‘The Big S’: Understanding Strategy and Your 5-Step Career Road Map

Strategy. We throw the word around often, but do we really, truly understand what it means? When I started out in this industry 10 years ago, I don’t think I did. It wasn’t until I spent years navigating and making mistakes that I felt what a truly great strategy coming to fruition meant. Now, when I’m lucky I’ve been able to look back and say, “Hey, that happened because of this, like I had planned.” And when it works just right, well that’s a pretty cool feeling.

To me, strategy is the outcome of a number of carefully planned and plotted events and decisions. Great strategy is a mix of timing, experience, skill sets, patience, and intuitively knowing when to step in and change something. I would also argue that truly great strategy has a bit of magic in it, something you just can’t describe that helps move things forward.

These five steps break down what strategy means when it comes to your career, and provide a tactical path for implementing more of it in your day-to-day actions. I hope this demystifies “The Big S” and helps you move forward in the direction of your dream career, whatever direction that may be.

Step 1: Make a road map

Visualize your ideal outcome and work backwards on how you’ll get there. Do you hope to run a team? Work at a big brand? Found a startup? Get as detailed as you’d like and actually understand why these goals are important to you.

Separate the road map into tangible tasks that can be addressed in smaller chunks. What can you do today that is going to get you closer to your goal? Ask yourself this daily. The road map can be messy or thorough – whatever works for you. It can be scribbled on a notebook or typed in a nice PDF. Don’t fuss over what it should include or how it should look, just get it in writing enough for it to make sense to you. Read it over and commit to it. This might be a good time to consult industry professionals or others who may have more experience in strategic planning in your field. They’ll help you refine the plan and ensure it’s realistic.

Step 2: Identify networks and contacts

Identify people or groups that can help you along your road map and get you closer to the end goal. What is it that you’ll need from them? How are you going to get in touch with them or get their attention? Make a small, local list and grow from there. Start a database Excel sheet so you can keep track of your interactions. Remember to touch base with your contacts every so often, and be organized.

Once the network is identified, start reaching out to these people and finding ways to work with them. Sometimes it’s a give and take – and you might have to do something outside of your road map in order to get them to do something that’s outside theirs. Get comfortable with this idea! Example: one of your ideal mentors needs someone to help them with their personal social media outlets. You may be trying to move away from digital marketing and towards interior design, but if you help them with social media you will gain their trust and support.

Also, keep your network list handy if you run into any obstacles on your path. Sometimes the way to weasel out of an annoying situation is closer than you think.

Step 3: Communicate your goals and check yourself

Share your goals and vision with other people in your support network, as they’ll help you keep focused and might even have some contacts of their own to donate to the cause! People are drawn to others’ ambitions and goals.

In addition, it’s important that you check yourself. You don’t want to forget or get sidetracked on this very important mission. Set up reminders to reread the road map weekly. This will keep it fresh in your mind and make it easier for you to deal with the day-to-day grind that goes along with achieving your goals. It also plants a seed in your subconscious, which will help to steer you in the right direction.

Step 4: Do the work

This is the hard part. You actually have to grind it out – really get your hands dirty. Don’t mindfuck yourself into procrastinating and not actually following the items you wrote on the road map. You’ve made it this far, and staying focused is a key part of the process! Go the distance and fight for every opportunity that gets you closer to the end goal. Sometimes your hard work seems like it isn’t getting you anywhere or feels anti-climactic, but, trust me, the only difference between you and every executive that’s more successful than you is that they stayed focused throughout this phase. Successful people will tell you that there’s no magic or glamour in what they do until they look back at a later date. Keep your head down!

Step 5: Be patient, stay positive

Nothing epic or huge happens overnight. You can do everything in the world to get closer to your dreams every single day, and it still may take 10 years to achieve them. Know that good things are heading your way. The best part of strategic wins is that sometimes when you’ve reached the goal, you don’t even notice. It’s as if you’ve fallen in love with the process in the meantime. But when you do shake yourself and notice, boy, does it feel great! Hang in there until then, and don’t waste energy counting the days!

Lots of people get discouraged sticking to a particular strategy, especially if it gets trickier than they had originally expected. Especially if you are job hunting it’s easy to feel the power is not in your hands. Sometimes it’s hard to find the same excitement and passion you had when you were devising your road map as when you’re actually carrying out the strategy one or two years later. You might not be in the same headspace anymore. Remember that strategies can change, but to really achieve your goals, it’s important that you fight for the success of your strategy, and give it your all. Don’t give up on it when things get rough! Expect that there will be roadblocks and take pride in overcoming each one of them and keeping your head high.

Now go forth and achieve your wildest dreams,
xo Sari

Fair Game is a website and blog committed to sharing tips, advice, and spreading the word about the benefits of great organizational culture and effectivity. Every company deserves to be a healthy and progressive workplace. Founded by Sari Delmar,  Fair Game was launched in January 2017.

 

5 Tips for Making Big Career-Defining Decisions

So here you are. Faced with what seems like it could be a good opportunity. You have a decision to make and this could change everything you thought you knew or maybe it won’t. There really is no way to know. So you jump back and forth – what lies behind Door A could lead to X,Y,Z! What lies behind Door B could change everything you know or ruin you! and Oh Door C, well Door C is the elusive ‘what-if-I-hold-out-for-something-bigger-and-better’ door. Door C is the door that is totally empty at the moment but is filled with so much promise. Damn that door!

