Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

Linda, this is an excellent question -- one that is at the heart of our company.

But rather than spend a lot of time sharing customized solutions (that may not be applicable) and how to raise the visibility of marketing in the executive suite, let me point you to one of the very best resources I have EVER read on this (and I have read a lot, I guarantee you). We even give it to the CEOs in our client companies:

Marketing as Strategy: Understanding the CEO's Agenda for Driving Growth and Innovation by Nirmala Kumar. It's insightful, direct, and easy to read.

I know you'll find precisely what you're looking for in this book.

Good luck!

Hi Linda

If you are starting at a ground base of zero when it comes to understanding the links between business planning, goals and marketing, then Cynthia’s advice of some background reading is essential. Even if you have a reasonable understanding of each subject in isolation, it is very difficult to make the right connections as most things can seem to contradict each other.

Once you have studied some of the texts which explain the respective author’s interpretations of the connections between the 3 areas, then its time to start with a little analysis. This is a very broad brush and no doubt some of my points will seem opaque or incomprehensible at first. Don’t worry – I’m aiming to let you develop a picture which with time, further understanding and inputs from cleverer people than me, you will be able to build on.

Firstly set out in a table, the business goals which you have identified for your company. They might be turnover, profit, rate of growth, market penetration, development of new products and other strategic goals. There may be smaller day-to day tactical business goals that you want to achieve as well, such as maximizing the use of the sales calls, responding to telephone enquiries better, not being able to find things when the client rings or finding that you’ve been booked into meetings which you can’t attend.

Then work out on a resource basis in the next column with what you are planning to achieve the goals. Try to be specific with what, who, where, when and how much does it cost? Set these items out in the second column of your table and identify, with lines the items which influence each other, or conflict with each other,

Then set out which of these goals can be solved by marketing or matters related to marketing. This is the area where it gets complex and you may wish to seek some help, but you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised by how many questions you can answer for yourself.

For example, take turnover. To achieve your goal you need certain resources to make or sell enough products or services to achieve your goal. This will force you to think through the product mix you expect to sell and the implications involved in manufacturing, purchasing, stocking and selling it.

Who will do these things and when. It probably looks a little easier to fill these things in now! Then what do you need to do to generate enough enquiries to shift the products you intend to make / stock / sell?

Well that’s the marketing link. You might need a certain number of leads or enquiries – where will they come from. Which marketing tools will you use to produce them – PR, adverts, websites, mailing or will it be footfall in a store?

Even trivial things succumb to this approach. You can never find the appropriate documents when a client phones? Who is responsible for document storage? Are the documents on a PC and set of unconnected PC’s or on a network? How do you coordinate the collation of customer information?

The resource solution to this organisational goal is to ensure that you have rules and possibly a person who is responsible for this aspect of your business. The marketing solution to this might be to load all the customer details onto a CRM system, network all the computers and allow everyone in the company to be empowered to deal with customer queries by having access to the relevant information. The cash benefit of the marketing solution is the time it frees up, the improvement in efficiency and the diminution in the number of cock-ups. You might even be able to quantify this.

By the time you have drawn up these three columns in this simple table (OK, its got a lot of rows in it and probably a lot of lines and arrows as well!) you will start to see a picture of the relationships emerging that you can understand.

If your can see a lot of gaps that you can’t answer or can’t resolve, then be prepared to turn to a local marketing strategy company for some practical assistance in turning your goals into profitable realities. As you will have started to grow your own understanding of the connections you have to make, you should be able to get more out of such a relationship than if you had to start from scratch. Who knows, the whole thing might just click and you’ll see the larger picture yourself and put into action the steps you need to take.

Good luck

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions