Measuring Business and Marketing Results

We All Want Revenue 

We seem to be good at tossing around buzz phrases. We can talk to each other about the ROI of digital engagement through the internal customer service of community development. Managing expectations and deliverables are a way of life. And yet we seem to often get stuck while waiting for quick wins.

In the world of marketing and business development (the new catch-all for sales), there is no shortage of chatter about the social web. Of course, it’s the moving target and still the new shiny toy. Anyone with an Internet connection can publish their opinions. That does not mean it’s a sound business opportunity.

Marathon Meet Race

Budgets are tight, jobs are on the line, there is no time to try stuff and hope it will work. And as someone who consults business and has worked in every medium, it remains challenging for me to remind owners and managers that this stuff takes a while and no campaign will sustain them forever. Moreover, you can only measure your return if you are honest about your actual monetary and human investment. Throwing up a Facebook group, buying a bunch of television advertising and stuffing mailboxes are not tactics that will automatically bring results.

The social web is not the only place to spend your effort but reading and tweeting about direct mail or telemarketing just doesn’t seem to be as sexy. But judging from the mound of three-color print designed pieces of cardboard and paper overflowing from my recycle bin, it appears to be alive and well. Television and radio advertising remain viable channels to extend your offer and external or outdoor advertising is still around too. But opening your wallet and demanding results is dangerous sport.

Nothing Is Free

My colleague, Drew McLellan wrote a post recently about the importance of channel selection and more importantly he reminds us that social media are not free or even cheap. It takes a shift in your organization to account for any outbound marketing. In fact, in my humble opinion, marketing is not a department but rather a part of all that you do in business.

No amount of advertising or external collateral will save a bad business. So if you think you can buy your success, save your money and spend it on developing your actual offer. I have lost count the number of prospects who tell me they don’t need marketing, they need more revenue. It’s like saying you want to run a marathon but aren’t prepared to buy shoes and train.

How Do You Measure Your Business Expectations?

Kneale Mann

image creditfantes

Best Laid Business Plans

You Need a Plan

With few exceptions, no one ever becomes wildly successful without some sort of - albeit flexible - business plan. You need to set realistic actionable objectives or you will get lost in tactics. Crashing and burning are often the next step waiting for you.

I've always prescribed to the "strategy before tactics" mantra. You need to set 2-3 objectives for the next year and then build out necessary activities to ensure they are accomplished. Simon Sinek changed that when he reminds us that we need to know why we're doing any of it in the first place.

A Plan is Not Enough

Business plans don't have to be verbose literary masterpieces which no one will read, never mind execute. They should be clear and the content should point to what the company actually wants to carry out. But like mission statements, they are often created with the best of intentions in a controlled environment known as a boardroom.

Business objectives should include realistic market perspective, company financial realities and unbiased summation of stakeholder talent. Anyone can say "make more money this year" but can you really pull it off when you take into consideration your products or services, competitive situations and appropriate cash flow.

How can you ensure your business plan doesn't go sideways as soon as the reality of life hits it in the face?

Kneale Mann

image credit: youintegrate

Start-Ups | Venture Culturists

Realizing Your Dream.

Imagine you have developed a new software app, perhaps a new game, maybe something that will revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry or a flashing blue trapezoid with a potential customer base in the millions.

Problem: No more money.

You could take your ideas, drawings, business plan and prototype to a venture firm and see if they’ll give you some capital to develop the idea further. This does come at a cost. They become a partner in your business and they would own a piece of it.

If VCs own too much of a stake in your idea, they will have a say in decisions. If they own a majority piece of your lifelong dream they in essence already control your company.

I have met people who have had excellent experiences with VC firms and some who have not. But when I drill down to the stuff outside of the invention the puzzled looks begin.

• Who finances the creation of culture in your new company?
• Who helps you create an atmosphere of collaboration?
• Would you benefit from the services of a Venture Culturist?

Your VC has given you funds to purchase collateral or hire staff. But what happens once your invention is in full production? And if you are an idea entrepreneur and have no actual product yet, get familiar with the term bootstrapping.

Spend And Win?

Perhaps something to think about if you are working away on that next cool thing with hopes of an IPO through venture capital – not only do you need to decipher a market for it but you also need to be able to create an atmosphere for the people who will help you make it.

Are we too focused on product and not people?
Could this be one of the reasons why so many ventures fail?

@knealemann
sustained engagement in the relationship economy.

image credit: middlebury.edu

Do You Have A Strategic Plan?

One Third Win
The numbers are slightly different depending on the study, but the number of businesses that launch then thrive is quite small. About 30% of all new companies actually see their way to black ink.

Why Is That?

I have worked on fifty-page Strategic Plans, it's a lot of work!

It requires people and meetings and the result is an extensive blueprint for the next fiscal year. For the most part, the Plan was followed and people were held accountable. Each tactic had dates and money and people attached to it so the Plan could be realistically and properly executed.

I would often test people’s knowledge of the Plan by asking them if they could recite our Three Strategic Objectives. Most did well on that point. But when it got to the tactics and time lines and who does what by when, their ability to recount the Plan began to decline.

But you don't need a fifty-page Plan to succeed. Trust me! Those things were behemoths. No wonder no one could remember what was in them.

Why do companies fall short of their goals?

Focus

This is often a catch-all that isn’t given the attention it deserves. If you’re in a well financed start-up, it can be intoxicating. Ideas are following, people are happy and it’s exciting. But once the balloons deflate and the actual real work begins and you experience that first difficult client, things may begin to wobble.

Market

It’s even more essential that you are aware of your market. That includes where you are geographically, the industry you are in, what your competitors are doing and the never ending changes in customer desires and demands.

