You've done the pre-work. Your team has their customer touchpoint maps. Everyone's reviewed the examples. The conference room is booked for tomorrow morning.
Now you're looking at your notes, thinking about how to actually facilitate this session. You've run plenty of meetings before, but this one feels different. This isn't about reviewing quarterly metrics or assigning tasks. This is about getting your team to pause, step back, and see your business through a completely different lens – your customer's lens.
If you've been following our journey through customer-centric planning, you know that the biggest obstacle isn't understanding the concepts – it's actually implementing them. Moving from reactive quarterly scrambling to strategic 5-quarter planning requires more than buying into the idea. It requires a systematic process that walks your team through the shift.
How long should a strategic planning session take?
A full customer-centric planning session takes about four hours (half a day). But you don't need to tackle everything at once. The first 90 minutes – Steps 1 and 2 – create the foundation that everything else builds on.
Step 1 (45 minutes): Map your customer intensity cycles
Step 2 (45 minutes): Flow your revenue goals across those cycles
These first two steps are when teams typically have their "aha moment" – when they realize they've been fighting against customer reality rather than working with it. The remaining steps (which we'll cover in the next blog) build on this foundation to create your integrated marketing calendar and accountability system.
For teams working through this for the first time, I recommend blocking four hours total. But if you're a solopreneur or very small team, you might move faster. The key is giving each step enough time for the insights to land, not rushing through to check boxes.
What should we cover in a strategic planning meeting?
Most strategic planning sessions try to cover too much – reviewing last quarter's performance, brainstorming new tactics, debating budget allocations, and setting goals. By the end, everyone's exhausted and nothing feels resolved.
Customer-centric planning works differently. Your half-day session has one job: create a strategic foundation that connects your business goals to customer reality.
Here's what that looks like:
Step 1: Map when your customers need you most (and least) throughout the year
Step 2: Align your annual revenue goals with those customer intensity patterns
Step 3: Identify the marketing work required in each cycle phase
Step 4: Build your integrated marketing calendar across 5 quarters
Step 5: Establish your tracking and accountability system
Notice what's missing? There's no "review what we did last quarter" section. No "brainstorm 50 new tactics" discussion. No debates about whether to post on LinkedIn or Instagram.
This session is purely strategic – creating the framework that will guide all those tactical decisions later. Think of it as building the foundation before you start hanging drywall. You wouldn't frame walls before pouring the foundation.
How to facilitate a strategic planning session
The key to facilitating this session isn't having all the answers – it's asking the right questions and creating space for your team to see they already have the answers.
Your team already knows when their busy months are. They already know when prospects seem distracted or disengaged. The problem isn't a lack of knowledge. It's that they've been too heads-down in reactive execution to connect the dots and see the patterns.
Your job as a facilitator is to slow them down enough to actually look.
The Setup
Before you start Step 1, set the context. This isn't a typical meeting where you're reviewing metrics or assigning tasks. This is strategic work – stepping back to see the bigger picture before diving back into execution.
A simple framing works: "For the next four hours, we're not going to talk about what we need to do this week or this month. We're going to look at the full year ahead through our customers' eyes, and build a strategic plan that works with their reality instead of against it."
Then remind them: "Everything we're about to map out, you already know from experience. We're just documenting the patterns you've been living with so we can plan around them intentionally."
This immediately lowers the pressure.
Step 1: Mapping Customer Intensity Cycles – Building The Foundation (45 minutes)
When do your customers need you most? When are they distracted by other priorities, and what's happening in between?
Start with what they already know:
"Let's identify your peak months first. When do customers typically engage most with us? When are they most likely to buy, sign contracts, or actively seek our services?"
Let them call out the obvious ones. Don't overthink it. If someone says "We're always busiest in Q4," write it down. If another person says "But Q1 is when deals actually close," capture that too.
The patterns will emerge as they talk.
Then identify the valleys:
"Now let's look at the flip side. What are your slowest months? When do prospects go dark or stop responding?"
Again, they'll know this. Allow the patterns to emerge.
Fill in the middle:
"Okay, so we have high-intensity periods and low-intensity periods. What's happening in the months between those extremes?"
This is where it gets interesting. Teams are starting to recognize that January isn't just "slow" – it's when customers reengage after the holiday break. March isn't just "medium" – it's when customers are wrapping up Q1 and starting to think about Q2 needs.
The intensity map has taken shape.
