1. Share vision - map it out

Your vision is so clear to you, you know where you were in the past, what you are working for and where you are going. You’ve lived and breathed this since day one. You assume that EVERYONE else understands this and feels the same right? You can just FEEL company culture in the air every day, there is no escaping it...

This
is often a perspective that is incorrect at a more granular level, especially
when a company has grown from people who used to work together at the top or in
a more ‘family’ business. Often the vision that was so incredibly prominent at
the start, gets diluted through growth over time.

The
consequence of this dilution is that a lack of understanding of the real,
long-term business vision throughout the company (employees new and old) is
that there is unrest. There are employees living day by day handling tasks but
not creating a future and there are management issues through lack of
longer-term transparency.

Sharing
your vision through commercial strategy allows for clarity of purpose which we
all need to find toon with focus every day.

You can build a strategy overview that clearly shows every barrier facing the company with solutions and time periods for each. There is never any ambiguity over direction and people are happier and more productive. Your customers are receiving clearer, more consistent, genuine and relevant marketing communications. They buy more, more often for higher prices because your staff believe and so do the end users.

2. Think ahead to reduce stress

We
can all be reactive at times due to busy schedules and lack of trust in our
teams. The competition does something that puts our loyal customer base at risk
- what do we do? Panic and put out some half-arsed, fear driven, pricey,
untargeted marketing to make us feel like we’ve ticked a box.

This
won’t wash with longer term growth. You need to think ahead at all times. For
example, I map out my client marketing for 12 months but there is daily
flexibility in this and the benefits are twofold. The client gets to breathe a
big sigh of relief knowing it’s not something they need to invest any more
personal time in and they can see the relief in staff that the more creative
and commercial elements of marketing have clearly been taken care of.

If
it’s July and we’ve scheduled in a customer newsletter for October - I’m
writing it now. I’ve building skeleton plans, setting a budget, collating
material and building a targeted database. That way, there are no last-minute
deadlines, no mad panics to fill space and no over-spends to compensate for
poor planning.

Create a quarterly planner to assist you on this.

3. Give authority

Often,
stress in the workplace can come from feeling you need to action and drive
everything yourself (as the Manager/Owner/CEO). This drains your energy, your
ability to see the bigger picture and allows constant pressure on resource.

Employing
the right people in the right roles can take away an incredible amount of
stress and accelerate growth like never before, that’s why we all love a good
recruiter!

Giving
authority (real authority and trust, not superficial hand holding), can ensure
that your commercial strategy and marketing strategy are joined up, which is
essential. It can help to partner up this authority offering to both your Sales
Manager and Marketing Manager. Without this, your marketing staff will end up
being servants to your reactive sales people and the bigger picture, commercial
drivers will disappear in to the background, only to be painfully dig up at
every sales meeting where there will be a full-on scrap over responsibility and
results.

Eliminate
any absence of trust and get resource on board that gets the job done right,
first time, to the right people for the growth of the company.

For more genuine nuggets of marketing excellence get in touch www.gemmaangharad.com