When you’re busy, just getting the work done occupies enough of your time. On top of changing client demands and tight deadlines, you’ve still got the routine admin, finance, HR issues and all the rest to deal with. It’s easy to forget about the things you planned to do at the start of the year, because you’re just too busy ‘doing’ what you have to do. It’s a very familiar story.
But some businesses have found the way to make working towards a plan as much a routine discipline as time sheets or end of month accounts. It’s these businesses who seem to enjoy ongoing success, who seem to penetrate new markets when others are still thinking about it, and whose phones keep ringing when others go ominously quiet.
Most businesses start out the year with good intentions when it comes to strategic planning and growth, but how do you institutionalise this and make it part of a disciplined routine? These are just some suggestions to get you thinking...
Market reach. Has your database of clients and potential clients grown in the year? It should have and you should be able to measure by how much it has. If your ability to reach out to your market via direct contacts through your database hasn’t changed in the year, you’ve probably failed to make updates, additions and deletions a disciplined part of your regular BD investment.
List quality. Likewise, to what extent have you expanded your knowledge of target client businesses and the people within them? If you continue to have just one record for a target company – and worse, if that record is simply ‘The Manager’ – then your list quality isn’t what it could be. In every target company you would like to be doing business with there are always multiple decision makers. Finding out who they are is a first step in B2B marketing.
Frequency of outreach. If you’re working towards a BD and marketing plan, you will know because you’ll have a record of the number of times you’ve reached out to your target audience during the year. Whether it’s been part of a quarterly, bi-monthly or monthly routine doesn’t matter as much as having set a target routine and then stuck to it. You ought also to be able to track how that outreach has performed – particularly with digital media – and have a strong feeling for what material is of most interest based on their digital behaviour.
New target sectors. Businesses working to a plan would have started the year having identified a new or growing market sector and then diligently gone about building a profile of companies operating in that sector, and the decision makers within them. If all you did was come up with a wish list of target growth sectors and haven’t applied some discipline to bringing them closer to your reach, you haven’t been working to a plan.
Refreshed collateral. Every year is an opportunity to revisit everything from brochures to specialist collateral to standardised submission templates. Market trends change. If you’re using the same collateral as five years ago, you’re basically trying to compete selling an iPhone3 in an iPhone6 or Android world. Good luck with that. Working to a plan should mean a systematic rethink and rewrite of all your collateral is a routine task.
Stronger networks. It’s embarrassing to say “Oh, I know so and so” only to have them ask your name when next you meet. Knowing someone in business through active, well informed networks is a huge advantage in business. You should be able to measure the growth of your personal networks not just by the numbers of people you have on Linkedin, but because you genuinely know there are more people who know you and your business well enough to both know your name but also to call you if an opportunity arises.
Market insights. With your head down and bum up, you may be pumping out the work. But it’s also likely you may be falling behind the latest trends in your industry, or failing to keep up with market insights into who’s doing what, who are the up and comers, and other important industry insights. Your clients want to work with people ‘in the know’ who are up with the latest industry insights and trends. Working to a plan should also involve making time to keep yourself up to your date.
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