Got a Marketing Plan?
It is strange, but true. The majority of businesses that my colleagues encounter do not have a Marketing Plan. Or a Business Plan. Or a Plan of any sort, by any name.
When we were recently in discussions with a fairly significant business (30 years old, T/O in excess of $150 million and 300 hundred staff) and asked if they had a Strategic Plan, Business Plan or any other kind of Plan, the CEO tapped his head and said “It’s all up here”.
The scary reality for any business is this - Navigating your business without a Plan (whatever you choose to call that Plan) is like sitting on the flight deck of an aircraft with no Flight Plan. And the consequences of that are almost always going to be catastrophic.
At its most basic, your Plan should simply address the three key questions of business planning:
Where am I?
Where do I want to be?
What do I need to do to get there?
And frankly, it doesn’t matter whether its written on the back of a loo roll or exquisitely presented, spirally bound, colour coded, cross tabulated and fully indexed. In fact, the former is likely to be more workmanlike, practical and effective whilst the latter may well end up consigned to looking pretty on a bookshelf.
When you’ve got your Plan, simply add a dashboard to help you stay on course and there you have it – a business that knows where its going is and how its going to get there.
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