15. Stop Brainstorming Everything. Start Brainstorming for Your Altitude

Most business owners don’t lack ideas—they lack clarity on what to prioritize.

In this episode, we break down the Altitude Framework, a powerful way to identify the right work for your stage of business. Learn how to stop chasing shiny objects, simplify your strategy, and build momentum with focused action.

Perfect for service-based entrepreneurs looking to grow, scale, and streamline their business operations.

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Transcript

Most business owners I know do not have a shortage of ideas. What they have is a shortage of the right ideas for where they are right now, like today, this quarter, and today I wanna talk about how to fix that.

Welcome to the Outcome Academy podcast. I am Ginny Seeley. I'm a business strategist and longtime process improvement expert, and I also co-own an appliance service business and a coworking space with my husband Joe. So I understand what it looks like to juggle growth, leadership, family, and big dreams all at once.

If you're a service-based entrepreneur or executive who wants to stop putting out fires and work on your business and build momentum with systems, smart marketing, and practical tech, you are in exactly the right place.

Well, hello, my friend, and welcome back to the Outcome Academy podcast. I am so glad you're here today because what I'm about to share with you is something I literally just watched happen this week in real time with my real people in our mastermind right here in New Bern, and it was one of those moments where I kind of thought, I need to talk about this on this week's podcast, and I actually had a whole different podcast topic planned out that I bumped for this instead.

So here's the context. We just kicked off Q2, and what that means inside of our mastermind is that we do a giant brain dump. So the 8,000 Door Mastermind, which some of you may know as the Summit Club, we've given it a new name to better reflect the framework it's built on, and I'll share a little more about that soon.

But this quarter we rolled out a brand new tool for our quarterly brainstorming session. We call it the Altitude Framework Guide, and it's part of the Business Mountain Framework. It maps out all of the 16 strategic categories we've talked about before, but specific to the camp everybody is in on the mountain: base camp, camp one, camp two, camp three, camp four.

Each category has a completely different list of priorities depending on where you are in your growth. Now, this is the very first time we've used this guide in a live brainstorming session, and I wanna tell you about two moments that happened in that room. First, it was Joe, and his happened before we even got started.

Now, if you've ever been in one of my brainstorming sessions, you might know that what we do is set a timer for two minutes for each category, and we literally get everything out of our head and onto paper or into the computer for that category in that two-minute time period. If you know me, then you know that my husband, Joe, is my business partner at Cavalry Appliance Service, and he's honestly one of the most practical people I know.

So he just decided, honey, I'm not gonna do the two-minute timer. And I was like, well, that's how we do things. And he said, well, I don't wanna do it that way. And whenever somebody comes to me in our mastermind and they have a different idea, I always hear them out because I'm here to continuously learn and grow and get better and serve people better or in a way that they wanna be served.

And if that happens to be my husband, then so be it. I think it's awesome. So I was kind of excited to hear what he had to say, and he said, I don't wanna do it that way. There's some categories that I really just don't even need to dive into right now. There's a lot going on this quarter. I really wanna focus on the things that I really need to focus on.

So he decided he was gonna grab the new guide, set a 30-minute timer, and work through the sections that were most relevant to where he is right now. No rigid structure, no pressure to spend equal time on every single thing, just him and the guide moving at his own pace through what actually mattered to him.

So that was kind of fun, and for me it was something out of the box and trying something new with the brainstorming process that we have. The second moment was Jessica. She told us that going through the guide really helped her truly zero in on her camp, not just to know what camp she's in theoretically, but to feel it, to see it on the page, to understand what the work actually looks like at her altitude, and to stop second-guessing herself about where she should be doing things that honestly belong three camps from now.

Those two moments told me everything I needed to know about why this tool matters so much, and they're exactly what this episode is about. So I'm super excited not only that we implemented this whole new tool, but that the feedback came from the team in that mastermind, and they told me some new ideas and new ways to use the tool and to use the brain dump format that we've always done.

And I kind of wanna welcome you that you feel really comfortable to share your ideas too, or if I happen to see you at a conference and we're doing a brain dump, if something works for you and you love it, I wanna hear it. But if you have a different idea about something, I am not too proud to listen to your idea and implement it, just try it out.

So I just wanna thank Joe and Jessica for diving right in and embracing the new tool and then letting me know how much it really helped them, because that was super fulfilling, because it feels really awesome that it worked so well for them.

So back to the whole topic of today's podcast episode. There's this thing that I see with business owners all the time, and if you've been in any planning or strategy sessions, you have probably seen the same pattern. Someone asks, what do you think you need to work on? And suddenly everything feels equally urgent.

You wanna talk about hiring, and then you wanna talk about your Google reviews and your pricing and your cash flow and this new strategy for opening a new store and social media, all of that in the same breath.

And you leave that brainstorming session with a giant list of 47 things and approximately zero clarity on where you actually need to start.

The reason that happens is not because you are a disorganized mess or that you're unfocused. It's because no one has ever given you a filter. No one has ever said, here, this is what matters at your stage. Here's what can wait, and here's what is actually a distraction disguised as a priority.

