Dear Bunker,
With Q3 coming to a close this week, make sure you take some time to plan out your next quarter. I’ll be using Objectives & Key Results (OKR’s), detailed in Christina Wodtke’s book, “Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results.”
For the past few weeks, I’ve been searching for an operating system that aligns with my philosophy of being a lean, mean, entrepreneurial machine (corny I know). I’ve tried EOS, but honestly even that’s a bit much for me at times. Over the weekend, I attended a quarterly planning event with my business coach, where I had an opportunity to hear from Chrstina Wodtke in a private session via Zoom.
After hearing from Christina and reading her book on OKR’s, I’ve decided to implement the OKR process in my business next quarter.
Truth be told, I’ve used OKR’s for the last 2 years, but I haven’t exactly followed Christina’s system, which I learned in her book. Below I’m going to do my best to explain the OKR process and how I’m applying it for Q4. In the past, I’ve set way too many OKR’s, which is why I didn’t accomplish all my objectives.
Here’s a short video that explains the OKR Process detailed in John Doerr’s book, “Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and The Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs.”
Start by setting one clear and concise quarterly objective, that has the ability to make the biggest impact in your venture.
If you’re just launching, your objective maybe on boarding a certain number of beta customers, i.e. beta customers. If you’re a Third Shift Entrepreneur, working a full-time job and hustling on the nights and weekends, your quarterly objective might be to earn enough revenue to transition into your venture full-time. In the book Radical Focus, Wodtke creates a fictional Tea Start-up called Teabee, whose quarterly objective is to establish clear value to distributors as a quality tea provider, in an effort to drive revenue, and establish product-market-fit (I’m not a fan of the term but I figured I’d reference it regardless.) Throughout the book, Wodtke uses Teabee as a case study to explain the key concepts of the OKR process.
Teabee’s mission is to bring great tea to people who love it. Below is there initial OKR process.
KR stands for Key Results, define qualitatively whether or not you’ve reached your objective.
In the case above, as new Tea Start-up, Teabee is focused on building strong relationships with Tea Suppliers that are responsible for delivering quality tea to restaurants at scale. They know they have a strong relationship with suppliers by the percentage of reorders, the number of orders placed through their website, and their total revenue for the quarter. For each KR, they list a confidence rating (depicted by the 5/10), which they estimate each week by their overall progress.
The health metrics are what they’ve identified as the most important metrics to watch in the company.
Your company health metrics may include overall revenue, operational capacity, etc. Whatever you identify, they should be a snap shot to inform the health of the company. If you’re in the earlier stages, I strongly recommend measuring cash on hand, to avoid cash flow issues in the future.
Priorities for the week are meant to drive weekly action towards your quarterly objective.
Think 80/20 rule, where 20% of your inputs account for 80% of the outputs. In Teabee’s case, this includes closing a deal with a major supplier, TLM Foods, creating order specifics on their website, and recruiting sales team members.
Make sure you’re aware of what coming up in the future, even if it doesn’t require action today.
Don’t have you or your team caught off-guard. Make sure everyone is at least aware of what’s coming. If you want to learn more information about the OKR process described by Wodtke, I encourage you to read her book. I’m implementing the lessons learned in my own planning.
Here’s my OKR’s for IRONBOUND Media in Q4.
Objective: Successfully launch the Dog Whistle Branding Podcast as the Official Lead Magnet for IRONBOUND Media.
Key Results:
- Conduct 10-15 targeted interviews with warm prospects (7/10)
- Onboard 5+ new clients at a 10k price point (5/10)
- Generate 25k+ in quarterly revenue (5/10)
Priorities This Week
- Identify 10 warm prospects and schedule podcast interviews with each.
- Finalize DWD Podpage and Copy
- Finalize initial launch post for social.
Upcoming Projects
- Book draft of Confessions of A Native Son
- Vacation with Girlfriend
Make sure your take time to plan your quarter, regardless of what system you use. It is a game changer, trust me!As mentioned, in the past I focused on way too many OKR’s. This quarter, I’m focused on only one. Let me know what your quarterly objective is by commenting below.
Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives & Key Results by Christina Wodtke