What is strategic planning?
The phrase "strategic planning" leaves many show planners mystified. "Isn't 'planning' already 'strategic' by definition?" one asks. "We've got short-range plans, long-range plans, operational plans, marketing plans, budgeting plans why do we need a strategic plan, too?"

As a general definition, strategic planning is a process that helps your organization or show determine who you are now, what you want to be in the future and what steps to take to get from here to there. "Strategic planning is the discipline of trying to form a road map that shows fairly succinctly where you want to go," explains Lively.

Strategic planning is not the same as budgeting. A budget maintains, protects and allocates an association or show management company's resources, allowing the operation to take advantage of opportunities and to avoid or lessen the impact of adverse developments. A strategic plan, conversely, provides a directional framework, within which future decisions can be made.

Strategic planning also differs from operational or action planning. To continue Lively's map analogy, operational planning provides you with every cul-de-sac, park bench and road sign along the way. Finding those markers will be easier once your more general strategic plan has been established.

Included in the strategic planning system are a number of tools designed to help ease your navigational challenges. These include:

• A situation analysis that reveals the environment in which you currently operate.
  
• A mission statement that clearly and concisely defines what your company or show is, what products or services you provide to your customers and, perhaps, what you hold as your organization's ultimate goal.
• Both short- and long-range goals.
• Action plans, or strategies, for reaching those goals.
• A review and revisiting process that explores your company's progress.

Who's planning?
So far, the Trade Show Bureau, the International Association for Exposition Management and similar groups have not determined exactly how many show companies and associations use strategic planning on a regular basis. A recent survey jointly sponsored by The Planning Forum, which is an international society for strategic management and planning, and the American Productivity & Quality Center's International Benchmarking Clearinghouse found that only 25 percent of the companies represented in their survey of more than 400 Fortune 500 executives have an effective strategic planning process.

"My experience is that there's very little strategic planning going on among associations, trade show organizers and event coordinators," says Amy Katzenberger, Conference Director for the American Camping Association. "The people involved in our show, for instance, are long-time participants, and there's very little turn-over. There's just not that much need for it."

Another reason for a lack of planning may be the entrepreneurial nature of show management. Individual instincts and intuition are valued in the industry, while planning, to be done well, usually involves a group. Time, or the lack of it, is yet another factor in why some show managers and company owners don't do more planning.

Joyce McKee, President and CEO of Dallas-based Betram, McKee & Associates, which provides consulting and market research services throughout the show industry, says corporate downsizing and management turnover also have gotten in the way of planning. "More and more people have only been in their jobs or had new responsibilities for a short time," she says. "It makes it hard to get a handle on long-range plans."

Despite such factors, it's clear that the companies that do use an extensive planning process would have it no other way. "We do strategic planing for the corporation, for each of our three divisions and at the show level, as well," says Stephen Sind, Senior Vice President, Corporate Planning, for Reed Exhibition Companies. "You can't get anywhere without planning. We've been doing it for years."

Bill Windsor, President of AdvanStar Expositions in Cleveland, OH, is another planning proponent. "I'm a very strong believer in planning," he says. "I'm probably more structured than a lot of people, but planning works for us, and we see the results."

In the beginning
Starting a strategic plan -- or broadening the focus of your existing planning process -- can prove challenging. Expect to put time and a considerable amount of thought into the process. After all, you'll be trying, to the very best of your abilities, to project where your company is headed and the course it will have to steer to get there.

Begin by deciding who will be included in your planning process. Some companies try to involve as many staff members as possible, at least in the early stages of information gathering. Others rely on a core group of decision makers. Certainly a strategic planning team should include those individuals critical to the company's future, including those with ownership interest, those who have achieved an "ownership" level whether they actually retain part of the show or company, and any applicable specialists within the organization, such as your marketing and financial directors.

"I never try to do all the planning by myself," says Tom Corcoran, Principal of Chicago's Corcoran & Associates, an independent exposition management company that produces 18 association shows each year. "We have a show team made up of our operations manager, exhibitor manager, contract administrator and myself. Planning's a very good group activity, and you seem to get the best from people by using that approach."

