Apex Insights, LLC

Strategic Business Planning: When To Start?

Back in 1999, I would have said that a good time to start business planning was during your annual company retreat in Aruba. (Mai Tai's optional, of course.)

But as you might have guessed, that's not the case today.  Market volatility and the natural-selection-on-steroids process we're witnessing now simply doesn't allow too much luxury time spent in "planning to plan."

The short answer on when to start planning business strategy is this:  NOW.

No matter how you spend your money or focus your personnel, every single component of planning helps better inform those decisions.  Here are a few big ways in which planning components can play a pivotal role in attaining your business objectives:

• Audience Analysis:  Have you narrowly refined your targets? Applied the 80/20 rule? Developed personas?
• Competitive Landscape:  What should you do that's "me-too?" Where should you break from the pack?
• Executive Roadmap: Is every sales and marketing activity tied to a strategy and overarching business goal?
• Messaging: What is your relevant, values-driven authentic message?  What is your thought leadership platform?
• Integrated Promotions: How will you tie everything together, including social media?

Deep down we know the value of planning, and why the following quote resonates:

“Planning is bringing the future into the present
so that you can do something about it now.”
~Alan Lakein

Despite knowing the positive impact strategic planning has on your organization, we may still encounter some resistance to push through. And sometimes we don't know whether to take it on ourselves or hire out for it. And once we begin, we do need to address the process for operationalizing planning as a discipline.

Although there is a strong business case for starting now -- for competitive and revenue reasons -- in future articles we will be exploring more practical timelines for high-impact milestones such as key events and product or service launches.

Stay tuned...

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Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.

And if you would like to include this article on your blog as a guest post, we'd be honored. Please write to us here: info AT apexinsights DOT com.

How to Operationalize Strategic Business Planning

By now you may recognize that planning is an essential component of successful business.  Perhaps you've read the entry "Moving Beyond 'Plan' as a Four-Letter Word."

Perhaps you've even decided as to how you might kick off the process. The previous post "Strategic Business Planning: In-house or Outsource?" covers both options (including pros and cons) in great detail.

Making a Commitment

In order to bring planning to your organization as a discipline, you must commit to operationalizing it. This means making it part and parcel of periodic business operations, just like payroll or inventory audits. While this may seem daunting initially, it will only take a few instances before it becomes a part of business as usual.    

Beginning the planning process without commitment from key stakeholders, your organization runs the risk of investing time and money upfront only to find that the process fizzles out.  Remember: it doesn't have to be a major undertaking and clog your productivity with weekly meetings. The frequency and duration should correspond with the objectives.  And depending on how early you start, the process can simply rolled into all the other activities which correspond to your business objectives.

Operationalizing Components

Following are key components you'll need to take into account, with practical notes on each. Please note that these suggestions apply whether you are conducting strictly in-house planning or working with an outside agent or agency.

1. The Planning Team: You may be initially tempted to pull in one person from each major department or discipline. Resist this urge in favor of recruiting people with good general business background and who are known around the office for proposing new ideas. You want visionaries who can think beyond their area of expertise.  Keep it manageable...a small focused team of 3-7 people is ideal.
2. Planning Structure: You want to have a meeting structure in place before you begin your planning.  Try to keep to the same structure each meeting so you get into an efficient groove. A good sample agenda includes: meeting objectives, ideas proposed, discussion, decisions, and next action assignments.
3. Planning Venue: Don't worry...you don't have to go choreograph a full-day retreat. You certainly can, but needn't.  A two-hour in-office getaway is fine, so long as you really do disconnect and give the planning exercises your full attention.
4. Frequency: In order to make it stick, you do need to put planning on the calendar, and the frequency will depend on your planning objectives.  If you are about to have a momentous product or service rollout, or major reorganization, this clearly merits planning sessions at least every two weeks to make adequate traction.  If you have a huge peak season during the year (say, winter holiday), then your planning sessions may only happen in anticipation of the big event by about 6-9 months.
5. Success Metrics: Decide up front how you will measure success for your planning efforts.  This could be as simple as including a venue for all key stakeholders to provide feedback at the end of each planning meeting.  Or, you can get more sophisticated and identify key milestones along the way, such as increased funding, executive-level support, or shortening your go-to-market runway.

