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In the current turbulent global environment - having one forecast is just not enough. There are way too many variables and possible combinations of events to be reflected in a single set of numbers.

I have just been reading Chaoticsby Kotler and Caslione. Basic premise of Chaotics is that the traditional view of strategic planning is that companies tend to lock themselves into a forecast. This forecast will have come from a range of inputs based on internal and external factors. A company will have one or two future scenarios planned out - such as high growth and low growth.

But in the current climate of business this may is not be enough. Consider that you are an Australian mining company, today in May 2010:

* Will the federal Government apply the new 40% resources tax? Or will it be reduced? Or will the next election be  won by the conservatives and no tax applies?
* Will China continue to grow and import resources, or will they reduce imports as they have stockpiles in place?
* Will Europe/Eurozone fix their issues, split into two zones or create another financial crisis?

There are seven or so possibilities in these three questions, before considering carbon taxes! So as an Australian miner there are a number of ways that this can play out be you BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Fortescue or a junior.

Similar factors can apply to any business and the sound idea behind this book is that there are multiple possible futures. A company should put in place a strategic framework to map out these scenarios and then create ‘early warning systems’ that identify the changes and allow the company to rapidly respond. As the scenarios have been mapped out and a response defined, it allows a company to implement quickly their response. This provides a company improved robustness and resilience to an ever changing landscape.

So the question is, how many forecasts and plans does your business have? This book recommends a number of scenarios so that a company can manage their business in the ups and the downs.

What has happened since you developed your plan and ask a simple question:

“What sacred cow are holding your business back?”

Every buiness has some history or long held belief. Some are important and key for the culture of the company whilst others really should be jettisoned - which does your business have?

What has happened since you developed your plan and ask a simple question:

 ”What assumptions have you made that are NO LONGER VALID?”

Each plan is made up of assumptions, be they growth or economic climate or response rates to direct mail.

Don’t keep on going if you know that your assumptions are wrong - just re-frame and reset for for Plan B. In your new plan, create some scenarios and action plans for the future where an assumption might change. Consider it early and have a pre-prepared response ready to go - you’ll impress the boss too!

 If at first you don’t succeed try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it

WC Fields

This is one of my favourite quotes. It application for a business is so important as it challenges us to ask questions:

• Are we being successful in meeting goals

• What are we doing well

• What are we doing badly

• Are we growing( revenue, profits, customers)

And finally, how long have you been working on these projects/activities - too long? As Seth Godin noted in his book “the dip” - to understand when to quit and when to stick with it are critical capabilities.

So in this business planning time, review your  projects and start working on Plan B that can be rapidly deployed.

Strategic Marketing is about three time horizons:

1. Here and now/this month/quarter
2. The Year
3. Over the horizon - the future market

1. These are the activities that need to be delivered this month, quarter to help deliver sales. If a business generates these activities based on current market feedback then it can fall into a trap where it becomes too TACTICAL.

2. If there is yearly plan then all your activities that you are doing above can follow a theme to create momentum.

3. One of marketing’s least prioritised areas is that of defining the future market - peering over the top of the horizon to understand where customers and consumers ( and therefore the market) will be in 18-36 months time.

The balance that marketing must have is to add resources, time and effort into the longer term activities, whilst continuing to build excellent short-term results. As always you need to be aware of market shifts and be able to respond to them, but not constantly knee-jerk react to every shiny object that passes before us.

I think that a business’ brand and reputation is affected by everything it does, all its transactions with customers, prospects and society in general. So how far should a business take customer orientation?

I ask the question because of a bad experience with a company that I was previously happy with and had recommended, but now feel let down. The company is a removals/relocation company and I used them when I last moved - some years ago now.

But back in December 09 things turned sour! My car was hit whilst being overtaken by one of their trucks while I was waiting to merge into a lane on the Pacific Highway in North Sydney. So in my mind I was: 

•  at rest and

•  being overtaken

The car behind me had stopped and as the situation was obvious to both of us he drove on without leaving details. ( mistake readers!) 

Anyway, the truck driver eventually wandered down , disputed what had happened and we exchanged some info. Note here to readers, you need to get the Home details of the driver, not just the business details - something I did not get at the time. I then had to chase these up and eventually ended up calling the driver 7 times. Then raised it too the local manager and then the CEO before my call was returned and details supplied - this took place in February. Response was essentially to ‘let the insurance companies work it out”.

