Heading into the end of Q1, are you “go go,” “slow go” or “no go?” Is your momentum growing or slowing.?
Do you understand what drives your category, your business, your customer?
Former CMO of Coca-Cola, Sergio Zyman, defined marketing success as “more customers, spending more, more often." When I teach marketing and CRM to MBA students, we discuss RFM scores to understand the metrics behind your most valuable customers – how recent, how frequent, and how much?
A “fast start” to 2023 began mid-2022 when you and you and your team addressed the questions of Where are We Now, Where Do We Need to Be, and How Do We Get There? These are the questions that provide a strategic path, plot, and plan to change growth trajectory.?
Contrast this with taking the 2020, 2021, and 2022 plan and “keeping what’s working” and “killing what isn’t." This is a plan, but a plan that leads to fuzzy goals, fuzzy results, “activity over purpose,” and a continuation of your current sales trend.
I first heard the term “Fast Start” when I worked at Proctor & Gamble.?They taught me?momentum builds momentum?and a successful Q1 doesn’t happen by accident.
From my McDonald’s days, I saw an enormous emphasis on Q1 preparation; “setting the table for success” by aligning marketing and operations.
“Set ‘em up and Knock ‘em down”?was frequently part of the strategic discussions mapping out?where we needed to be.
Planning for Success
Throughout my career I’ve worked with clients that trashed and re-wrote their entire year’s plan in Q1 (when sales goals weren’t being met). These companies shared common characteristics:
- No real strategic plan.
- Little forward planning (meetings devoted to initiatives more than 180 days in the future).
- A lack of understanding of what drives business.?
- No depth of insights around who the heavy users are in their category, who their “super consumers” are and how they behave differently than their occasional users.
- A lack of understanding of the company’s value proposition and which key inflection points along the customer’s purchase journey are opportunities to add value (and influence conversion).
- Too much focus on price vs. creating real value.
- Too much focus on pitching deals vs. demand creation.
- Too much focus on “lead gen” vs. optimizing value from current customers.
- A focus on activity rather than purposeful marketing.
- Misalignment between business strategy, brand promise, value proposition, sales, and communication strategy.
- Putting the things that need to be done now in the “too hard pile.”
- A sales and business development process too dependent on serendipity.?
- Too little discussion spent on how best to leverage core strengths.
- A lack of understanding of what the brand promise was, across the entire organization.
- A disconnect between front-line "customer facing" employees and C-Suite execs.
- Alignment to the Reason Why (Why customer's buy, Why the company is in business, Why the company is competitive, Why employees believe).
- No understanding of customer segments by value, and sales/marketing/communication/experience aligned accordingly.
Momentum begins in Q1
It’s not too late for a 2023 “Fast Start Action Plan."?Develop a strategic road map of “What” needs to be done, “How” it will get done, and “Where you’re at now” vs. “Where you need to be.” As you begin to build,?go beyond the conversation of “let’s keep what’s working, and kill what isn’t.”
Specifically,?don’t update last year’s plan. Do the hard work of starting with a blank sheet of paper, define where you need to be and create the plan that gets you there. Specific goals = a clear road map = a plan of action = measurable results. (I tell my students "doing more social media to millennials" isn't a strategy, or a plan).
Instead,?ask what will get you to purposeful strategy?that creates customers, value, demand, revenue, traffic, margin, and profitable growth.
Here are some Fast Start strategies you can deploy immediately:?The common key is a seamless alignment of all the “pieces and parts” to a Vision, Strategy, and Plan.
- Discriminate:?Customers, markets, products, and seasonality aren’t equal in value.?Your plan needs prioritization.?Consider a “first best dollar spent” strategy with alignment between effort, investment, and ROI.?Use the 80/20 rule and focus on the 20% driving your profit.
- Understand:?Some companies sell the “What,” others sell the “How.”??Understand “where” you create the most value, “Why” your best customers return and “Why” they give you a disproportionate share of their category spend.?
- Leverage:?Leverage your value proposition. If you plot your customer’s journey from “I don’t know you,” to “You’re my provider of choice,” where do you add the most value to the customer, and how do you do it (process, product, experience, knowledge, speed, etc.). Leverage those key inflection points where you can and do add value. (Define value from the customer's POV).
- Plan:?Selling the “deal” vs. your value proposition often creates short term spikes on a downward trend.?Create a plan that connects your core Reason for Being to your customer’s Reason for Need;?it will move you to a more profitable and immediate growth strategy. Do you have a plan for multiple purchases over many years by selling outcomes, experiences, and increased value over a lifetime?