The Good News

Integrating planning as part of the organizational processes, indeed even weaving it into the fabric of the corporate culture, is not something that happens overnight. Like a product rollout, a national promotional campaign, or even the web site, it is an evolutionary process, with course correction and improvements along the way.

But starting somewhere is better than postponing indefinitely, so the good news is that you now have some key information on taking that first step, deciding how you will begin planning, and implementing it as a true discipline in your organization.

I leave you with a quote that reminds us just how important it is to plan:

"When you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."

~The Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland

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Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.

And if you would like to include this article on your blog as a guest post, we'd be honored. Please write to us here: info AT apexinsights DOT com.

Strategic Business Planning: In-house or Outsource?

You're ready to start proactively planning for your organization's success. There are, of course, many different areas in which to plan: accounting, IT, marketing, advertising, etc.  For the sake of argument let us assume we are addressing general business direction and market planning -- the five components covered in the previous post of "Moving Beyond 'Plan' as a Four-Letter Word."

In this earlier post we cover why strategic planning can be such a challenge but how the most successful organizations and leaders recognize feeling "stuck" and get ready to move past it. Once ready to commit to planning as a serious endeavor, at the most fundamental level you have two options:  do it on your own, or work with an outside agent.

Let's take a closer look at what each of these approaches means to your organization as well as their pros and cons:

In-House: Plan On Your Own

There's nothing quite like starting right here, right now to get going.  Rallying the troops 'round a table and talking about where you want to take the business is an excellent first step. The key thing to keep in mind is fostering real, passionate commitment among key stakeholders.  If the leadership team isn't serious about achieving strategic planning goals in a particular timeframe, it runs the risk of bringing to life the humorous satire of Despair.com's view of planning.

So let's take a look at what we can expect when bringing strategic business planning in-house...

Advantages:

• No additional financial investment; time only
• Can begin ASAP
• Great outlet and motivation for "idea people" on the team
• An opportunity to find and cultivate the "big thinkers" in the group
• Pre-existing deep knowledge of organization and what is/is not possible

Disadvantages:

• May be limited by existing traditions and paradigms
• Innovation may suffer in catering to existing hierarchy and roles/titles
• Existing group dynamics and politics may skew planning in a specific direction or result in stalemates
• In-house team likely not subject experts in planning methodologies and frameworks...may experience inefficiency

Outsource: Work With a Consultant or Agency

Leaders can tell when their organization has hit a point of stagnation. Smart leaders proactively address it.  Exceptional leaders are willing to look at solutions from all angles, and recognize that sometimes the best way to maximize your current talent pool is by injecting new life into it from time to time. If your organization has never worked with an outside agent for strategic business planning, here is a general idea of what you can expect...

Advantages:

• An outside perspective brings the power to see into organizational blind spots
• Ability to mediate politics and hierarchy to level the playing field of contribution
• Unbiased research brings new market insights into the planning process
• Subject matter expertise in strategic planning as a discipline 
• Only invest when needed...can work with the same outside party over a long period of time with the financial efficiency of increasing or decreasing engagement as needed

Disadvantages:

• Additional financial investment
• Time invested in selecting the right agent or agency
• Initial ramp time to get to know the organization for maximum contribution

Key Deciding Factors
In addition to the pros and cons listed above, the three key factors that will help you make your decision are really very simple, and should come as no surprise:

1. Time
2. Money
3. Goals

Not coincidentally, this ties into the reliable business "Rule of Two" relating to "Fast, Cheap, and Good."  The rule is simple: you can have any two. If it's fast and cheap, don't expect it to be good.  If it's fast and good, don't expect it to be cheap. You get the idea. 

So the key question to ask is: what is driving your strategic planning needs? If you are facing a competitive threat (e.g. a competitive product release which may compromise your own market impact), strategic planning may need to happen quickly and you're best off bringing outside help for maximum efficiency. If you are planning proactively and have the luxury of a long lead time and time for course correction, in-house may be the way to go. 

