Hi, and welcome back. Today, we're going to talk about something that's really essential, as I mentioned in previous video, to your overall success of your business. It's something that you know, you might not have thought of, but very, very crucial to helping you move forward and while remaining accountable. So I'm going to be talking about accountability, partnerships, and how this can help you fulfill your strategies and your vision and for your for your business going forward. If you go back and recall a time when perhaps you were working for somebody else, you might remember that your deadlines were set for you, and you were expected to abide by them and deliver the product or the service. The tasks complete the tasks that you were assigned at a given date and time, it was pretty easy.

Somebody else was assigning all that to you. But what happens when you become your own boss? Who's driving that? When you're your own boss when you're a solo entrepreneur or a small business owner? Now, who are you accountable to? Because you know, when you work alone, and without a boss, it can be difficult to be motivated and productive.

So who you answer to, and who's going to keep you honest about doing the things that you've said you're going to do in your strategic plan. Now, this is where having an accountability partner is crucial, because it's like having a mentor or a coach on your side, somebody who you can go to and talk to, about the things that you're planning to do and deliver. And the impact of that cannot be underestimated. For numerous reasons. Now I'm going to give you a bit of an example my own situation. And, and a little bit of a history here.

And actually, the result of this strategic planning guide, and course actually is the direct result from my having an accountability partner. Now, just to give you a little bit of a little bit of context, before becoming a copywriter, I worked in an administrative environment. And being having a logical and strategic mind and way of working things was just seemed natural to me. So I still still depend and fall back on that in my current career. It's it's very valuable asset to have. And so and my own accountability partner who I began working with several years ago, she reached out to me because, for one reason, it began as something where we both thought that we needed to Introduce them organization into our workdays and our schedules.

And at the same time this coincided with this article that I had read on strategic planning, but it just kind of presented some bare bones. Very, very general ideas about what strategic planning planning was. I felt that there were a lot of gaps that could be filled. And so I set about writing just an article I had intended on writing an article that I would, you know, put on my blog, you know, at the time, and so I began speaking to my colleague, my accountability partner about this article, and, you know, I told her I wasn't sure you know, where this was going to go and hopefully it would be valuable to people. And then she suggested that I complete the article and why not write an entire guide on strategic planning, which I did, filled in all the gaps in the holes. And everything and it became the guide that you see.

And it helped us tremendously, actually. Because then we, we said about developing our own strategic plans. And it helped us to move forward greatly. So why would you want to have an accountability partner? Well, let's look at a few ideas here. So if you've been thinking about whether or not it's worth having an accountability partner, this is a great opportunity for you to have somebody that you can exchange ideas with, and maybe event on some things that are going wrong, brainstorm some ideas, seek some guidance on where to go next, a fan you know, if you're having a little bit of difficulty, don't forget, this is somebody who's got a lot of experience and whose opinion you value.

In addition to that, your accountability partner is great to share your accomplishments with because as you're keeping track of, you know, your deliverables and whatnot, it's nice to have somebody to share that with you can go through any struggles that you're having with a particular project, you can have somebody that have your partner help you decide whether or not a new project is worth pursuing, or to determine whether it fits into your overall long term plans and strategies. Now, as I mentioned, I was lucky enough to, you know, have my accountability partner reach out to me, and I met this person through a professional development event that I had gone to, but some other places that you might look for and find an accountability partner would be by joining a local networking group. You might also, you know, attend a local business or professional development events.

As I mentioned, that's where I met my accountability partner, but you know, we want to make sure that it's, you know, part of where you where you intend on going in your business and your goals and that it fits into You know, into your business, your industry, and your you know, your level of knowledge and whatnot. Well, basically what you want to do, right. Also another place that you can perhaps have hope to find an accountability partner would be by joining some online groups. There are many, many of them through Facebook. In fact, I belong to a very, very large one, a really, really great group. We share ideas and converse and seek help from each other on a regular basis, give feedback, it's a very warm group.

If you're lucky enough to find a group like that, perhaps through there you might find somebody who you can develop a relationship with. Another place that you might look isn't LinkedIn. There are many groups in LinkedIn. So if you're going to join these groups, though, be sure to participate because you have to kind of get yourself out there and make yourself known. So as I mentioned, you want to make sure that these groups are right for your business goals, and that they deliver, you know, some value to your participation and your presence there, because you just don't, you don't want to be just wasting time or putting in time just for the hell of it. And then once you, you know, figure out that this is a really, really good group for you, then, you know, you might, you might notice that there are individuals who are present on a regular basis.

And you might notice that they offer a lot of value in terms of their commentary and their input, their insights and everything. And you might reach out to, you know, somebody like this. As I mentioned, maybe it's an online group, maybe it's through one of your networking events, or an event that you that you attend somebody that you can develop a relationship with. And you can go from there. And here's a few more things that you want to, you might want to consider in choosing an accountability partner because you're not just going to want to choose anybody. So just here's a few points that you might want to consider.