And so most brainstorming tools treat every single business the same. They give you a blank space and they say, write down everything that you wanna do. And I'll tell you, that has been the way we've done things for a really long time, and it actually works really well as an initial brainstorming session.

But when you're trying to plan for each and every quarter, it really helps to have some organization to your chaos.

What happens if you don't have this filter is you end up with a long list of things that may or may not move your business forward depending on where you actually are right now.

A newer business owner trying to nail their first hire should not be spending mental energy on succession planning. A Camp three business, which is the scaling camp, who is scaling to multiple locations, does not need to start from scratch figuring out what their brand colors are.

Without a structure that accounts for altitude, both of those people end up in the same brainstorming session doing the same exercise, and neither of them is getting what they actually need.

That's a problem. It's not a lack of ideas, and it's not a lack of motivation. It's a lack of altitude-appropriate focus.

So let me break down what we built and why it works. If you've been with me since episodes nine and 10, you know that the whole foundation of the Business Mountain Framework is built around exactly that metaphor.

Building a business is like climbing a mountain. You do not take the gear for Camp four with you to base camp. You do not try to acclimatize to 26,000 feet when you're still at 12,000. The work changes as the altitude changes. That is not a motivational idea. That is a strategic one.

Here's where it gets really interesting. We've always organized business strategy around five altitudes: base camp, camp one, which is starting; camp two, which is growing; camp three, which is scaling; and camp four, which is the selling or exit strategy phase.

And within each of those camps, we work across 16 strategic categories. Those categories are organized into three pillars that we call team, trajectory, and tracking.

That's the way we've done things for a really long time. We've brainstormed through the 16 categories, and they have always been organized into the three pillars.

The new piece is really brainstorming around the camp that you're in. So if you're in camp one and you're in the starting phase, your brain dump is gonna look a lot different than somebody who's in the selling or exit phase.

And that just makes sense. It just clicked into place. And so that is what we're implementing here in 2026, a brand new strategy for brain dumping.

The team pillar covers the people side: team growth, team development, and team engagement.

The trajectory pillar covers where your business is headed and how you operate. The categories within there are space, which could be your office space, your truck space, wherever you're getting your work done is your space; market, marketing, offers, sales operations, technical operations, supply operations, and administrative operations.

And then the tracking pillar covers how you measure what's working: your marketing KPIs, your customer service KPIs, your efficiency KPIs, your financial KPIs, and your HR KPIs.

What's a KPI? In case you didn't know, it just stands for key process indicator. It's just a metric or how you measure how you're doing in all of those different areas.

What the Altitude Framework Guide does is it takes all 16 of those categories and maps specific activities, priorities, and milestones for each camp.

So instead of a generic brainstorming question like, what do you need to do about your team, you're asking, what does a Camp two business need to do about their team right now specifically? And the guide gives you the answer in concrete, actionable terms.

That shift from generic to altitude-specific is the whole entire game, because the right work at the wrong altitude is still the wrong work.

Let me make this real for you. Take something like financial KPIs.

At Camp one, the starting phase, the work looks like this: run a monthly profit and loss statement and actually read it, monitor your cash balance weekly, do basic job costing to make sure that each job actually makes money after materials and labor, and pretty much that's the priority.

That's what moves the needle at that altitude. Camp one is the starting camp, which means that you're starting to measure your financial progress.

But at Camp three, the scaling phase, the work for your financial KPIs looks completely different.

Now you're implementing departmental profit and loss statements. You are developing a multi-year financial model. You're tracking things like EBITDA as a primary performance metric.

Big words for big Camp three. Basically, you've matured quite a bit in how you measure your financial health for your company by the time you're in the scaling phase.

Both of those are the right answer, but only at the right altitude.

A Camp one business owner sitting in a brainstorming session reading about EBITDA tracking and multi-year financial modeling is just gonna feel overwhelmed, or they're gonna waste energy trying to learn all of those things when it's really kind of premature.

And a Camp three owner who is still spending their time hand-checking their cash balances on a spreadsheet every week is leaving capacity on the table.

By the time you're in the scaling phase, you better know whether you're making money on your jobs or not because you're supporting a leadership team by that point.

Now, lemme bring Joe back into this conversation because his approach this week was a perfect example of how to use this tool with confidence.

He didn't try to work through all 16 categories in a rigid two-minute sprint format. He knew his camp. He knew which categories were most relevant to where Cavalry Appliance is right now.

So he set his 30-minute timer, opened the sections that matched his altitude, and then he worked.

That kind of focused, intentional brainstorming is exactly what this guide is designed to enable. It gives you permission to skip what does not apply and go really deep on what does.

And then there's Jessica. When she said the guide helped her zero in on her camp, what she was really describing was something I see happen when people finally get a clear framework.

She stopped doing the mental gymnastics of wondering where she should be worried about the things she was seeing in other businesses or the things she was reading about online or the things that sound impressive but are not actually where she is.

