Goals, and the matter of Values

I originally wrote a post with this title back in February and considering the controversy surrounding Dan Cathy's statement about his company's values...well, here's an updated re-post with my weigh-in on the matter.

Goals. Deep subject, and wide. Setting goals is one part of achieving good results. Achieving good results is about a matter of habits. Habits come about when we align values with our actions. We can then go about setting good goals, establishing plan and strategies, determining measure points, putting forth the work and having a robust evaluation and correction process.

I'd be willing to bet Mr. Cathy's dad, Truett, began developing those values, actions and habits a long long time ago. The results of those values, actions and habits have a daily impact in Chick-Fil-A's actions.

Goals are rarely achieved because of numerous reasons and the #1 cause is a lack of alignment to a person or company's T.A.S.K.S. (see below): Chick-Fil-A is probably well aligned.

Seth Godin's Circles of Marketing

I saw this post of Godin's this morning and thought about Ken Fudik w/TeamLogicIT and his marketing strategy...service, service, service. Ken can be reached at kfiduk@teamlogicit.com, 512-351-9340.

Seth Godin's Circle of Marketing; click here for entire article but in essence....most people think marketing is the outer circle. When that doesn't work, work inward.



Good stuff. When hype, spin and clicks don't work, drive your GREAT product or service.

Thanks Ken for practicing such good marketing!

To that end.....

Execute to Market Well: #5

A bit of rambling in this post. I'm a big picture type of person and have extreme difficulty focusing on ONE part of my marketing strategy.

Actually, after having wrote that last statement, I realize it's not true. I could stay engaged in the Weapons all-day-long-every-day. But that's not good. To continue.....though I'm might regularly engaged one particular area, everything else is close-at-hand.....more-or-less, maybe.

It's hard to imagine, that I get anything really accomplished with such a practice. But it has generally worked well for me when I don't stay in the details too long. When I get bogged down in the details I'll get lethargic and over think things way too much. The accomplishments typically come from engaging people and strategy into my operations.....using the resources I have available to get the little, minute things that MUST get done. And....working/executing from a plan.

And, there many times accomplishments (business) comes from the fact I'm just doing something!

Execute to market well: #4.....Nail down your Purpose

Experts say that very few people can properly describe their "marketing purpose." I recently asked hardcore sales people, both in a networking venue, and both gave "how" answers, but not "why." Another gave me some purpose, but had to add how.

Duct Tape Marketing gives this as a good example of a marketing purpose statement: "we're Crestwood Custom Home Remodelers and we want to be known as the no-mess, no-trash, we'll-make-your-neighbors-happy contractor." I like that. It doesn't say anything about themselves as contractors, but it gives purpose.

While there will be specific purposes defined by project or timeline goals there has to be a BIG purpose defined. For me to trust my marketing, it must have focused meaning, worth and intention. My marketing purpose is defined with THREE purposes. This is then followed-through with an operations ACTION. Without operations and action, or it becomes trivial (see post).

#1 - the purpose of my marketing is designed to capture the attention of my target market(s), and then

#2 - the purpose of my marketing is designed to give my target market information to facilitate their decision-making-process when they are ready to buy, and then

#3 - the purpose of my marketing is designed to keep the risk of buying as low as possible and is easy-to-take action on.


The 1st Purpose of my marketing is....

....to help you produce more by
giving away value in exchange for your attention.

To that end......be purposeful.



Execute to Market Well #3

As I've mentioned in previous posts, a small business must execute very well in order to WIN. This starts, at least in my world, with 3 processes: People, Strategy and Operations.

Marketing strategy starts with a plan. Here's the beginning of our plan's mindmap (Austen and I use SimpleMindTM) -

Achieving good results from this plan will require building and living it out continuously. Not only are we responsible for marketing, but originating, processing and working with our lenders to get loans underwritten, closed and funded to meet borrowers and Realtors time lines.

We'll achieve results in direct proportion to using all 4 cores of credibility as we practice smart-trust.


To that end....

Who do you trust with your mortgage referrals?

Danny 512-773-6528

Austen 512-773-6729

www.ImpactMortgageGroup.com

Neglecting Operations/Not Delivering Great Service: A Roadblock to Good Marketing

You can't market well if you can't deliver your product well; good operations is an essential part of your marketing. 

I was approached by a businessman (I'll call him John) that had come to a Guerrilla Marketing workshop. We engaged in a relationship and through the process of understanding where he is "now," I realized that his business would probably implode if he brought in any more business.

John has had great success in the past and comes up with a new idea at least once a day. He is the epitome of "entrepreneurial seizures." He would be a dream account for a good marketing coach. Except...John is wearing himself out and I believe I've convinced him that he needs to improve his ability to deliver his service before we can work on his marketing.

Cases like this are far too common. Most small business are started by people that have great ideas but don't know how to run a business, understand and handle the processes and they end up ignoring the operations.

Thus, the operations become a competitive disadvantage to marketing.

Are your operations, you ability to deliver great service, a competitive advantage?

To that end....

 

When is go-with-the-flow nothing but trivia?

In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely

loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.

- Robert Heinlein

How do you work your daily routines? The planned and not planned events of your day? Do you plan, set goals and prepare for changes? Or, are you in the more common camp of “go-with-the-flow.”

I call this the “ready-shoot-aim” method and actually know a few people who seem to do well in spite of themselves. That doesn’t work for most of us though.

