The “We Can’t Leave Until We Have This Figured It Out” Exercise
Answers to find on your first meeting with a team
First meetings are excited, with much expectation, fun, informal, and, most of the time, disappointing. It’s prevalent that the only thing the team does is brainstorming and probably a budget plan. But when the meeting ends, you’ll probably ask the specifics that no one has an answer.
It’s a matter of time when one person asks a question, and then other problems will follow, which could be the end of the project.
I invented this exercise for these meetings and has saved me time and money. It starts a bit boring, but it gets excited and smart.
The “We Can’t Leave Until We Have This Figured It Out” Exercise.
I leave you a more graphical understanding.
The first is to clarify the ideas we have for the project.
Vision and mission:
Leave them for the end. They should be at the beginning but first, answer all the exercises.
SWOT Analysis:
Strengths and Weaknesses are internal; Opportunities and Threats are external.
Questions:
- How will the work be divided?: what are the areas that the project demands? Marketing, creativity, production, and others.
- What are the responsibilities of each collaborator?: what to do and what not to do?
- Who will be in charge of the decisions?: Preferentially 1, max 2.
- How will the areas be coordinated?: How will you be in touch with each other? WhatsApp, Zoom, E-mail, meetings every Tuesday at Brenda’s, or so.
Emphasis:
Choose one:
- Production
- Quality
- Promotion
This will show the commitment you’ll have as a company, and this answer should become a focal point on your decisions.
What is your purpose or objective?:
To sell, know-how, to understand the target, you’ll choose.
Fire Questions🔥:
These are easy and quick. Although, do take a moment to answer.
- Product Kind
- Business or Activity
- Dimension
- Scope of action
- Market share
- Purpose
- Degree of formality
Surrounding Analysis:
- Where do I want to be?: Target.
- How much should I spend?: Budget.
- How much I want to earn?: Goal setting.
How?:
- Where to be present?: Where do you need to be seen? Social Media, TV Commercials, Magazines, depending on what the project needs.
- What to do?: What do you need to do to be on social media? Create a profile, take pictures, get to followers. For TV Commercials: A script, actors, location permissions. For Magazines: Photoshoot, a model, contacts, or others.
- How will you achieve that?: what will you use? Internet, pictures, investment, the list is long, but be aware and focused on the benefits.
SMART:
Are those answers specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bounded? If yes, continue👇. If no, go back👆.
Strategies:
- Market: Client’s Development: They live in this neighborhood, but they work somewhere else; the development is how they behave on their routine.
- Segmentation and Positioning Strategy: What will you do with each characteristic you know about your client? Age, profession, interests, behavior, where they live, work, status, psychography, demography.
- Substitute products: Solutions that already exist. Example: My project is about Pregnancy Clothes for working women; the substitute products are plus-size clothes, second-hand clothes, or borrowed pregnancy clothes.
- Market Strategy: How will you reach the client? Online sales, publicity, again, your project will tell its needs.
- Budget: How much will you spend on your strategy?
(This would be a good time to order pizza🍕, we’re almost done).
Who’s my competition?
- Current Competitors: Who is doing what you want to achieve or is very close to what you want to do?
- Competition: Who is doing what you’re doing?
- Potential Competitors: Companies with experience in your field.
To make it more interactive, I like to write the questions on papers and have the plan on a wall, so whenever I feel like losing the way, I can look back to these answers and have a better emphasis.
I would love to hear about your first meeting experiences; what have you achieved so far, and of course, did you find this helpful?.
