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Marketing and sales
Ten danger signs of short-term thinking
by John Graham
The evidence continues to pile up that most of the nation’s businesses
are focused on short-term results. With boards, management, investors and
analysts ready to strike if the numbers are “right,” it’s
no wonder that everyone seems focused on immediate results.
Whatever the pressures to make the benchmarks, there’s another side
of the ledger––the benefits of thinking longer term, particularly
in marketing and sales.
Would most Americans buy a US-built vehicle if it weren’t for the
ever-rising discounts? Their primary purpose, of course, is to stimulate
immediate sales. Even as new models arrive in the showrooms, they are laden
with financial enticements.
At the same time, many more companies fail to think about even next year,
let alone five and 10 or more down the road.
While there are always immediate needs, there are also long-range issues
that deserve to be addressed. The care and tending of the brand is one of
them . The care of customers is another, as is thinking through future growth
issues and product/services refinements.
If you’re interested in attempting to evaluate your company in terms
of its short-term orientation, here are ten indicators that the longer term
may be suffering.
1. No planning or plan. It seems as if what passes as planning
is often nothing more than talk. Little gets actually nailed down. Meetings
end with an aura of vagueness in the room. Even if assignments are made,
there’s often little follow up. Everyone knows that nothing has changed
and nothing is going to happen.
The clearest, easiest way to understand good planning may go something like
this: “Who’s going to do what to whom, why and when?”
2. Scrambling for sales. “We’ve got to get
sales up” is the common cry. Throw together a quick “sales contest.”
Offer a discount. Somehow the word “discount” is less offensive
than cutting the price.
Yet, these same companies are short on consistent prospecting programs.
Their sales reporting systems focus on what’s happened last week and
what’s coming next week, not on thinking about the far more demanding
task of finding ways to grow the business.
Developing, implementing and managing a carefully crafted prospecting program
that has management’s support is the ultimate answer to increasing
sales. Yet, we find quick fixes more attractive than the hard work involved
in program management.
3. Jumping from one activity to another. Broken field running
is a fine art in many companies. Everyone dashes around zigging and zagging,
looking for an opening. Unfortunately, they aren’t as agile as they
like to think they are. First it’s a sales contest, next comes a newsletter,
then it’s an email blitz, a broadcast fax or signing up for a trade
show booth. “It’s only three weeks away. What are we going to
do?” “Oh, we can go through the store room and see what we can
find.” Then we come back from the event and say that was a waste of
time. As a matter of fact, it was exactly that because there was no plan.
4. Constant crises. Periodic crises occur, of course. It’s
the pattern that’s the problem. One business executive said, “I
think something’s wrong if we’re not having a crisis.”
Even if there is marketing and sales planning, the programs are often derailed
by one crisis or another. It happens in every company because no one says
that staying on track is essential.
The prospect database wasn’t completed because something else intervened.
The telephone follow-ups weren’t made because Sally had to fill in
for someone who was out sick. The prospect calls didn’t get made because
someone was “putting out a fire.”
5. Focus on competitors. It often appears that companies
lacking good planning may be taking their cues––their direction––from
the competition. While competitive intelligence is essential, companies
make decisions based on unsubstantiated rumors picked up on the street.
Because they lack adequate planning, they leave themselves vulnerable to
reacting in capricious and costly ways. The tendency to play “follow
the competitor” may be a major error since competitors make mistakes,
too.
6. An unclear image. The image inside a company may be
quite different from the way it is perceived on the outside. One financial
services firm has a very clear picture of itself. A customer survey, however,
revealed what the company viewed as its strengths were perceived as less
than adequate.
Another company’s sales force takes great pride in building personal
relationships with customers; yet, a customer survey revealed that personal
relationships were at the bottom of the list of customer priorities.
One of the essential objectives of good planning is shaping and protecting
the brand.
7. A lack of anticipatory thinking. Good planning is the
result of anticipating the results of an idea, program, activity
or project. A lack of planning generally produces half-baked action. What
does this mean? At one company, there were endless meetings about an upcoming
trade show event. There was plenty of interest and excitement, but no focus.
No one asked, “Why are we going? What do we want to accomplish?”
Fun took precedence over business objectives. Thinking about the outcome
of actions is the essence of planning.
8. Confusion between strategy and tactics. To put the issue
in as few words as possible, tactics are fun but strategy is tough. It’s
easy to get interested in what the direct mail piece will look like. The
question of why it’s being done and who should receive it sounds like
work. It is.
Far too many ads and brochures are designed with the idea of winning awards
rather than figuring out how to meet a clearly defined objective.
9. Difficulty in understanding branding. It’s almost
impossible to escape a new book, article or seminar on branding. Yet, for
all the talk, it’s amazing that there is so little translation into
making certain every aspect of a business coheres to the company’s
brand concept.
Branding doesn’t begin and end with a great logo and a glitzy tagline.
Planning makes branding possible.
10. Mistakes. The best has been saved for the last. Errors
are one of the clearest indicators of poor planning. Mistakes in marketing
and sales programs generally come about because of a lack of serious thought
or, as we call it, anticipatory thinking.
Try this and then jump to the next idea. Run ads this quarter and then switch
to email blitzing. Drop that and rush to direct mail. Throw in a “special
offer” for the month. Without a plan, it’s one mistake after
another. We all make them, of course. But good planning keeps us from making
them all the time.
If it isn’t down in black-and-white and if it isn’t reviewed
regularly and updated often, it isn’t a plan. It’s just another
exciting idea that will waste time and turn out poorly.
© 2004 Graham Communications
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John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications,
a marketing services and sales consulting firm. Mr. Graham is the
author of four books on marketing and sales, including Break the Rules
Selling: Success Strategies that Beat the Competition (Superior Books).
Mr. Graham writes for a variety of marketing and sales columns for
business and trade publications and he presents his Magnet Power presentations
at company and association meetings. He can be contacted at 40 Oval
Rd., Quincy, MA 02170; by telephone at 617-328-0069; by fax at 617-471-1504;
or by email at j_graham@grahamcomm.com. The web site is grahamcomm.com. |
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