Strategic Planning Hacks With Sean Castrina
If you are given a million dollars and many lands, you would not run the home Depot or Lowe's and start buying wood and nailing up a house. You do a blueprint.
If you are given a free vacation worth $10,000, you will not get in your car, go to the airport. You would ask if you want a winter vacation or summer vacation.
In other words, put the same amount of time you put into a vacation or your dream house for your business. So you're not running in 10 different directions. It'll save you a ton of money.
Extreme focus is critical. Sean doesn't manage his time. He manages his energy. When he was 20-30 years old, he could go 20 hours a day. And that was great. Now at 57, that's not necessarily the case. So the key to him is he knows he got three windows in a day.
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In the morning, he writes and researches because he knows that's his window. Then he has a two-hour office time a day when people can book any meetings they want.
He can meet with my partners. And then he has two hours that he can decide whether he'll do a podcast or something like that. And with that, each quarter of the year, he focuses on one initiative.
He has one thing that moves the needle. It's the one domino. It's the one thing I want to knock down that will not over ten other dominoes. So Sean breaks his year in four chunks of three months with one key initiative.
A great John Maxwell quote on leadership is focusing on about 1%. You do one thing well, 99 other things you don't do well. So, Sean realized that his skill set is extremely narrow, but he's really good at the things that he is good at.
So, early on, you need to realize that it's impossible to be great in a lot of things. And that applies to a company. Can you name three models of a Honda? They have three. You got a Honda accord, a Honda civic, and an Odyssey. You know, they don't spread out over 20 different things. And more is not better.
Sean has his marketing and meeting days. He tells his staff if anybody wants to meet with him. There needs to be a schedule and a duration. And then he has days when he wants to write and research more. He likes to know the activities every week if I can have a Monday, a Tuesday, Wednesday theme day because everybody knows what direction they will go.
He breaks his day out into what does he have to get today that has a consequence. What can he do today that moves him financially forward? At the end of the day, we all pay bills.
Mark Cuban reads three hours a day. He's a billionaire. Warren Buffet reads 8-10 hours a day. He's worth $60 billion. They all have the time to do that.
You might only be able to read a half-hour a day for 15 hours a day because you got to work. You can have good habits, but one of those habits is you probably should do something every day that generates money for your business and for you. And that's where a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking too much, too creative.
So, did you make any money this week? You got a hobby. How much money have you made last month? See if you don't make money with it, it is a hobby. If you want to continue it as a hobby, that's fine. But please don't call it a business.
Sean tries to do something nearly every day when it's business-related, that generates an income. Having financial contributions, there are a few days a week, that has to be priority A.