What P&G & McD's Taught Me About Getting The Year Off to a Fast Start!

Momentum Builds Momentum!

I first heard the term “Fast Start” when I worked at Procter & 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 a sequence of marketing initiatives that drove net incremental profit.

Throughout my career I’ve worked with clients that trashed and re-wrote their entire year’s marketing plan by the third week in January (when sales goals weren’t being met). These companies shared common characteristics...

Momentum Killers

• 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, what 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 engagements along the customer’s purchase journey are opportunities to add value
• Too much focus on price vs. creating true value
• Too much focus on closing sales 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 lack of real understanding of what it takes to outperform the category

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.).

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.

Align:?Spend precious executive time aligning action plans behind strategy vs. reacting to the crisis of the day.?The “pieces and parts” have to align to and drive the strategy.?For example, you can’t have a low-price high-service strategy (and continue to remain in business).

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?

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.

It’s not too late for a 2024 “fast start” action plan.?Develop a strategic road map of “What” needs to be done, “How” it will get done; “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.

Instead,?ask what will get you to purposeful strategy?that creates customers, value, demand, revenue, traffic, growth, and profit.

Getting Your Marketing to a Better Place

It’s not too late to improve your 2024 Marketing Action Plan for success.?When this aligns into a larger strategic thesis, vision, and plan, your?marketing will to drive your business

About David

This article is an early chapter in Dave's upcoming book: "High Performance Strategy: Connecting Vision to Strategy to Plan"

Dave works with senior executives on sales, business development, marketing, and growth strategy. During strategy season, he's 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, marketing, and technology strategies. https://www.wizewebz.com

Dave is also the?CEO and Co-founder of High Performance Marketing Boot Camps.?Customized "hands on" workshops designed to help senior executives get smarter and more effective with their marketing and growth strategies: https://highperformancemarketingbootcamps.com

In his spare time, Dave teaches advanced brand strategy, marketing, competitive strategies, 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