Yesterday?
As the catalyst for growth in your company, it falls on you to align your growth goals with cash flow and investment needs.
Let’s face it: Your P&L and profitability projections rule the roost as they should!
Tension around these decisions can get real, real fast. Decision-making is stressful, and clear answers are hiding under mixed priorities and conflicting needs. Like these:
Here’s how I begin to teach companies how to calculate the right marketing budget for growth:
My long-time clients like to make fun of me for applying the word “strategy” to every discussion. I’m a big girl, I can take it.
But here's an insight that justifies my strategy talk:
Buying marketing services without a strategy is like buying financial advice without your own personal goals in mind.
Think about it:
There are a lot of “marketing speak” terms and phrases used to illustrate wins in strategy (sometimes overused, to be honest). “We really moved the needle on our KPIs” or “Our shift to more focused smarketing made a significant impact on ROI.”
With the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps no term was more frequently used than pivot. And rightfully so. What else were businesses supposed to do when the world came crashing down?
More than six months into 2020, we're well past asking the question: When will the pandemic-induced disruption end?
Now, it's about taking advantage of the adaptive agility COVID-19 has incited.
For B2B companies that serve ecomm and retail, we’ve witnessed opportunities in tactical excellence and strategic thinking that can open minds to some low-hanging fruit.
These days, so many companies are scurrying around looking for answers. But, when you’re in the thick of everything, it’s difficult to see things clearly. Lost revenue, a waning customer base, and no definitive date to return to “business as normal” has companies clamoring for some semblance of direction; of hope.
The reality is, past performance is no longer an indication of future success. People we are working with are taking a step back and looking more holistically at their businesses to ask:
The pain of heartbreak. The guilt of the break-up. Here’s the story.
My First Love
I tried a new brand of household products about two years ago. They advertised on Facebook. The advertising was silly. It made the point. The product was environmentally friendly, and it came in the mail by subscription.
I tried it. I liked it. End of story. Let’s call them Brand #1.
A few weeks ago, I spoke to 50 members of the Collaberex networking organization about goal setting for 2020, in light of this new world we’re living in.
The premise of the presentation was looking ahead to what business will look like on the eve of New Year’s Day, 2021, and what people can realistically expect to “celebrate.” As much as we’d all love for things to go back to normal, those days--as we knew them--will likely never be quite the same.
So, we adapt. We lead.
I’m deep in the world of optimizing ecomm businesses for companies with an emotional, aesthetic focus. Their success is connected to both visual appeal and real-time experience, but fulfilled digitally.
Think about that: a customer connection driven by beauty, fulfilled digitally. Whoosh! What was once imagination, is now oh, so real.
When the coronavirus crisis erupted, our podcast team at “How Do We Fix It?” had to react in a hurry. Co-host, Jim Meigs, producer Miranda Shafer, and I tossed our carefully orchestrated spring program plans into the trash.
We’re a weekly news show committed to talking about fresh and surprising ideas that could make the world a better place. We had to stay relevant. Now we’re winging it week-by-week, booking guests one or two days in advance. Scrappy and immediate is the order of the day. Quick turnaround time is essential.
The same is true for countless other content creators.