Last week my insurer came back to me and said that the $500+  damage would need to be paid by myself - as it was less than the excess and also the transport company would not accept any liability. So here I am, out of pocket, somewhat agitated with the process and blogging away. It seems to me that although I was not a customer at the time, I am certainly dissatisfied with the company and its responses. So the question is “do you believe that customer satisfaction and moments of truth extend to situations outside the normal boundaries of customer satisfaction?”

The Company WAS R.J. Nuss Removals on www.nuss.com.auand I have invited-them to respond on this blog. Unfortunately they are not a company that has a sticker on their truck that reads “We are proud of our driving, please call if you have a complaint”.

Note: Moments of Truth was a book written by Jan Carlson, of SAS airlines and the book is available http://www.amazon.com/Moments-Truth-Jan-Carlzon/dp/0060915803  

Campaign Manager - a career dead end. The days of this popular job category are nearly over - a campaign manager designing a single large, integrated, multi-step, controlled, linear campaign are about to be replaced.

The future campaigns are:

• Small
• Integrated
• Multi-step
• Non-linear
• Uncontrolled

Small - we wont load a tens of thousands of contacts into a campaign and jam them through and get a 2% dribble out the other end. We’ll set up small campaigns that wont fire until maybe only one contact enters the campaign from a survey, but the response rate will be high >20%.

Integrated - we’ll still use DM, email, telemarketing, websites etc. But we’ll look to track and measure each step better

Multi-step - campaigns will more closely match the ‘buyers journey’ rather than the sellers process

Non -linear - campaigns will be flexible and build up a profile or footprint of the contacts in the campaign - its will adjust automatically to their pace and position on the buyers journey

Uncontrolled - as with much happening on the social media front at the moment - brand and product control is being replaced with collaboration with the brand users.

So if you are a campaign manager today, time to rethink and retrain. If you want to become one, start understanding now where the future lies. A good place is to start looking at Marketing Automation.

A B2B marketer has two customers, THE CUSTOMER who buys the product and also the sales team. The sales team is made up of a varied group of individuals with a range of talents - and you deliver them all the same quality leads? A little crazy?

 In all sales teams there are those under-performers and the over-performers. An over performer can take a lead, work through it, qualify it and give you  balanced feedback. It may take a few weeks but you get a good review.

An under performer will likely take your lead and either reject it very quickly or never quite get back to you. The quality and thoroughness of the feedback will leave you underwhelmed.

So what to do? Continue to work with the good sales guy as is. For the not so good, do some lead development, scoring or nurturing on the lead to give yourself a higher confidence level in the lead quality before handing over.

Has Lead Generation and its affect on sales become the only real metric of Marketing ROI? 

Public companies are valued by a mix of tangible and intangible assets. Often the brand is the highest value part of the intangible assets(pat on the back for brand guys).

More and more companies are looking for:

• Continuous flow of leads
• Predictable Revenue
• Improved ROI on the marketing dollar

To achieve this I think marketers need to develop the following:

• Less ‘campaign’ based activities and more ‘trigger’ based activities
• Systematic waterfall reports eg leads, calls, presentations, proposals, sales
• Assigning costs to each activity  and the final cost per lead

This activity is happening in B2B - the tools exist and the channels to market are controlled. Less so in B2C and an area where they will learn from their B2B cousins.

Pressure on B2B marketers for ROI proof is definitely based on lead generation today - and in the future for all marketers.

In the B2B space, everyone is chasing the Lead Gen thing - turning it into and ‘engine’ whereby untold wealth will come a marketers way ( or at least they keep their jobs).

In reality it not the real problem and we’re all chasing shiny hubcaps like the local dogs and not facing the real problem. The real problem is that coming out of a ‘campaign’/activity there are three types of responders:

• Type 1 - Those that meet our ‘lead’ criteria e.g. money, a problem, a project and they have some authority
• Type 2 - Those that don’t meet the ‘lead’ criteria - a bit is missing from the criteria e.g. they are an analyst rather than a general manager
• Type 3 - People who don’t respond

There’s great marketing processes for those that are Type 1- we give them to sales executives! However significant work needs to be done to improve and develop Type 2 leads - to better understand them and to move them forward on the marketing process. I’ll call this Lead Development ( or nurturing if you prefer) and it will be the majority of your responders.

Finally, if we have pulled together our targeting and have the right people, and believe that we have the right problem and solutions, then Type 3 are obviously not ready now - so we need to find ways of keeping in tough and providing them high value content - that will one day have them respond.

So by focussing on Lead Development you’ll put effort into the right part of the Lead Generation problem.