To be effective, we know we need goals and a plan of action, but we’ve set and missed so many that it’s gotten us down and we’re scared to set them again. In default we’ve taken to the go-with-the-flow or ready-shoot-aim methods and we’ve failed.

Experts say that by far the #1 reason goals are NOT achieved is this..

Executing to Market Well - #2

To get good results, the small business person and/or single contributor salesperson must be smart with his marketing. For me....I need to take it up the levels of leadership. Leadership is 1st about leading yourself. Marketing myself "well" takes a purpose self-leadership style.

In Saturday's post Get marketing done well by knowing how to execute I quickly summerized the 3 big points of Bossidy/Charan's Execution: The Disclipline of Getting Things Done. Instead of business management, I've applied the processes to marketing....Marketing-Smart.

With subsequent posts over the next few weeks, I'll journal, outline, lay-out and generally write about how we're re-branding and marketing Impact Mortgage Group. And......the results.

Other books/blogs I'll undoubtedly mention in this series will include Platform, Speed of Trust, QBQ, Couragous Follower and Guerrilla Marketing.

Note: my marketing is geared 100% towards Guerrilla type marketing; marketing-smarter-not-harder; hard-core low cost and high impact.

This is a "living" document and I'm looking forward to what I learn in the process.

The 3 processes I'll apply:

• People Process: myself, Austen and others in my sphere of incluence that choose to help us market...more on that later but no one can get good results without help from others.
• Strategy Process: our marketing plan itself: the standard 7 step Guerrilla Marketing plan with a robust evaluation and correction 8th step (big part of Operations Process). Plus, WEAPONS, WEAPONS, WEAPONS....strategy must include the weapons you'll be using.
• Operations Process: getting it done. The actual work; how it is practiced...the operations to get the markting done. Note: this is the hard part - weaving the planning and people into the practice.

Each of these processes are important, but none more so than the other. Yes, people are always involved, but we normally don't think nor work with a people process mindset. Executing well requires a different thought process.


To that end.......think differently!

...and comment below on what you do to stay engaged in your marketing. Or..comment on how you've used processess. Did they work?

Danny

www.ImpactMortgageGroup.com

Who do you trust with your mortgage referrals?

Get marketing done well by knowing how to execute: #1

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan wrote Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done in 2002 and brought together three important process: people, strategy and operations. The authors don't talk about these processes in realtion to marketing, but I've found they’re an ideal fit for Guerrilla Marketing and MarketSmarterNotHarder.

As a small businessperson, or individual/single contributor sales person, you must Execute your marketing well.

• People Process -  link all the people involved in your marketing to the strategy and operations
• even the smallest of organizations have people outside the employee realm that can/do participate. I'll talk more about this in a later post
• included vendors and fusion partners in the thought process of People
• if you have an HR department, be sure they are involved
• continuously think about improvement in the People Process
• Strategy Process - link your marketing strategy process itself to the people and the operations
• everyone involved in the execution of the Marketing Plan must be involved in constructing and owning their part of the strategy
• a strong strategy for executing the Marketing Plan will address the following questions:
• what is the assessment of the external environment?
• how well do you understand the existing customers and markets?
• what are the best ways to grow the business profitably? (see Guerrilla Marketing)
• what are the obstacles to growth?
• who are your competitors?
• can the overall business execute this strategy?
• what are important milestones for executing the plan?
• are the short-term and the long-term balanced?
• what are the critical issues facing the business that need to be addressed?
• how will the business make money on a sustainable basis?
•  Operations Process - link the process of implementing the actual operations of your marketing consistently to the people and the strategy
• all the moving parts have the same common assumptions
• embrace trade-offs
• have contingency plans
• have a robust evaluation and correction system in place

Weaving and blending these process into your practices into your strategy (you have to have a purposeful strategey) and your opertations (you have one whether you purposefully do or not) is the direct results of the impact you get.

And finally, a robust evaluation and correction process. More about these processes on Monday.

What do you do to stay keyed-in on your marketing efforts? (Comment button is bit small, but I'd love to hear what you have to say..or read)


To that end.....practice, practice, practice....MarketSmarterNotHarder.



Danny L. Smith   |   512-773-6528   | Danny@DannyLSmith.com

www.ImpactMortgageGroup.com

Who do you trust with your mortgage referralls?

Staying on Purpose - A Daily Marketing Plan

Looking over my shoulder and reviewing the day's events (I visualize myself turning my head)....I see I accomplished some of what I'd intended, but not near everything. Part of the start to my day is reviewing my marketing plan, evaluating and making any changes and focusing on the main event.

My personality is high D/I (from the DISC assessment) which means I have great intentions and will set out to accomplish something, even if it's wrong (D), but I can sure get distracted (I) by texts, people calling, a new idea (brainstorm), shiny objects....(oh look at that kitty). It really is amazing that I get anything done while at the same time I continue to be dumbfounded by the fact it happend AGAIN!

The Power of Words

Be mindful of the words you use when you talk to others and yourself. The words matter, and in the words of my friend John P. Griffin...YOU MATTER.


To that end.....

Why Work?

Why do you work? Postings about this subject: http://godandworkmatters.blogspot.com/

22 of the Many Roadblocks to Successful Marketing (and getting money in the bank)

Remember the Titans - Coach Boone Speech

Just saying -