The Design Business Show 206: Strategic Planning with Staci Hauschild

Staci Hauschild is a director of operations and ClickUp consultant. She helps feminist entrepreneurs smash the patriarchy one deadline at a time via strategic planning and business management so CEOs can create positive change in the world, increase their profits, and take real (business-free) vacations.

Staci has lived all over the world and now calls Oaxaca, Mexico, home, where she lives with her two rescue pups and a collection of rescue kittens. She enjoys hiking, collecting rare tropical plants and cacti, and believes that every day should start with a strong cup of coffee and a good book.

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

What Strategic Planning Is + Looks Like

Staci shares what kind of coffee she drinks to help start her day
The story of how Staci came to Oaxaca, Mexico, on what was supposed to be a 3-month holiday but ended up staying because it felt like home
Staci decided she could be an English teacher, or she could take her skills and put them online
When Staci started, she was a virtual assistant, but even as a virtual assistant, she was a strategic partner in her client’s businesses, but she didn’t know that was a thing
As Staci learned more, she stepped into more of a management role, and a couple of years ago, she became certified as director of operations
When Staci graduated from Ops Authority Program, she fell in love with strategic planning
Without CEOs and visionaries, Staci says she would not have a business – most operators are not great at creating visions for their futures, but they are great at helping other people with theirs
Staci describes herself as the back-end best friend who doesn’t get the credit, nor does she want it
Strategic Planning, defined by Staci, is a process that creates clarity, direction, and a plan – in the corporate world, it is creating business strategies, implementing them, evaluating them, and making sure they’re aligned with our revenue goals and vision for the future
When Staci talks about vision, she’s not just talking about the vision for your business, but the vision for your lifestyle
Your business foundation is the most important, Staci says, and it includes your business mission, vision, core values, diversity, equality, and inclusion statement, and your revenue goals
After building your foundation, Staci moves to build strategic objectives or the pillars of business, which are money and finance, service and sales, operational efficiencies, team and human capital, and visibility
After looking at the pillars of business, Staci takes all the ideas of her clients and categorizes them by the pillars, and then they look at which strategic pillar they should be currently spending the most time on depending on their goals, needs, and visions
Next, Staci will break client projects down into quarters and then into each month
Each project has an owner, whether it’s the CEO, a team member, or a third-party contractor
Staci says the strategic plan can work for any level of business, and she helps with who’s going to do it and when they’re going to do it
One of Staci’s favorite things is visions – she sees client breakthroughs when her clients talk about their vision
When someone says they want to travel more, for example, Staci helps them nail down the specifics like how often, what they look like, whether they are international or stay-home, etc. So they can get clarity around that
With visions comes revenue goals, and Staci talks about being taught good, better, and best revenue goals

ClickUp + Staci’s Offers

Staci says she does the entire strategic planning in ClickUp, from planning to communication to creating the plan, and works with long-term clients who use ClickUp as their main platform
Operational people usually fall into two categories, those who take the managerial, leadership, and people route or the systems and tech route
If Staci gets a client who wants to work in another platform besides ClickUp, she will refer them to someone else in her circle because she wants to be more efficient and have lean systems in her business
It’s much easier to educate people and share how you can help them when you hone in on your skills and expertise instead of speaking very broadly and wanting to help everyone
One service Staci offers is an Operational Consulting Day that takes place over Voxer or WhatsApp – it works as if you’re messaging your best friend throughout the day, but instead, Staci is coming it from an operational standpoint
The Operational Consulting Day is to overcome one specific challenge you may have – for example; people may be working on a job description for a role they want to hire
The two other services Staci offers are strategic planning and long-term Operational Business Manager (OBM) or Director of Operations (DOO), where she comes in as an integrator to the visionary, where she manages the business entirely so the CEO can step into their zone and do the things only they can do
Most people don’t get into business to manage a business, but that’s what Staci got into business to do
People are at different stages in their businesses where they have different needs and budgets, which is why Staci offers 3 different service levels in her business
In her business, Staci can only take on a certain amount of retainer clients and a certain number of strategic planning clients, so she sees the Operational Consulting Day as a great way to help other people along those services
How Staci and her team think no more than 6 months ahead and how this quarter, they are focused on creating a quiz/operational assessment for Staci’s community to help determine what area of business they need to focus on and how to do it
Your strategic plan isn’t a to-do list; it’s about the strategy and the goal behind it
Staci didn’t realize how intensive it would be to create a quiz, come up with the questions and the results, and come up with the email education sequence for each of those results
Another thing Staci is working on in her business is creating a strategic planning refresh as a group program because sometimes things don’t go according to plan, so she wants to help existing clients be able to refresh their plans if needed

Staci’s Love For Rescuing Animals

Staci says she’s always been a cat person, but because she was living all over the world, she never wanted to adopt an animal because she didn’t want to put it through the stress of moving every 2 years
Once Staci was stable in Oaxaca, Mexico, she adopted her first kitten, but during that time, she and her neighbor rescued and adopted out around 40 kittens
When some of Staci’s neighbors moved; they left behind a Siamese cat that Staci tried to adopt out, but no one wanted her because she was fully grown, so Staci took her
Staci explains that while on YouTube trying to find ways to entertain her Siamese cat, she started to learn more about dogs and says she used to be afraid of dogs her entire life
Living in countries where there’s a high level of animal abuse and lack of resources, there are some scary dogs on the street, but Staci never knew why they were scared – she started to learn that they’re scared and barking because they had been abused
How a dog showed up at Staci’s house that she fed, how he’s never left and is now the love of her life
Staci adopted her second puppy after finding her near death on the side of the road and says that she could adopt a new animal every week – sometimes she has to walk away, call a rescue organization, and says she then donates to the organization
Kittens are less work than dogs because they are independent and so if she sees a kitten, she will pick it up and has reduced 4 cats in the last week
One of Staci’s visions in her business is to be able to donate a percentage of her profits to organizations in Oaxaca, Mexico – Staci donates to big organizations but realizes there is an opportunity within her community
Staci loves working with people who want to donate their money to organizations or political campaigns because she believes we vote with our dollars and we can create change by earning more in our businesses and doing something good with it
Learn more by going to Staci’s website and connecting with Staci on LinkedIn
Get a $250 discount on a full strategic planning session with Staci that sets you up with clarity, direction, a plan, your goals, and projects for 6 months with a high-level view of the following 6 months