Paramount to the success of any strategic plan is the involvement and commitment of the CEO or equivalent management member. "The CEO's role is absolutely critical, because that person has to believe the planning is worthwhile in the first place," explains David Rinderer, Vice President of Consulting for Practice Management Associates Ltd., a Newton, MA, consulting firm. "I refer to the CEO as the 'keeper of the strategic flame,' since he or she is responsible for making sure we know what we're trying to achieve and for using our resources in the best way possible."

Before launching a strategic plan for an organization or a particular show, it's important for the planning group members to understand their own personal goals and objectives -- what they want to be doing, earning and managing over the next three to five years. "If your personal and company plans aren't similar, then it's hard to go in the same direction," Rinderer says. "We've had instances where people have asked themselves those questions, then left the company. It may be better for it to happen now rather than three years down the road, with a lot of ill feelings on everyone's part."

Planning members should also keep in mind that their efforts will be ongoing. As Sind says, "You can't take a strategic plan, put it in your credenza and not look at it for two years." The plan will always be changing to meet operational and environmental fluctuations, and the planners will have to be continually involved.

A plan for planning
Once your strategic planning team is assembled, decide the process by which it will proceed. Where will you meet? "We usually like to hold the planning sessions outside a company's location," Rinderer says. "You need a full-time effort dedicated to strategic planning, and that requires getting people physically and mentally away from their day-to-day activities and responsibilities. When you get people off-site, you're asking them to participate outside the firm, on equal footing with everyone else who's involved."

Who will be in charge? If not the CEO, then who? Many organizations assign a planning director, someone who devotes a percentage of his or her time to administering the plan and its related work.

At this point, consultants are called in at many associations and management companies. "An outside facilitator can see the forest instead of the trees of daily operations; they can bring an industrywide understanding to the process, and they can ensure participation from all levels, especially when one person or group tends to overwhelm the others," says Rinderer. "It's also important for a facilitator to recap and restate the decisions being made or to sometimes force a decision, in the interest of moving forward."

Will you use a top-down or bottom-up planning process? Some combination of the two usually yields the best results, while ensuring that all staff members feel as though they have a hand in creating the plan. At Reed, planning ideas flow down the management chain, then reverse and flow back upward in a regular tidal flow. "Our plans are never static," stresses Sind. "They're fluid and subject to change."

What period will your plan cover? Three to five years represents the norm. Some companies stretch it to 10 years, but in the face of changing technology, marketing mixes and budgetary considerations, a view of the next decade becomes dim. Keep in mind that even though you're planning for the next three years that doesn't mean you arrive at a plan in 1994 and fail to revisit the ideas until 1997.

Many companies plan on an annual basis, or they develop strategies every other year and use the intervening 12 months to review and revise the previous plan. A built-in flexibility is crucial; despite your best efforts and projections, market conditions may change.

Mission possible
Planning experts agree that every good strategic plan should include a well-defined mission statement. Using as few words as possible, you need to answer the following questions:

• What's the function of our show or organization?
• For whom do we perform this function?
• How do we do it?
• Why does our show or organization exist?
• What will it be in the future?

The answers will help determine whether you see yourself as, say, an independent show management firm serving the computer industry or a seller of information products and packaging. Are you a marketing vehicle or an educational source? Is your association's show a clearinghouse for industry information or a venue for associate members to peddle their products and services?

"Any organization of any size should have a statement of strategic intent that includes where you want to go, what you want to be and how you see yourselves," says Sind. "You have to start from there before you can set any goals or objectives."

To find out where you've really been, not just what you think you've been doing, review your past shows and their performance through a situation analysis. What have your exhibitors said about your show or shows and about your company? What level of service are you providing them and can you document it? Have you surveyed your attendees? What do they think of your efforts? What have both groups liked and disliked about the way you do business?

Consider an internal performance audit as well. Using your own staff, have them evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats -- or SWOT -- affecting your event or company's performance (see sidebar).

Look, also, at the trends and other factors that are affecting your operation. If you're a regional show producer, what's happening nationally? What about on the international front? Has the global economy affected your industry? Should you be marketing to European exhibitors? How big is your market? Is it expanding, contracting, staying solid or getting soft? What's happening in the show industry itself that will affect your business? Are the big companies getting too large to keep up with anymore? Are you ready to take your team to the major leagues?

