2494 - Overcoming Strategic Drift and Leading Your Business Like a CEO with Channer Consulting's Philippa Channer

Philippa Channer, founder and business development strategist of Channer Consulting, joins Josh Elledge on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur to talk about overcoming strategic drift. Philippa Channer of Channer Consulting says strategic drift has founders building everybody else's business, and a clear vision is the filter that stops it. In this episodeName the drift. Philippa calls it strategic drift: building everybody else's business by applying every good idea you hear. Act like the CEO. Many women who launched during COVID had the talent but not the CEO skills, Philippa says, and stayed in employee mode. Use your vision as a filter. Her book walks readers through defining a vision and checking every new opportunity against it. Get a coach for the follow-through. Philippa compares it to a gym trainer who checks your form week by week instead of checking back in six months. Questions this episode answersWhat is strategic drift in business? Philippa Channer uses the term for what happens when you apply every good idea you hear from videos, podcasts and other people without checking whether it fits your business. Over time, she says, you end up building everybody else's business instead of the one you meant to build. Why do so many businesses women started during COVID struggle? Some closed because the owner went back to a job once the world reopened, which Philippa calls legitimate. Others had talented, passionate owners who lacked the ability to act as CEO and stayed busy in employee mode. How does a business vision help with decisions? In When Clarity Leads, Philippa walks readers through defining a vision and then measuring every new opportunity against it. If an idea sounds great on paper but doesn't fit, it goes. A standout quote“And you start building a bunch of things without actually checking, was it the right thing for my business?” Philippa Channer About Philippa ChannerPhilippa Channer is the founder of Channer Consulting, LLC and a business development strategist who works with experienced women running service-based companies, according to channerconsulting.com. She is the author of When Clarity Leads and host of the Clarity to CEO podcast. LinksChanner Consulting website https://www.channerconsulting.comPhilippa Channer on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippachanner/Full article and transcript on podverified.com https://podverified.com/post/2494-overcoming-strategic-drift-philippa-channer About The Thoughtful EntrepreneurThe Thoughtful Entrepreneur is a daily podcast where Josh Elledge talks with founders and business leaders about what is working right now. Want to be a guest? Apply at podverified.com/podcast https://podverified.com/podcast. Curious how podcast hosts see you as a guest? Get your free PodVerified Score https://app.podverified.com/start.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We're no longer aligned with the business that we're building because we're starting to build everybody else's business because they told us what we should and shouldn't do.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, the show where I talk with business owners about what's working for them right now. Now, I am chatting with Philippa Channer, founder of Channer Consulting. Philippa works with business owners who have slowly drifted away from what they set out to build, often without noticing. You'll hear how to tell if that's happening to you, what it looks like to run your business like a CEO instead of the busiest employee, and how to use your big picture goals to decide which new ideas get a no. Hey,

• 0:52Speaker 01

  do you run a business and have a story other owners should learn from? Apply to be a guest here on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur at podverified.com. Now, here's my conversation with Philippa.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  With us right now is Philippa Channer. Philippa, you are the, you're a business strategist, you're the founder of Channer Consulting. You, your new book is called When Clarity Leads: Women Entrepreneurs Embrace a CEO-Level Approach to Business Growth and Leadership, and you're a podcaster. Your podcast is Clarity to CEO. Congratulations on a couple hundred episodes. It's, I love your tagline, Practical Strategy and Leadership for Growth-Minded Women Entrepreneurs. And by the way, your website is Philippachanner.com. Philippa, it's so great to have you.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  So good to be here. I'm excited to talk to you. I've watched a few of your podcasts and I'm like, I can't wait for his energy. So this is good.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. How am I in person? Sometimes people ask, what am I, am I in person? Am I just kind of just like the show?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  It's not an act. I really, boy, that guy really does have that level of energy. Philippa, I always love beginning, you know, kind of asking what high-level leaders do for fun when they're not at work, because we all have personal lives, we all have interests and hobbies and things we geek out on from time to time. What have you been into lately?

• 2:23Speaker 00

  So I am an avid gamer, a video gamer to be specific, and I'm so fortunate to have married a gamer and I have three gamer teens. And so that is what we're doing when we're not being serious and working or doing sports. And it's just been something that I've been, ever since I was a child, gaming has been a part of me that just, it was a hobby, it was a escape, you know, whenever I needed to just decompress after the day. So shooting people.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  What was your first gaming console?

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  So my first gaming console, I used to, whenever my brother left and went to school, I would sneak on his Atari. And then, starting from like the days.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Wow. Do you remember any games that you played a lot?

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  So my mom actually was a gamer as well, and she would, she would make me play, you know, I don't know if you remember Dr. Mario? This was the one that was kind of like Tetris where the pills were falling down. We would have, she would have, she would make me be like on one side of the screen, I'm on the other side, and just spending time with her. And so that's the one I remember the most. And then it went into like Legends of Zelda, Orkina Time, stuff like that on my own.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  What console do you guys, what games do you play now?

