Management

Last week was mammoth. I spent 4 days on a speaking tour of the Fraser Coast, promoting Marketing Eye's not-for-profit, The World Incubator, and innovation as a whole.

There are many lessons to learn when talking to crowds, and the first is to adapt to the crowd you are talking to. 

We are quite the fancy pants of marketing of late and have delivered a business and marketing plan for our own company that is one of the best I have ever seen. We haven't focused on our old-style corporate internal document, but instead, a fully engaging interactive and KPI orientated presentation that has inspired our team to do more, be more and conquer quite a few goals.

Marketing Managers want to be at the table when business decisions are being made. They, by sheer title, believe that they are being largely ignored over Sales Manager who bring dollars to the table and other senior management team members including technology. 

With planning on the agenda this week and new hires, it has become apparent that we have to look closely at the past to ensure that our business goes into the future with it's best foot forward.

I'm in heavy business planning stage right now and I am looking for a lot of growth and development within our business. Our products need further development before August, and our APP must be finished for our clients, licensees and employees so that training and development as well as the marketing dashboard is at their fingertips.

I'm a strong believer in technology and how it powers performance. I don't hide behind the fact that I believe that marketing needs to reinvent itself and allow robots in, while still maintaining the personal touch. It's a hard combo and no-one really has it right. Marketing automation was supposed to solve this problem but there is no program yet on the market that actually does this well enough.

The human touch is still over-needed.

To keep abreast of what is going on in our industry and to maintain our position of leadership, we are working more on innovation and technology, while teaching new staff, new ways in which they can work to better perform for clients.

A catalyst for this is change is needed every year in a growing progressive company. You can't deliver upon continual growth at the rate we are aiming for without making sure you are a step ahead of the market - always.

People buy-in is instrumental and at my own fault I have sometimes forgotten that inclusion when I have impulsively developed a new or innovative process. Fairly stereo typical of an entrepreneur who is creative, but not acceptable and sustainable.

If your business hasn't:

Developed a business plan for 2016/17
Developed a marketing strategy that is not the same as last year, for 2016/17
Audited your processes for constant improvement across all areas
Set  your sales goals and ensured all team members are across them
Invested in people management, development and growth allowing adequate budget for the year
Made innovation your number one motivator for staying on top
Bought a copy of Gazelle's and completed the two page template and shared with your team

The last week in New York was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

So many things happened, but mostly I have to say the city just absorbs all my creative juices and it makes me want to take on the world in every aspect of life.