Goals are not plans, they are ideas.
One of the most common things I hear business owners talk about is hitting X number of revenue within Y amount of time.
Now, I’m not discounting goal setting itself - it’s incredibly important to create a North Star to orientate towards.
Without this we breed complacency and simply operate from a state of idly bobbing our head above water.
However, the importance of setting goals pales in comparison to the art of strategic planning, and the science of executing it properly.
Too often, we announce lofty goals in states of emotion, but rarely do we employ logic into how we’re going to get it done.
Without a logical line of thinking, and documenting a plan - the goal just remains an idea, and the numbers our goals are tied to continue to fluctuate or plateau…
I have been part of MANY board meetings where the conversations are so focused on a number, that they progressively become disconnected to what made their business successful.
They become enamored with a new marketing idea, and have complete blinders on when they don’t see the cracks starting to show in their client experience, and ultimately in their retention numbers, and bottom line.
There is no plan, no specific actions, nor benchmarks, or milestones.
There is no afterthought of the resources required to hit the goal.
There is no risk mitigation.
It doesn’t have to be this way - a simple shift in perspective, and some questions that cut through the noise can create a lot of clarity.
If you are about to embark on a growth journey - here’s how to avoid the problems I just mentioned;
Diagnosing present state and trajectory.
Get real with where you are and what got you there - both good and bad.
Marketing is not a single thing or an activity in isolation - it is the sum total of everything you do.
Seek to understand and categorise your activities - from acquisition, onboarding, delivery, client experience, retention, re-engagement, generating referrals - basically the full gamut of the customer lifecycle.
Discard the notion of the big leap.
Get real with what you need to progress to the next step.
Don’t look to 5x or 10x in a short window, until you’ve learned to predictably, and consistently improve your results by 1.1 - 1.2x.
Massive growth is possible, and we often hear of these success stories in the media - but what we don’t see is the myriad of companies that fail to get there - predominantly because their goal is not anchored to any semblance of a plan.
Even if you manage to grow quickly without a plan - it’s typically resource heavy, and often there is more luck and good fortune than anything that is measured and methodical.
You need the latter (in bold) to be able to do it again to hit the next goal.
Flurried Bursts of Activity vs. Focused, Steady Execution
I’ll relate this to health and fitness for a second.
Put two people side by side.
Person A
They are a yo-yo dieter that restricts then binges
They do an 8 week challenge, then bender 4 weekends in a row, spending their Sundays cradling a bucket of the Colonels finest fried chicken.
Their self worth fluctuates in line with the numbers on the scale, as they train for summer and ‘shred’ for festival szn.
Person B
They are incorporating health and fitness as part of their lifestyle.
They train consistently and fuel their body with the right food.
They do mobility work - and value rest and recovery.
They still enjoy themselves and indulge in some sweet and savoury goodness, but it’s measured with logic and understanding.
So my question to you is...
Without me even putting down trivial numbers of weight, muscle mass, and body fat percentage…
Who is achieving the more desired result?
Who is in the best position to keep improving, and iterating from a position of strength?
Who is the one chasing their tail?
Who is more content and fulfilled?
The biggest problem with the setting of lofty targets, is that people are predisposed to thinking they just need to do MORE of what got them from A to B, and at a faster pace.
So they DO more the only way they know how - working longer and harder, rarely coming up for a breath of air, and some well time analysis.
This is akin to people that go from zero activity to training HARD 6 days of the week, only to feel depleted, and likely injure themselves, limiting their results.
In the business world - companies will double down on resource heavy activities like cold calling, outreach, networking, follow ups, and hammering their database with promotions and sales messaging.
It’s exhausting, and not even close to sustainable - so inevitably the end result is a lot of wasted time, energy, resources and pent up frustration that boils over when the results fluctuate, and eventually continue to plateau.
The Use Of Strength Multipliers
So how to create a plan that makes sense for our business?
It’s all about leveraging strength multipliers.
To summarise this further, I’ll defer to one of my favourite quotes by Abraham Lincoln;
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
The axe is the strength multiplier - and you need a plan to leverage your strengths to increase your chances at better outcomes.
You can have arms and back muscles bigger than Arnie, but ultimately if you are banging against a tree with a dull axe - you’re not going to get the result.
In the marketing world - this typically shows up as people that want believe they are just one marketing funnel or paid ad campaign away from lifechanging results.
Yes, these help - but without an aligned marketing system this is typically just noise provided by marketers that want to sell you the dream that they have the keys to the kingdom.
Side note - an aligned marketing system is not fancy automation - it’s simply a strategic structure.
Paid advertising is not magic. It is a companion to a system that works.
Our marketing activities need to align at a cross section with our existing and proposed trajectory - otherwise we will end in a completely different place, with less resources and momentum than when we started.
Often we find it’s not just the magic of a single Facebook Ad campaign, a landing page, and an email series that gets the results…
It’s the created leverage with what has worked to date within the business, while closing the gaps in how to building more opportunities and increasing value in the pipeline.
To loop back around to Abe Lincolns’ quotes, here are some questions we use with our clients - and I encourage you to ponder them as we head into this final stretch of 2020.
Where do we want to be? Where do we need to be? Are these the same?
How did we get to this number?
Do we have the existing capacity to deliver this increase in sales, or do we need additional resources?
What is our investment ratio for Acquisition, Retention, and Re-engagement activities?
What existing marketing activities are yielding the biggest result?
What marketing activities are not contributing to our brand, and our sales.
Are these marketing activities sitting in separate silos, or integrating together?
Have we correctly identified our axe (our strength multiplier).
What do we need to do to sharpen it (increase leverage)?
What other tools do we have that to create even MORE leverage?
These questions reveal where the gaps are, and where the building needs to start.
While it’s not what everyone want’s to hear - there is simply no other way to the top of the ladder, than rung by rung.
In the marketing ladder this typically goes from the lens Market > Offer > Presence > Campaign > Scale.
Zac
Just a few last questions to leave you with...
What is your ‘goal’ for 2021?
How are you planning on reaching it (i.e. what core activities will you be undertaking?)
Is this documented?