A Plan is not something you put in a pretty binder to sit alongside previous years' Plans to simply collect dust.

Homework

No matter your industry or role, you need to be constantly educating yourself on opportunities and trends. We have the world’s largest encyclopedia at our fingertips but how many of us end up at the same websites every day?

Accountability

This has always been a hot button. It looks good on the wall or in your company propaganda or on your website. “We’re accountable!” Are you? In order for this to gain traction, everyone in your organization must be accountable to everyone in your organization. No exceptions.

Execution

Plans are useless without action. If you take the required time to set out a Plan, then actually carry it out.

I’m a guy, I hate reading instructions but I have often destroyed a purchase because I didn’t read the sheet of paper with the thing I needed to assemble. That is why the instructions are there. That is why you galvanize a Strategic Plan.

Then you do need to be nimble so you can react to opportunities that may not have been there when you developed your Plan. You won’t be able to do so if everything you do is by the seat of your pants.

Communication

This is the largest reason companies fail. We can discuss this at length another time but it is monumentally imperative that you keep clear collaborative communications open with everyone in your organization or the clock is ticking.

Fear

We are human beings. We mess up. We mean well. We have the best of intentions. But we miss steps and get frustrated and get filled with self-doubt which stops us from getting there. And we forget to ask for help!

Am I way off the mark?
What are your thoughts on this?

knealemann.at.gmail.com

image credit: postyourtest.com

Do You Have Time For Ideas?

Monday 8:14am
The boss storms in to the sales meeting, stands by the door and yells...

"More calls!
More meetings!
Get out there!"

Then he slams the door.

Monday 8:17am
John slips the presentation back in to his brief case. It’s something he worked on all weekend after gaining the courage to make some suggestions on how the entire organization could increase revenue. Perhaps this is not a good time.

Tuesday 2:46pm
Sally asks Ron if he has 10 minutes tomorrow for a quick meeting. Without lifting his face from his PDA, Ron says he's booked solid for the rest of the week.

Tuesday 2:47pm
Sally returns to her desk demoralized for the last time. Her ideas will find a home elsewhere.

Wednesday 10:14am
Brian wonders if the client lunch could be out of the office for a change, maybe in a more relaxed setting.

Wednesday 10:15am
Brian is told that “we don’t do it that way here.”

Friday 5:18pm
While the boss is off to his cottage for the weekend, Nancy meets with a new company that wants to hear her ideas.

Do you make time for creative ideas?
Do you encourage more?

@knealemann
knealemann at gmail dot com

Let’s create experiences, not campaigns.

image credit: farm4.static.flickr.com

Cut Costs And Be The Best?

It’s heartbreaking to watch as we all worry about the future, panic about what’s next. We wince every time another email blast comes with financial news. Chrysler is filing for bankruptcy protection, GM isn’t far behind. And entire industries are forced to downsize and find ways to cut costs.

Air Canada is on the brink – again. The thought that one of the most prosperous gorgeous places to live on the planet may not have an airline is ridiculous and clearly will not happen.

Get Out The Knife

One of the ‘easiest’ ways to cut costs is to fire people and ask the survivors to do more. In some cases, the threat of further cuts will temporarily and artificially motivate people to work harder but it’s not a long-term solution. I have been on both sides of a “black Tuesday” and you may think one is side is more pleasurable - it's not!

Money is math, math is reality – right?

There is little evidence of companies successfully under spending themselves to a lead position. You would be hard pressed to unearth a story or two on situations where slashing infrastructure lead to triumph. Conversely, there is ample evidence of companies overspending themselves to failure. The balancing act never stops.

Hold On Just A Minute

If you are in a situation right now as you read this post to do something different. What do you have to lose, if you just take some time out of the office and ask yousrelf, in no particular order:

• What can I do?
• What is my company good at?
• Where can we improve?
• Do we know what our customers want?
• Do we know what our potential customers want?
• Have we examined all potential revenue streams?
• Are our products or services still good?
• Are we fully integrated?
• Are we the leaders in our industry?
• Where can we win?
• Are we nimble?
• Do we listen to each other for actual solutions?
• Are we still relevant?
• What steps can we take to become relevant again?

What's The Harm In Trying?

There are many more questions, but there’s a good start. It might be a worthy exercise before you get out the chopping block and get the HR department hammering on severance packages. You may be one of the fortunate ones who can avoid affecting careers and all the while become even more successful.

Just my opinion.

@knealemann

photo credit: tagish.co.uk

Who's Buyin'? Who's Sellin'?

There are several absolutes in life; taxes, death, cockroaches will survive a nuclear attack, and you will always need sales account managers if you run a for-profit organization.

I love sales people; I’ve been one my whole life. So have you.

I’m not taking about the guy in the cheap suit selling you crap you don’t need whilst barely making eye contact because he’s on to his next victim. This is about relationships.

Other than perhaps heart surgeons or alligator tamers, we all need to sell. I would add they do too – you wouldn’t want some hack who barely passed medical school operating on a loved one or a sketchy dude handling reptiles. They both need to sell their abilities to you.

Sales happen every morning in millions of homes as moms and dads sell their kids the dreams that will be fulfilled if they get their butts out of bed and off to school. You and I do it every time we meet someone and they do it to us. If you don’t buy in to them, you won’t buy from them. The suit and the PowerPoint are secondary.

We have all met "sales people" – the types who always have the deal, will sell you the blue car if you sign today, have a better price than the competitor, they are a dying breed. The cologne is a nice touch, though.

km

language may be offesive to some people.

Glengary Glen Ross (1992)