By the time you're finished, you'll have asked hundreds of questions in order to arrive at the handful of words that will make up your mission statement. Make each phrase count; they should say volumes about your company and its plans.

Goal mining
With a solid mission statement in hand, you can continue to the next phase of strategic planning, which is forming short- and long-range goals and objectives. This may seem confusing from the start, thanks to the seemingly interchangeable "goals" and "objectives." Some sources define goals as long-range intentions, and objectives as the specific projects that will support your goals. Others, however, view objectives as the broad statements, and goals as the more specific and measurable activities.

More important than the terminology is how you complete the process. Let's say you set "increase my show's exhibitor retention rate" as one of your objectives. Fine, but now you need a concrete goal to define that objective and make it measurable. Money, attendance figures and square footage totals are means for measuring your success. An example might be:

"Goal: Based on our current exhibitor retention rate of 65 percent, our long-term goal is to increase this figure to 80 percent within the next five years."

Note that the goal further defines the company's objective. It adds working details, such as the present retention rate, to the plan and specifies a time frame, five years, in which the goal, 80 percent retention, should be achieved. The goal is specific and based on known facts and research. Best of all, efforts to bring about its completion can be measured, then adjusted as necessary.

Plan of action
Closely tied to all goals are action plans, strategies or operational outlines for how they will be achieved. Without action plans, the strategic plan cannot be executed -- it's the "do it" part of the package.

For show managers, the following checklist highlights several of the key components that could make up their operational plans:

• Exhibits/exhibitors
• Attendance/attendees
• Education
• Finance
• Operations
• International
• Technology

The precise pieces will vary, again, based on the focus of your particular show. Under each topic would fall a series of subheadings, further detailing what must be done to achieve the desired goal. Continuing with the exhibitor retention goal example from above, your action plan might read:

...to achieve this 3-percent growth over each of the next five years, we will institute the following exhibitor retention programs:

1. Exhibitor training...
2. Exhibitor goal setting...
3. Customer service programs...
4. Exhibitor manuals..."

Each numbered item could include a paragraph of explanation, further telling how, when and who will accomplish it.

"The strategic plan always leads to very specialized operational plans," says Rinderer. "It tells you what you're going to do this month, this quarter or this year on the way to achieving your goals and objectives."

Strategic communication
Action plans tend to bring the strategic process back to the staff level. The employees, after all, are the ones who will be charged with carrying out the smallest details of the plan. With this in mind, it becomes extremely important that staff members know what the strategic plan is and how they fit into its structure.

It's not enough to say, "We've got some company goals, and your part of the program is to pre-register attendees." You should focus on educating all employees with as much information as possible. Reed encourages its managers to communicate strategic information to everyone in their departments.

Plans, goals and objectives are also featured in the REC Reporter, the company's worldwide, in-house newsletter. "Communicating with our employees is extremely critical," says Sind. "We all have to be singing from the same hymn book. It's their business, as well. They have to know where the company's headed first, then they can set their individual goals from there."

How much strategic information is enough? It depends. Smaller associations and organizations typically share more of their planning details than larger, multifaceted operations. Part of that comes from their ability to have closer contact with individual staff members, and fewer people often means that each must play a larger role in the success of the company.

"It's always better to err on the side of telling too much rather than too little," Rinderer says. "We've seen the level of excitement and enthusiasm rise dramatically when employees finally begin to understand the part they can play in the future of a company."

At The Interface Group, strategic plan communication falls under the more subtle heading of training. "For us, it's a constant process of retraining as we have turnover and transfers between divisions," Lively says. "Each of our products has a specific training process associated with it, and our employees get the elements of our planning through that training. There's no question that it helps our employees to know the goals of the company. It helps to give them a sort of 'remember, guys, this is what we're building here,' update every once in a while."

Instant replay
Finally, no strategic plan is complete without a predetermined method and schedule for reviewing both the plan itself and the progress being made toward achieving its goals. Some experts suggest a quarterly review of the plan, while others consider six-month or annual reviews more appropriate.