She got to look at the specific activities for her specific altitude, and then she said, yes, this is the work. This is what's next for me right now in my business.

That clarity is not a small thing. That is the difference between a business owner who spends Q2 chasing shiny objects or one who spends Q2 actually building something, moving their business forward.

Now, here's the part most people skip when they do any kind of brainstorming or planning session. Once you've gone through all your categories at your altitude, you're not done.

You still have a big brain dump, which is really great, but the next step is to take that list and actually prioritize it.

What is critical and urgent right now, meaning this quarter, is not the same as what is critical and urgent next year.

What is important but can be scheduled out a little ways? What's a great idea that actually belongs in Camp three when you're actually in camp one?

That last category is what we call camped. It's noted, it's honored, and then it is set aside for the right altitude.

So I just wanna remind you that when you're doing your brain dump, you don't judge the things that come to your mind. You just dump it out of your head and onto the paper.

So sometimes, even though you are focused on the right camp or the right altitude, things are gonna pop in your mind that you heard about in a meeting or a seminar or on a podcast or something like that.

And it's gonna feel really urgent to you right in that moment. Get it outta your head, put it in your brain dump.

But then when you're sitting there planning out what you actually need for your strategy for this particular quarter, you'll realize this is not something I need to do right this minute.

And so you can put it down, but then you're gonna schedule it out for next year.

Or sometimes, if it's something that we think of that we're like, yeah, that's a really great idea for when we have multiple locations or something like that, we'll make a note of it and we'll schedule it out for next year.

And then if we happen to get to next year and it's still not something that we wanna do, we just push it out another year.

So you have control over everything that's on your list in your tracking system.

In our mastermind, we use a Monday board for monday.com, and so we can go ahead and schedule things out at any time on there, and it really helps us stay organized.

So the quarterly brain dump inside the mastermind is a formal session. We run it at the end of each quarter to plan the quarter coming up.

We go through all 16 categories. We brainstorm what belongs on our list, and then we run everything through the priority filter before a single thing goes on anyone's plan.

That process is what keeps the work intentional. It's what keeps our members from accidentally building a Camp four org chart while they're still trying to land their first 10 clients.

I want you to sit with this idea for just a second because I think it's one of the most freeing things you can internalize as a business owner.

You're not behind because you're not doing things that a Camp four business does. You're exactly where you are supposed to be if you're doing the right work for your camp.

The mountain does not judge you for being at Camp two. It rewards you for doing the Camp two work so well that when you arrive at Camp three, you're ready.

What I see derail business owners more than almost anything else is altitude confusion.

They read a business book written for a Fortune 500 company, and they feel like they're doing something wrong.

They see a competitor talking about something they've not built yet and assume that they're behind.

They sit in a generic business seminar where the content is built for a business at a completely different stage, and then they leave feeling really overwhelmed and unclear.

The framework is not a ceiling, it's a compass. It tells you where you are, what the next right step looks like, and what you get to set down because it's not your work yet.

That's not limiting, it's so freeing, so liberating.

The best mountain climbers in the world are not the ones who rush to the summit. Honestly, I've done a lot of research on mountains as I've been developing these frameworks, and people who rush to the summit, guess what happens?

They do not make it down to base camp in good fashion.

So rushing to the summit is not the answer. The answer is to acclimate to each altitude.

Make sure you're taking care of the things you need to take care of. Make sure you have the right gear. Make sure the right people are on your team. Make sure you're planning right. Make sure you have the right climbing shoes. Make sure you have enough water.

All of those things can kind of translate into your business journey, right?

So you don't want somebody rushing you to the selling phase when you don't have something worth selling because you're not gonna get any money for it.

You need to take your time going through each camp of your business ownership in the right order, checking all your boxes.

And then when you get to the sell phase in Camp four, then you have something that you have packaged along the way.

Over the years, you have a really strong business. All 16 areas are super strong and ready to hand off to somebody who's willing to pay top dollar.

The best climbers in the world are not the ones who rush to the summit. They're the ones who know exactly what gear they need at every altitude, who respect the mountain enough to prepare correctly, and who trust that doing the right work at the right time is what gets them to the top with their whole team still intact.

Your business is no different.

So here's my challenge for you this week. You know I always have a challenge.

Before you make one more plan or add one more thing to your to-do list, I want you to ask yourself, is this the right work for my altitude right now?

If you're not sure what camp you're in, that is actually a really great place to start.

If you wanna go deeper on this, the Eight-thousander Mastermind is where we do this work together every single quarter, including the full altitude brainstorm using the guide.

You can learn more and find out if it's a right fit for you at outcomeacademy.com/summit.

And if you have any questions at all, you can email me at ginny@outcomeacademy.com
.

Thank you so much for being here today. I know I tell you this every single week, but your time is precious.

I know how busy you are. It means absolutely the world to me that you take your time to spend with me each week.

As you think about this week, notice where this shows up in your own business.

If you wanna go deeper into this work, including the mastermind and other ways we support service-based business owners, you can explore everything at outcomeacademy.com.

Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.