So as you're looking for somebody who you think would make a good accountability partner, you should choose somebody who you think highly of who has opinions and insights you value and who you trust and respect in the business community. In addition, you'd probably want to choose somebody who's highly skilled, and they don't have to have the exact same skills as you. But it should be somebody that you can relate to. You also want to be able to learn from that person, they've got different things, skills and knowledge to share. And that should be that should enhance your own business operations. Of course, there should also be mutual respect between each other for your opinions.

Now when you think that you've found somebody who suits your criteria, and you think we you know, mesh well with your with you, who you think you can trust and value and depend you want to be able to depend on them as well. Then, you know, now it's time to get to work. So what do you do next? How are you going to work with this person? Well, primarily, you would agree upon and commit to regular communications and meetings now that, you know, given the fact that oftentimes, your accountability partner might be an out of town person, you can't be expected to meet face to face all the time. However, there are a lot of options for online, face to face meetings.

Facebook Messenger has a video feature. There's also Skype and zoom as well. And that's a really good way to meet online because actually, I think you can like exchange and share your screen. So if you've got work that you want to show to each other, then that that becomes very valuable. So you also need to treat this as a priority. Because it's it's it should be seen as an activity that's part of achieving the long term goals that you've laid out in your strategic plan.

This Just kind of it gets incorporated into all of your activities, right. So you also need to mutually determine and agree upon the intentions of your of your meetings and what you hope to gain, give and take, you know, back and forth to each other. And then and then also decide on the frequency of your meetings because in the beginning, when you're you're trying to figure things out, it may be beneficial to meet or connect on a weekly basis. And to just kind of decide, you kind of discussed where where you're at currently, because you're going to want to go over your strategy right in your business and your ideas of you might have done that previously, too. But you're going to want to determine all those things. And then as time goes by and you get a handle on your projects and your ideas, then you know, you may only need to meet or Connect once every two weeks or maybe once a month, it just depends, right?

You might be able to reduce the frequency. However, you should also agree that, you know, spontaneous communications may be needed on occasion. Because if you're in the middle of a project or an idea occurs to you, and it's and there's a deadline attached to it, and you need some feedback from your trusted partner, you know, you want to make sure that you can you can go to them and that they're going to give you a prompt response, you know, within reason they don't expect them to drop everything on you. But you know, you have to be able to depend on them to respond on occasion, and, you know, fairly urgent basis and, you know, that kind of thing happens. When you decide what you're going to do with your meetings, make sure that you have a set agenda, like for instance, okay, I'm on finishing up my meeting with my partner tonight.

Before we before we sign off to each other and say goodbye, we're going to say okay, what's on your schedule, and What's on your plant? plant? What are your plans for next week? What do you anticipate getting accomplished. And so this is where your accountability partner keeps you honest and keeps you on track and helps you to, you know, achieve the goals and, and the deliverables and meet the deadlines that you, you have indicated in your strategic plan through the, you know, the project management tools that you're going to use. So as you see how this all this kind of meshes together and works together.

So then you go over, then you can decide what the next steps are going to be for next week, and what you're going to review and discuss at each meeting that way. You're respectful of each other's time and you stay on track, you're not getting off course and just chasing squirrels, and things of that nature. And so be aware though, that you know that this is not a quick fix and a one and done kind of thing. Your business, right? This is this is an ongoing relationship that you're going to want to, you know, maintain for, you know, potentially hopefully years. Because you know, once you find somebody that you can trust with your business and that you can go to for feedback and coaching and and to vent and to, you know, share your struggles and to get clarity on things, you know, it's an extremely valuable, you know, person to have in your life and certainly in your business life.

And also, you know, be sure that this is not a one sided relationship. You're not you don't want to be the one that's doing all the giving or doing all the taking either because then that just kind of builds resentment. And that's, that's a quick way to, you know, and and a relationship and the communications that you've, you've you've had, and it's you know, you don't want to lose this in your business. So you have To treat this as a serious, ongoing relationship. You know, having an accountability partner in your in your business life is it's one more valuable piece of the puzzle to help you fulfill the goals that you've stated in your strategic planning. Well, that about wraps things up for a better and easier strategic planning for small business owners and solo entrepreneurs.

I hope that you found some value in this course. Now that you've conducted your exercise or you're going to, you have a great plan to move you forward in your business for your long term goals and to achieve success. So we've gone through the material itself or the strategic plan. We've spoken about the importance and role that to your branding image plays within your strategic plan, your exercise and the activities that you carry out. And in this video, more specifically, we've spoken about the importance and role of having an accountability partner. So again, I hope you found a lot of In this and wish you the best of luck in moving forward in your business, be sure to reach out if you have any questions or need additional clarity on anything.

Thanks again and have a great day. Best wishes to you all.