- Align:?Spend precious executive time aligning action plans behind strategy vs. reacting to the crisis of the day.?The “pieces and parts” must align to and drive the strategy.?For example, you can’t have a low-price high-service strategy (and continue to remain in business). A "high touch, high service" model requires the right people, right training, right processes, and a customer-first center of gravity."
- Promise:?What do your customers say is your brand promise??Is this applied throughout your business development initiatives? Is your marketing plan built around the customer data and insights you are capturing, turning into proprietary knowledge, and converting into smarter “go to market” strategies??Is your sales team applying these insights into their presentations and conversations?
- Focus:?Executive teams that are transformative, consequently, limit their focus.?“We can do that too” is banned?from meetings because it starts non-strategic projects and dilutes executive attention away from core business drivers.?If you and your team understand “Why” you are in business and “Why” your best customers love you – your high-performance plan has an awesome foundation.
- Learn: How are you converting data into insights into actionable knowledge? Create listening opportunities that capture customer feedback beyond the basic operational metrics (store was clean, employees were friendly, etc.). Are you measuring how effective you are delivering your brand promise? If you are the "friendly bank," how do you know?
Getting Your Strategy Smarter, Sharper, and More Effective
- Capture customer insights –?Have conversations with your customers to capture insights.?Complete in-depth interviews to tap into what they want changed, and unchanged.?They will tell you how to make your value proposition better.?I was taught early in my career that understanding the customer, better than anyone else at the company, provided value, leverage and opportunity to drive change.
- Create a Knowledge Loop -?Turn data into knowledge into action.?Marketing plans that drive profitable business come out of evidence-based conclusions and heavy user insights.?Most companies collect data; few companies successfully convert their “information overload” into actionable knowledge.
- Listen to your sales force –?Your successful sales folks are listening to your customers daily. Convert their hard-earned wisdom into smarter, sharper, customer-focused plans. Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary says the first person he talks to before purchasing a company?is the head of sales (before the CEO or CFO). He wants to know what the customer thinks.
- Create “Learning Labs”?– Use 2023 to “test-drive” initiatives that can be successfully rolled out next year.?If next year’s strategic plan is built on proven-sales building strategies and tactics, your plan will be successful.
- Move things out of the “too hard pile”?by trying new approaches– don’t restrict the world to things you are sure of, get out of your company’s comfort zone and test strategic initiatives. Strategy often “wins” when one company in a category “zigs” while everyone else “zags.” Football MVP Jerry Rice said: “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I will accomplish what others can’t.”
- Look at the world the way it is –?don’t be in the story of how it should have been but keep finding the way life is right now. People don’t want to purchase salads at McDonalds, but McD’s has had tremendous success with hand-held convenience.??The Wall Street Journal in 2013 said “At McDonald’s, salads just don’t sell, they haven’t had a blockbuster since the 2003 introduction of McGriddles.
High Performance Strategy:
Connecting Vision to Strategy to Plan
This article is an early chapter in Dave's upcoming book: "High Performance Strategy: Connecting Vision to Strategy to Plan"
About Dave
Dave works with senior executives on sales, business development, marketing, and growth strategy. He's most often found leading client work sessions. He’s a?Partner at WizeWebz, a business growth consultancy that helps clients get to their next stage of growth through smarter business, sales, marketing, communication, and technology strategies.?https://www.wizewebz.com
Dave is also the?CEO and Co-founder of High Performance Marketing Boot Camps.?These are customized to help senior executives get smarter and more effective with their marketing:?https://highperformancemarketingbootcamps.com
In his spare time, Dave teaches advanced business strategy, brand strategy, marketing, competitive strategies, communication, and entrepreneurship in the MBA programs at the?University of Missouri and The University of Kansas.
“David Patrick is legendary for two things: deep marketing expertise and extraordinary teaching skills.?My experiences as his student and collaborator have educated and inspired me.”?Jack Mackey,?Former Chief Evangelist, VP Customer Engagement, Service Management Group??
“David Patrick is masterful at understanding the strategies that unlock growth. He’s able to apply those learnings to a variety of industries and help executive teams approach marketing in a new way to achieve greater results.”?Laura Scobie, SVP Strategy, Barkley
"David Patrick's knowledge and experience in marketing is deep. I find he has wisdom and case studies for almost every conceivable situation. Always a pleasure to spend time with David and listen to his insights and perspective on business and marketing challenges. If you are considering David and his team to help with your marketing strategy you should do so with confidence."?Grant Gooding, CEO & Founder of Proof Positioning