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  Okay, so my husband and I actually have a content creation business called Confident Gamers. And so we, because our kids are playing games too, we're, we're that house that has two Playstations, two Xboxes, two Switches. That way, we all can play on something. And we also have like the streaming rooms. So when we're streaming games, we've got the setup. And so we've, we've got all the things. We, yeah, yeah, we're obsessive.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Well, I am, oh my gosh, I'm looking at your YouTube channel. I assume this is your husband?

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Confident Games, yes. He has.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. You guys, you guys have a lot of great content. So yeah, no, you play some serious, like first-person shooters, a lot of fighting. It looks like he likes a lot of fighting games and stuff. You know, as my wife and I, we play Mario Party almost every weekend. And I'm telling, we get so, like, we like, we would definitely have to turn it down if friends were over or something like that. But dang, do we get so nerdy on the strategy and the boards and like, we know how to work it, right? And beat those CPU players. Because that's all we want to do. We just, I don't care who wins. I just want to make sure we beat the CPU. So.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, exactly.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Well, Philippa, thank you so much for sharing. And by the way, just, you know, to our friend that's listening, go watch, go, go to YouTube and search for Confident Gamers if you want to see, what's your, what's your hubby's name?

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  Christopher.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Christopher, yeah. Christopher's got himself, yeah, he's got a, I'm looking right now. I think it's probably leading up because of Halloween and stuff. He's definitely got some scary games in here.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Love it, love it, love it. Okay. Well, Philippa, please share with us about the, the work that you do. And I'm definitely gonna, again, want to talk about the book shortly, but maybe just start with just an overview of your, your work you do with your clients and your audiences.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Of course. So you'll notice really quickly when you go to either my website or check out my book, I am hyper-focused on women entrepreneurs. And I work with women entrepreneurs who have built successful businesses, but they've reached the point where they're working harder, but it's not necessarily creating more growth for them. So I help them get clear about the business that they're intentionally building, identify what's actually getting in the way from their reaching those goals, and helping them to make CEO-level decisions about where their time, their attention, their resources, and their energy actually belong in the season that their business is in.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, why now?

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Well, in terms of why now, isn't doing it right now, like doing this.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  No, why, why is this an important topic for this season, you think? Particularly when you think about the, the women that you get to work with and the challenges that they face. And, you know, the, the support we, we need.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, so.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  I very intentionally say we by, right? Because every woman's issue is a man's issue as well, and vice versa. So.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Yes. I, I got hyper-focused on women because a lot of what I was, what I was focusing on and what I was getting attention of were women who created businesses during the, during COVID. And many of them, there's, you see the statistics, so many women launched businesses, but a lot of them have closed over the years. And some of it was due to the fact that they created the business out of necessity because of COVID. Then the world started opening up again. They got to go back to work or got another job. So they didn't need their business. So that's legitimate, understand that. But there's other businesses where these women were so passionate and talented in the gifts that they had that made them launch the business. Maybe they were makeup artists, bookkeepers, you know, whatever it was, that talent that they're delivering for their

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  clients. But where they lacked was the ability to actually be a CEO of their business. And so many of them starting to struggle. They wanted to keep the business going. They didn't want to go back to corporate, but they didn't know how to actually be a CEO. They were so used to running in employee mode and being busy all the time, but not understanding the distinction between what's busy and what's work. And so that's why now it's like, I want to make sure that the women I'm meeting, keep that passion and keep that ability to run the businesses. So they are equipped with the resources, the knowledge that they can have to make those better decisions and keep moving forward.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, what is it that's getting in the way? What, what, what is it that causes us to stumble?

• 8:11Speaker 00

  So what I call it is this, it's a syndrome called systogenic drift. It's when you have all good intentions, you meet people, you get educated, you watch videos, you've listened to podcasts, and they teach you something very valuable. And you hear it and you say immediately, oh, I need to apply that to my business. And you start getting busy applying that to your business. And then you hear somebody else say something really awesome. It's like, oh, I need that too. And you start building a bunch of things without actually checking, was it the right thing for my business? And so we get into this drift where we don't, we're no longer aligned with the business that we're building because we're starting to build everybody else's business because they told us