You are not the first to sit at this crossroad and stew. You are looking for answers, for a sign, for someone to sweep in and help make this big heavy decision for you. Well sorry to break it to you, but it’s just not going to happen. There is no way around this but through. You quite simply have to suck it up and make your move.

Now this is very hard. Every decision you make in your career can make or break you. Every small strategic play sends ripples in to the universe and affects your value.  It’s a big weight and I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. But I can tell you that for as long as I have lived there is no way to see the future and fully understand the scope of how your decision will impact the future from where you sit. That’s frustrating and stressful, but it’s best we just cut ties with that notion right now. It’s life. You must lead even when it’s particularly hard to and leaders make decisions with a good amount of risk involved, like a boss.

What’s worse than the stress you’re feeling at this very moment? Decision paralysis. You know… when you stew for so long all the doors magically just disappear and sure you avoided having to step up to the plate but you also completely screwed yourself, so really who wins? Not you. Below are some tips to avoid decision paralysis and crush whatever decision you may have in front of you.

#1 – Get Centred

In order to make a strong-minded decision you need to get in-touch with your core values. What do you stand for? Why did you start doing what you do? What is your ideal vision for the future? Truly have a moment with yourself about this and frame the decision in this light. How does this opportunity fit in to these things above? Does it enhance your core values or does it take you off track? Ask yourself these questions and be honest with your answers.

Any decisions you make in life should help get you closer to where you want to be and what makes you happy and fulfilled. Go for a run, do some yoga or whatever puts things in to perspective for you, and just take a moment to get centred and then approach the decision at hand. The last thing you want is to make a big decision based off of some short-term stress or ego-driven moment. Strong decisions are born from strong places.

#2 – Disconnect from Past Disappointments

It is easy when approached with a new opportunity to transfer any remaining stress from past disappointments or setbacks from a similar opportunity on to the new one. For example – perhaps last time you signed to a label they went bankrupt 1 year later and still owe you money. So when a new indie label approaches you about a record deal you will of course be apprehensive and worried they too will go bankrupt. Now see, there is a positive and negative way to use this energy.

Shit happens and not everyone is a crook if you had a bad experience. Be open and allow the new situation to build trust with you on a clean slate. That being said, do let your past experiences inform you. Perhaps in this new record deal you would have a certain claus added to the contract that you didn’t have the first time around to protect yourself. Time and time again I see past hurts casting new opportunities in a bad light and it’s not fair to the other party involved but more importantly it’s not fair to you. You may be too hurt to see what could be a very good thing right in front of you. So disconnect and set aside your past to be able to look at something pragmatically.

#3 – Ask the Right Questions

Don’t chicken out, this is a big decision and you need to ask the hard hitting questions that allow you to think about it from all angles! Ideally, ask these questions in-person so you can really get in to it. If you aren’t sure what the right questions are, ask a trusted advisor what they would ask if they were in your shoes or someone who you know has been there before. And I’m not just speaking about asking the right questions to the other party involved, ask the right questions to your lawyer, accountant, shareholders, or anyone that may be affected and useful to you in making your decision.

Now be warned: don’t misuse this question asking period as a way to procrastinate in making the decision altogether. Do use it strategically and carefully. For the best results set a deadline for yourself to make the decision. For example: I am going to meet with these 3 people and by Friday I will make my decision with all the information I have in front of me.

#4 – Be Positive

Making a decision is complicated you see. Not only do you want it to lead you somewhere great, if it doesn’t your ass is on the line. It’s easy to find your mind filled with visions of your bandmates or partners’ future potential disappointment in you when things don’t go the way you had hoped. You know the types, the people who will alway say, “I told ya so”. Gah, I hate these types. But I gotta tell ya, thems the brakes.

When you make a big decision you are sticking your neck out and taking a risk. The very real fact is that it could go super well or blow up in your face. And if it does there will be some fall out. You have to make a decision either way so there is no use obsessing over the latter outcomes. You will get paralyzed and stuck worrying about all the negativity that could come. But what’s even worse, you won’t even be able to assess the decision properly or see the potential good of it if your view is so drenched in dark doom. So when envisioning the potential outcomes think of the best possible scenarios. Be real about the possibility that it could go south but do not obsess over it.

#5 – Just Do Something

At a certain point you just have to make your decision. With all these things above in mind and some magic that none of us can control, lets hope it brings you everything your heart desires. So just go and make it already! And when you do, stand behind it through thick and thin. Give it the chance to soar and make waves. And if it doesn’t work out? Try again. Every successful moment had a slew of failures come before it. Be a boss and move things forward.

Best of luck and I hope this helped! Thank you for reading,

Sari

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Sari Delmar is the Founder and CEO of Audio Blood, a North American marketing and communications agency. Through aggressive creative artist and brand campaigns, Audio Blood continues to be on the cutting edge of music marketing and promotion. Sari has spoken at international conferences (Big Sound, Canadian Music Week), sits on the Toronto Music Advisory Council and the Toronto Austin Music Alliance, and was profiled in the Globe and Mail Small business column (“from Music Fan to Music mogul”) in 2014. In 2015, Sari was awarded with an International Women Achievers’ Award in the Entertainment category.