents, brainstorm and build directly in ClickUp using the Docs feature.

That means you can build a document that’s accessible, taggable and shareable and that contains all of your core Business Strategy that I mentioned above.

 

 

At a Glance Board

Another great way to showcase your business strategy and make is accessible for your team (and keep it top of mind for you) is a “Company At a Glance” project. You can build it as a List or a Board. I personally prefer it as a board, and have the following columns:

• About
• Brand
• Product Suite
• Standard Operating Procedures
• Content / Marketing
• Any other relevant departments or functions

 

 

This makes finding information quick and easy, and — I promise you — will save you time the next time you’re asked for a bio or an about statement, can’t find your brand’s colour codes, and more.

In the ABOUT column, it’s great to have the following cards/tasks: Mission, Vision, Core Values, About the Owner, Buyer Persona(s), Tone/Voice/Word Authority.

In the BRAND column, it’s good to include: Logo files, Brand Guidelines, Colour palette, Font files, a link to your brand-approved stock photo library, and any supporting elements like icons, backgrounds, etc.

In the PRODUCT SUITE column, it’s helpful to breakdown key information about the different products and services you offer, including pricing, sales page links and qualifying information.

You may opt to put the STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES in a whole project on its own, or you can house it in the At A Glance board and use it as the “ultimate” destination for company information. Ultimately, you want to create tasks based on main (or all) functions such as:

• writing and publishing a blog post
• filing taxes
• responding to customer questions
• uploading course content
• creating a new lead magnet, etc.

 

and to break down each step so that, if you hire on, you can easily delegate that task because your step-by-step approach to completing that task is documented. This guarantees it is done the same way every time.

 

Your CONTENT/MARKETING column could include your marketing strategy, link to your content calendar, document your core lead magnets or pieces of content and more. You can really customize this section as you need to support your business. Just remember: think high level and make sure it’s relevant to your day-to-day and to the rest of your team.

 

Roadmap

Traction by Gino Wickman. I read the book in two days, applied everything to Rebel Office as I read it, and haven’t looked back since.

Basically, your “Roadmap” board will outline more specific versions of your vision (your 10-year target and 3-year picture), your One Year Milestones (aka. those annual goals you’ve set), your 90-day projects and those projects’ subtasks, and your Issues List.

Let me break them down.

 

 

Your One Year Milestones are those big projects you want to achieve over the year. Whether you want them done in Q1 or Q4, they go in this column.

Then, as you do your quarterly planning (if you want accountability and structure, book your CEO Strategy Day with me every quarter), you move over the project from the One Year Goals into the 90 Day Projects.

For the next 90 days, you and your team live in this column. It’s your job to check in on the progress of where your team is with these projects, assign sub-tasks and make sure these projects are broken down in a way that keeps everyone moving forward.

The Issues List is also from the book Traction, and one of the most eye-opening activities I’ve done for myself and for Rebel Office. It’s great to keep in your Roadmap to identify what’s not working so that every time you’re in your Roadmap (most likely daily, if not weekly) you’re checking in on how you and your team are addressing those issues.

Track your progress. Fix the issues. Build a better business.

 

Bonus: Goals in ClickUp

I won’t dive too deeply into this feature, but it sure is a great one. I’ll leave this one for you to explore, but if you head on over to the sidebar in ClickUp and click on the big “cup” icon, it’ll take you to Goals. Here, you can build in tracking and accountability for yourself and your team based on specific goals you have for your business.

Set a goal, and then define key performance indicators (KPI) for you and your team to track.

Hot tip: Give everyone on your team at least ONE number/task/KPI to own. They’re in charge of updating the goal and your whole team can see the progress bar move towards 100%.

 

 

What to Work On First

Organizing your project management tool can be overwhelming. There are just so many things! So I recommend first starting with the business strategy.

Sure, it’s fun to play in tools too, but your tools won’t do you any good without clear direction and a strong vision. Need help? We’ve got you.

And if you’re looking to elevate things in all areas of your business, grab your free copy of our guide: 5 Ways to Elevate Your Business to Attract High Ticket Clients. We touch a bit more on business strategy in there too that you might find helpful.

Happy strategizing and systemizing!