Add the customer context:
Here's the critical piece that shifts perspective: For each of these intensity periods, what's actually happening in your customer's world?
This is where they move from "November is slow for us" to "Our customers are focused on holiday planning and family in November – they don't have bandwidth for new personal/business decisions."
It's a subtle but powerful shift. Instead of seeing slow months as a problem with their marketing, they see it as a reality of customer priorities.
The deliverable:
By the end of Step 1, you should have documented:
- Your high-intensity months (when customers engage most)
- Your medium-intensity months (transition periods)
- Your low-intensity months (when customers are genuinely distracted)
- The high-level "why" from the customer's perspective for each period
What typically happens in this step:
Teams start talking over each other. Someone remembers, "Oh yeah, last July we couldn't get anyone on the phone and couldn't figure out why." Another person connects it: "That's because our customers are in their peak season then – they're not thinking about us, they're heads-down in their own business."
The realizations cascade. The reactive mindset starts shifting. They're looking at the bigger picture instead of just the immediate to-do list.
Let this happen. Don't rush it. These "aha moments" are the foundation for everything else.
Step 2: Flowing Revenue Goals Across Customer Cycles (45 minutes)
Now comes the strategic alignment piece: taking your annual revenue goal and distributing it across the year based on customer reality rather than an arbitrary equal distribution.
This step is when teams feel the relief of finally working with reality rather than fighting it.
Start with the annual goal & address the misconception:
Before you go further, clarify something important: "We're not eliminating revenue goals for low-intensity months. We're setting realistic goals based on when customers actually buy."
Use data if you have it:
If you have several years of actual revenue data, use it. Pull it up. Look at patterns. Map those historical percentages against your customer intensity cycles from Step 1. Do they align?
Now apply those percentages to your new annual goal.
Back into it if you don't have data:
Not every business has years of clean revenue data. If you don't, use the intensity rankings from Step 1.
Rank these periods: highest intensity, high intensity, medium intensity, low intensity. Then assign reasonable percentages based on those rankings. This isn't about precision – it's about context and framework. You're creating a strategic guide, not a perfect forecast.
The exact percentages matter less than the principle: more revenue flows to high-intensity periods, less to low-intensity periods.
The emotional shift:
As teams complete this exercise, something powerful happens. They no longer feel like they may fail to hit arbitrary monthly goals. Instead, they see that December being slower isn't a marketing failure – it's customer reality. They're not setting themselves up to miss goals; they're setting realistic goals based on when customers actually buy.
Think of it like you've been pushing a boulder uphill every month, wondering why some months felt impossible. Now you see that in high-intensity months, you're walking downhill with momentum. In low-intensity months, you're pushing uphill, and you plan for it.
The deliverable:
By the end of Step 2, you should have a document showing:
- Your annual revenue goal at the top
- Monthly or quarterly revenue targets based on customer intensity cycles
- Either historical percentage data or intensity-based percentage allocations
- Clear expectations that align with customer buying patterns
Practical tip for documentation:
Record this session. Use your phone, Zoom, or whatever recording tool works for you. Then transcribe it (AI transcription tools make this easy and inexpensive).
Why? Because the conversation that happens while you're mapping these cycles contains valuable insights that you'll want to reference later. Someone will say, "Oh, that's why we always struggle in August – our customers are at summer trade shows." That insight should be captured, not lost.
Use AI to help turn those transcripts into clean documents. You don't need to spend hours formatting – let technology handle the administrative work so you can focus on strategic thinking.
The Foundation You've Just Built
After these first 90 minutes, your team has accomplished something most companies never do: they've paused long enough to see their business through their customers' eyes.
They've mapped when customers need them versus when the company arbitrarily pushes for sales. They've aligned revenue expectations with customer reality. They've stopped fighting uphill battles and started planning for the natural flow of customer engagement.
This foundation – these first two steps – changes everything that comes next.
Your Planning Session Continues
The following 90 minutes of your planning session (Steps 3-5) will build directly on what you've just created. You'll identify what marketing work needs to happen in each cycle phase, build your integrated 5-quarter calendar, and establish how you'll track progress.
But those steps only work if you've done Steps 1 and 2 correctly. You can't plan integrated marketing activities until you understand customer cycles. You can't build a realistic calendar until you've aligned goals with customer reality.
The foundation comes first. Always!
These first 90 minutes create the breakthrough. Steps 3-5 come next – where we'll turn this foundation into your integrated marketing calendar. For now: block the four hours, do the pre-work, start with Step 1.
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