• 8:52Speaker 00

  what we should and shouldn't do. And so we're those instead of acting on, what is it we want this business to be and focusing on that. So if we can correct that drift, get them back in alignment with their business and where it's going, we could help save them the time, the energy that they are wasting drifting over here.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Philippa, please share with us a bit about your book and who should read this? And I guess just give us an overview. But by the way, it's on, it's in Kindle hardcover paperback. If our friend that's listening right now, if you hurry, I can't promise this. But when I'm recording this right now, and I know this changes, but right now it's in Kindle Unlimited. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. So if you hurry, it might be, you know, it might be gone by the time you're here. But go check. And by the way, you could go to philippachanner.com. And that's where the direct link to everything is there, including some resources, which we'll talk about in just a moment.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  So please share with us about the book.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course. So I really was inspired to write the book, one mainly for selfish reasons, because I've heard so much. You have a service-based businesses, one of the best ways to build that authority. And, you know, for that thought leadership was for people to see that you've written a book. And so like, that was my inspiration. And then I started, as I was going into the project, I was like, you know, realistically speaking, I will not be able to help every single woman entrepreneur out there with my services directly. I won't be able to coach one-on-one with every single person. I wanted to be able to give a lot of my coaching and teaching in a way that people can consume it on their own time. And if they can't directly get to me, at least they can get to the book and get a lot of that knowledge and wisdom.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  And everything in the book is what I was talking about is teaching that CEO level mindset, how to make those better decisions, how to create the vision for the business that you're trying to build and use that as a filter for when you are presented with a new opportunity to say, okay, is this the right opportunity for me? Or is it the right opportunity for me now? And help you to, again, make those better decisions as a CEO.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Wow. And by the time someone finishes the book, like what, what would you like? What would be some tactical things that they might experience in their life right now? That they'll get ideas from, from the book. I just want to make sure, like, when we're thinking about clarity, I don't want this to just feel like, you know, just some magical transformation. I'm sure there's a process to that. Could you maybe talk about that? I see, you know, you've got a list of, you know, clarity, strategy, confidence, impact. You know, I don't know if you could kind of maybe break us down, give us a quick roadmap here.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Yes. So the book walks you through how to identify the vision for your business. So you have a clear framework of what it is that you're trying to build with your business. And that helps, again, identify what you have to measure new opportunities against. If a new opportunity comes up and it could sound great on paper, but then when you check against this vision of your business and it doesn't fit in, it helps you weed those things out, save some time. And then, once you establish that vision, it helps give you the alignment. It helps you take a look back at all the things you are existing and already doing. Are, do they make sense? It gives you a checklist to see, okay, this process, like, okay, podcasts are awesome.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  But maybe a podcast isn't for every single business. Maybe it's not the right time for you to start the podcast. And so if you're spending a lot of time and energy trying to build it, maybe it's the wrong season for you to build it. So it gives you the framework to kind of check all of the stuff you have going on in your business and help you make better decisions on whether it's something you can stop completely, save some time, or keep building it more stronger.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Philippa, can you share just a bit about your work? Obviously, there's the podcast as well, but I know you're a speaker, you do workshops. And then you do work individually with clients or with teams?

• 12:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So it was primarily one-to-one and it's a coaching experience. And so what we do is we work together to build that foundation. We establish what strategic clarity should look for you. We help identify what that drift is that's happening. And then we create a strategy. And this strategy could focus on improving your marketing, it can, you know, improving your processes, you know, whatever that gap is, whatever that drift is that you're experiencing, the strategy is tailored to you. And then I realized the most important thing in this process is not necessarily having a strategy, but having a coach to hold you accountable to it. Because sometimes we can, it's like going to the gym and you get a trainer and the trainer could give you a workout regimen and say, okay, I'll see you in six months. Let me know how it goes.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  You know, it's better when that trainer is there with you, week by week, making sure you're doing things properly, checking your form. That's what I do for my clients. I'm with them as they're executing to help find those opportunities where they may be drifting away from the strategy, bring them back in alignment and help them stay focused to see the strategy through. So we can really check the data and really see how much improvement they made.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Philippa, in addition to your podcast, which our friend right now, you can just search in your podcast app right now, find Clarity to CEO. I want to make sure that folks know that you do have, you have a bonus course, you've got free resources. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that? And again, these are all available at philippachanner.com.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Yes. So when you get clarity leads, I need to make it bigger. But in the back, it mentions, once you finish it, that there's a companion course, it's a four-part course, it's free to access. And that just helps goes deeper into what you learned in the book. The next thing I offer as well is a workshop. It's an evergreen workshop. I used to do it live and I realized that not everybody could make it to the live sessions. And I was like, I want this available when they need it. And so I decided, let me just make this evergreen. And it's just an hour session where I really walk through a lot of what I'm coaching, help you create that vision for your business. It take you through a visualization exercise. It's almost like meditation. As you visualize that business, writing it down, and it's an interactive workshop where you can actually take notes and on your blueprint.

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  So you can identify the different decisions and revelations that you had during the session and refer back to it as you are continuing to build out your own strategy.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, Philippa Channer, your website, philippachanner.com, your podcast, Clarity to CEO. Your book is When Clarity Leads Women Entrepreneurs Embrace a CEO Level Approach to Business Growth and Leadership. It's available on Kindle. It's available hardcover paperback. And of course, you can get to all that, as I mentioned, at philippachanner.com. Philippa, thank you so much. Thank you for the impact you have. Thank you for the service that you render to your audiences and for the great leadership you provide your community as well. It's been a lot of fun conversation. Thank you for joining us.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  Yes, this is an awesome, Josh. Thanks for having me.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. If you're new here, welcome. Every episode, I talk with business owners or leaders about what's working for them right now. You'll find the full article and transcript and lots of other resources for this episode at podverified.com. There's a ton of free stuff for you there. Now, if you run a business and you have a story other owners should learn from, I'd love for you to apply to be a guest on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur at podverified.com. And if you go on podcasts to grow your business, I'd love for you to get your free Pod Verified score.

• 16:43Speaker 01

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