Many planners, however, say their strategic planning process is never really completed. "Ours is a rolling document," says Sind. "We're always going back to look at the plan and its tactics to see how the environment has changed and to look for ways to change the plan to get where we want to be. Our planning is always happening in one form or another."

Whether you meet regularly to review your plan or on an as-needed basis, your planning group needs to exercise as much objectivity and candor as possible. Is everything you're doing an expression of your mission statement? Have expected or unforeseen factors altered your show's environment in ways you hadn't projected? Are the goals you established for the organization strong enough to produce the results you need to grow?

Beware of planners who attempt to plug a constantly changing reality into a strategic plan simply because time, money and considerable thought have already gone into creating the "right" blueprint for the organization. Plans have to be flexible, as do the people who formulate them. Don't change your plan lightly, but don't hold onto it too tightly either.

Another way to review your plan's effectiveness is to survey your employees. Assuming you've shared details of the strategic layout with them already, see how well they think it's working in the day-to-day operations of the organization. Can they clearly see the company's future? Do they feel involved in the plan? Are their departmental goals attainable? Have they already accomplished everything they were supposed to do over a year's time?

The answers to these questions will improve your planning now and in the future, but only if you're flexible enough to take advantage of the information they reveal.

The last word
Strategic planning can prove a difficult process. It forces your show or organization to examine itself and its future in greater detail than at any other time in its existence. But the rewards for doing so can be great. You'll not only see where you've been, but exactly where you want to go, and that vision can speed your journey faster than you've ever imagined.

"I think strategic planning is going to be happening more and more in the exposition industry," says Sind. "We're all advancing technologically and internationally, and planning will become critical for success."

Sidebar: Send in the SWOT team

When Bill Windsor led European operations for AdvanStar Expositions, he often found himself in new cities with nothing more than a street map as a guide. Like any traveler trying to get from point A to point B, the first thing he always had to determine was from exactly where he was starting.

Windsor now leads Cleveland, OH-based AdvanStar as President of the Exposition Division, but he's still asking his show managers to find out where they are today, before helping them see the direction their shows should be going in the future. Windsor's navigational know-how can be summed up by SWOT.

An acronym for "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats," SWOT analysis, Windsor says, is one of the most productive planning tools he's ever used. "I didn't invent it; I learned it during a seminar in Europe," he admits, "but I've used it ever since as a way of getting people to focus on key issues during the planning process."

AdvanStar's SWOT sessions are most often held on the show level, to help improve the company's 17 different show groups, which produce nearly 100 events a year. The process begins with a meeting of the entire show staff, with a group manager, show manager or sometimes Windsor himself acting as a facilitator.

"Most recently I led the group, and I randomly picked four people from around the room to be responsible for one of each of the four topics," he says. "They stand at a flip chart and write down everything the group can come up with, and then we talk about the results. Sometimes you would choose the managers, but I might select four unlikely people to lead because I want the managers focused and thinking instead of taking down the information."

Strengths make an easy, positive place to start the discussion. Participants mention exhibitor counts, attendance figures, market share, successful new marketing programs or anything else that provides power and vitality to the show. Listing weaknesses, on the other hand, can start off slowly, but it rarely stays that way. "You usually get a large number of weaknesses if you can get people thinking," says Windsor. "But that's exactly what you want. If you can get things out in the open, then you can plan their solutions."

Evaluating opportunities gets the group sharing ideas and seemingly unrelated circumstances that may be harnessed on the show's behalf. Threats to a show usually come in the form of external factors, whether they're shifts in marketing, competitive events or other sweeping changes within the target industry itself.

"Once we've got everything down, then we go back through the lists and discuss all the ways to capitalize on or resolve them," Windsor says. "Although the four people are writing down the key points to what's said, it gets to be very much a group dynamics kind of thing, with everyone throwing out ideas as they come. By the end, we have a set of objectives and strategies that we can apply to our planning."

AdvanStar groups take their flip chart ideas and solutions, type them into report form and then use the notes for further management planning sessions. "The staff has participation and involvement in the process, but they know from the start that management will make specific decisions about what we'll include in our overall plans," Windsor says. "We explain that we can't try everything that the groups come up with, but that we try to take the very best ideas and make them happen."