Whatever your organization decides, it's a good idea to look at the three key criteria and have a frank discussion about goals as well as the advantages and disadvantages described above.  Next week we'll be covering a related and very important topic for bringing these concepts to fruition: "How to Operationalize Strategic Business Planning."

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Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.

And if you would like to include this article on your blog as a guest post, we'd be honored. Please write to us here: info AT apexinsights DOT com.

Moving Beyond "Plan" as a Four-Letter Word

Have you noticed how much productivity experts are in demand these days?

How popular blogs like zenhabits.com have become?

That everyone is trying to do more with less?

The Challenge

It's because we are all experiencing information and activity overwhelm on both personal and professional levels. And if you are a small or medium-size business owner, you can pretty safely take the average rate of overwhelm and double it.  Between business development, marketing, minding the financials, and managing employee satisfaction and productivity there are really never enough hours in the day. There are always issues that need attention, and periods of relative "quiet" are fleeting at best. Hence the popular saying: "You are your own worst client."

Amidst day-to-day customer and operational issues, it's challenging to carve out time to stop (a luxury), reflect (what?), and yes...plan (gasp!). Yet it needs to be done. 

Stephen Covey points out that we spend most of our time addressing "Urgent but not Important" tasks, e.g. phone calls, e-mail, little time-sensitive issues. And not nearly enough time on "Important but not Urgent" issues. That is...the stuff that really matters.  What taking your business to the next level really means, and how you're going to set about doing it.

The Opportunity

The good news is that recognizing you'd like to implement planning as part of your overall business operations regimen is the foundation you need for getting started. In strategic planning, you generally re-group a core team of contributors to identify what you offer the market, who your market is, and what your value proposition to that market is.  There are many ways to set about planning, but here is a simple framework:

1. Set organizational vision and goals
2. Conduct a standard SWOT analysis
3. Conduct a gap analysis between current and ideal states
4. Agree on organizational priorities
5. Develop planning success metrics

There are enough approaches to fill a book so we won't discuss particulars here, but rather focus on the importance of keeping planning on the radar in order to stay competitive and evolve as an organization.

"Successful organizations plan for innovation and allocate resources to it."

~Paul Sloane, author and expert on leadership and creative thinking~

Most leading-edge organizations, like most leading-edge individuals, set aside time to plan for the future.  And it needn't be an overproduced affair.  You can start small...the important thing is to start once you recognize that you do have a desire to plan the evolution of your business. 

That's not the tricky part, though.  The tricky part is deciding how to start and then sticking with it. In my experience there are two basic approaches to strategic business planning: doing it in-house or outsourcing to a professional.

We'll explore all the detail and practical applications in the next post: "Strategic Business Planning: In-house or Outsource?"

Subsequently we will also address the next critical step: "How to Operationalize Strategic Business Planning."

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Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.

And if you would like to include this article on your blog as a guest post, we'd be honored. Please write to us here: info AT apexinsights DOT com.

The Cost Advantage of Hiring a Marketing Consultant

Today, businesses are looking to get leaner and more efficient. It's a sign of the times, and it is probably here to stay for some time.

In considering the marketing activities in an SMB environment, the prudent marketing executive will be quick to weigh hiring an outside strategic expert against the status quo, or more traditional options.  Thinking it through is absolutely the right thing to do.

Many small and medium-sized companies will initially look at containing costs by using their own internal resources and hiring a new employee.  However, there are soft costs we should be aware of associated with that approach. 

Consider this: the true cost of a full-time employee goes well beyond salary compensation, with the total figure often exceeding annual pay by surprising numbers.  Some of the key categories responsible for additional expenses include:
1.    Non-salary payroll expenses (taxes, bonuses, etc)
2.    Benefits (health and insurance)
3.    Recruiting
4.    Facilities (equipment, supplies, etc)
5.    HR

And there's yet another cost which can be measured in dollars and cents, but most importantly, and disturbingly, in terms of sacrificed competitive advantage...it is the cost of expertise.  Training is both a line-item expense, but also hard to pin down because you can only invest in so much training for one to two people before the effects become diffuse. This is a troublesome item because the costs are harder to pin down beyond training totals.  How do you put a price on sacrificing competitive advantage or being late to market?

