Just prior to the Easter break, I was approached by one of the owners of a business in the services sector whether I would be interested in providing a proposal to facilitate a review of the strategic plan.

Before deciding whether to lodge a proposal, I met with the business owners, who disclosed the following:

• When the business commenced six years ago, a strategic plan was prepared at the time.
• Over the past six years the business has experienced strong growth based around successfully developing and commercialising one flagship product.
• A key part of the strategic plan was the development of other products and services to reduce reliance on that flagship product.
• The strategic plan is reviewed and updated annually by the Board of Directors in conjunction with the Management Team.
• The last strategic plan review in 2022 was facilitated internally. Whilst the review generated discussion about the business its future and its operations, it did not lead to any concrete actions around the key issue of diversification of the business.

As a result of that meeting, I was enthusiastic about facilitating a review of the strategic plan and set about preparing a proposal.

I worked out my approach to facilitate the review and calculated the number of hours involved in that process.  From there using my recovery rate, I calculated the total investment required by the business to facilitate the strategic review.

As soon as I calculated the level of investment, my fears & doubts came to the surface…Was I charging too much? Would the directors see the value? If I lower the investment, will the directors be more likely to accept the proposal?

In that moment, I remembered that I have NO control about how the directors will react to my proposal.  They will make the choice on whether to accept my proposal based on criteria which is unique to them.  As a result, I went ahead and lodged the proposal using the investment figure I had calculated.