HAVE A CLEAR VISION

Human beings have a lot in common. For instance most of us tend to:

• Be overly optimistic about our ability to perform and the timescales involved
• Expect things to work themselves out
• Underestimate our competitors
• Lazy in one form or another

These character traits can get us into a lot of trouble. They tend to stop us from making meaningful and realistic plans about our futures. I have found that the larger a company or team is the more likely they are to have a vision backed up by a fully thought out plan of action. This is normally because bigger organisations tend to be able to employ higher calibre personnel. Smaller firms tend not to have any systematic form of business planning and most don’t really have any idea of where they want to get to i.e. they have no Strategy so any broadly relevant direction will do.

If we are to be successful, grow and avoid the pitfalls of poor business planning it is imperative that we have some sort of idea where we are going, why and what it will take to get there. It starts with vision and a sense of mission and cascades down through strategic and tactical business planning. How else can our marketers know what is expected of them?

So be on a mission, know what is required, deploy your limited resources appropriately and you will succeed.

If you have any problems you know a man who can help.

BY WHEN? AND WHY?

I have a client, who’s  a self  taught Project Manager

He started out in the construction industry as a ‘Joiner’ and then worked hard to become a very experienced and effective Project Manager. During that time he has developed two favourite questions, by when? And, why?

These two questions put the people he is managing under real pressure because they have to tell him what he needs to know, now!

He insists on full answers that are simple, straightforward and honest.  He uses the information gathered to get the whole team pointing in the right direction, to take sensible steps forward and to do so as economically as possible.

When variations to the plan take place he always implements his favourite questions, because they get him reams of information i.e. they both help to expose and solve problems.

Well, he might be a good PM but he’s not very good at marketing his services! He tends to rely on merely doing a good job in the hope that his efforts are appreciated by someone. Sadly it doesn’t always work out that way for him.

So we put a few alternative suggestions to him that would generate new leads for his services.  He quite liked the sound of our direct mail methodology. I think he liked it because we based it on one of his favourite words, why!

We produced a mailing piece that had the title:

 ‘10 Things You Must knows Before You Employ a Project Manager’.

It contained ten key questions that any potential client needs to know the answers to before he appoints a PM. Of course, and not by coincidence, our client had the necessary combination of qualifications, relevant work experience and knowledge of the particular sector the campaign was aimed at.

Within days of having sent it out, and without any form of follow up, he received four invitations to attend exploratory talks with potential clients. We actually followed up his original mailing with six follow on postcards. The final results ended up with his having received ten requests for discussion and he eventually secured two full fee paying commissions!

So, sometimes it’s important to find out ‘WHY’ something is important and by ‘WHEN’ it needs to be done!

If you need some help with this sort of thing you know a man who can help.

Be a Fountain, Not a Drain

In order to be a ‘fountain’ we need to have the inclination, will and ability to deliver positive results for our client’s; and not merely be a purveyor of polished marketing and sales rhetoric.

Recently, a potential client asked us. “If I hire a specialist construction marketing firm like yours, rather than  a middle of the road marketing firm, will that ensure that it will help my business increase sales”?

As the founder and owner of such a business I assure him that the methods, techniques and processes we use will always get ‘the phone to ring’.


Marketing, I told him, is all about getting the word out about your business to all the right people, and is directly correlated to a firms overall sales performance. Intelligent marketing strategies, tactics and tools will get people  to your website, read your core message and compel them to pick the phone up to call you.


Once you have made the phone ring, what happens after that is usually called ‘sales’. Sales and selling are up to you, your team. If you don’t know how to follow up calls and enquiries handle service calls from customers; and give them what they want, all the marketing in the world won’t help.   


To be successful, marketing needs to be consistently implemented over the lifetime of a business.  On top of that, marketing can bring in new contacts, prospects and customers, but what happens after that is up to you.  Make sure that you give them all enough reasons to buy or give them reasons to come back. 


As for being a ‘drain’ that probably means some people just don’t know how to!


Fortunately, you know a man who can.