And finally, many companies have existing relationships with more traditional full-service marketing agencies.  The biggest issue here is that these organizations have a high likelihood of recommending self-serving tactics, and may not be uniquely poised to innovate for their clients. Add to that the markup of overhead operating costs and you start to see that even when are you getting the desired output, it definitely has some hidden costs.

So it would seem that from the perspective of non-payroll employee costs, expertise training, and full-service agencies, a sensible move would be to consider working with an expert on an as-needed basis to maximize your market investment.

Until next time, keep your eye on the bottom line, but always in the context of your bigger business vision.

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Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.

And if you would like to include this article on your blog as a guest post, we'd be honored. Please write to us here: info AT apexinsights DOT com.

SMB Marketing Staffing Management (part 2:2)

The Ups and Downs of Marketing Reality

In the first installment we examined the challenge of expertise in small/medium business marketing teams. Here we pay closer attention to staffing from a workload perspective.

The real world does not always operate according to plan -- marketing must stay nimble and ready to hit the ground running or hit the brakes according to what the market demands.

So in the interest of being realistic lets take a moment to examine allocation of budget and resources in a dynamic marketing environment -- which is the nature of every business environment.

With most small and medium businesses, we find that any given calendar year will witness some key initiatives which have a direct marketing impact:

1)    Product Launches
2)    Key Industry Events
3)    Corporate or Product/Service Repositioning
4)    Interactive Initiatives (e.g. site re-launches)
5)    Fiscal Close Dates

It’s fairly evident that as these events occur over the fiscal year, spending and resources must ratchet up and down to successfully achieve goals.  The challenge for the marketer, then, becomes how to appropriately plan for maximum efficiency.  Rarely are market events scheduled conveniently to keep all employees at a steady and full work pace, and to keep all marketing spending evenly parsed throughout the quarter. 

For aggressive companies who are looking to increase their market activities to gain an edge over their more dormant competitors, this suggests the challenge of striking the balance between additional investment and additional headcount.

Smart marketing organizations will turn to flexible resources and creative billing processes to forge on ahead. When the alternative is keeping a small in-house staff either running at full tilt or twiddline their thumbs, looking to external resource to "turn on" and "dim" during peaks and valleys makes sound fiscal sense.

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Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.

And if you would like to include this article on your blog as a guest post, we'd be honored. Please write to us here: info AT apexinsights DOT com.

SMB Marketing Staffing Management (part 1:2)

Managing The Best People for the Job, But Just Enough of Them

One of the great challenges of small to medium sized business is accomplishing all of the functions of the enterprise without an enterprise-sized staff. This is especially timely in today's business climate where every efficiency is paramount.

Fortunately, the entrepreneurial nature of smaller businesses usually results in an efficient process of doing more with less – with the most talented employees often wearing many hats. 

From a marketing perspective, this usually plays out with one or two key decision-makers and a staff of generalists – those who have a broad spectrum of marketing expertise and can aptly work with PR to advertising to interactive agencies.  Occasionally there will also be a specialist of some sort on hand, depending on the company’s area of focus.  This could be PR, direct marketing, social media, or interactive. 

Generally speaking, this would make for a pretty solid team who could execute key campaigns and meet the company’s needs in the first few years of growth.  However, when looking at a longer-term, more aggressive growth strategy, this structure does reveal its weaknesses.

    What is oftentimes the case, due to workload and diversity of marketing initiatives, is a marketing executive becomes bogged down in the details of management and execution.  While this person’s leadership and perspective will often benefit the particular campaigns, what is compromised is his or her time to plan strategically for the company. When time is of the essence, this compromise does bear a cost.

    An additional consideration is how specialists are hired and the potential lopsided emphasis this can create.  For example, in an organization with two generalists and one PR specialist, the PR function will reap the most rewards.  Where this leads us is striking the organizational balance between in-house managers and bringing in outside specialists to add capabilities and fresh thinking to the established marketing staff.

    In the second installment we will also explore the need to manage pulses of activity in the marketing organization.

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Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.

And if you would like to include this article on your blog as a guest post, we'd be honored. Please write to us here: info AT apexinsights DOT com.