Do You Have A Marketing Plan?

Copied from a post on www.cleaningcoach.com
In the last newsletter, I shared "Thoughts On Selling" with you. I appreciate the overwhelming positive response you shared. I've been referencing the article so often during my consulting sessions that I decided to post it on the website. Since I still haven't been able to catch up on your emails, I thought I would write a follow-up article to respond and expand at least on the first few points I made on marketing plans.
Take action! If you want your business to beat the odds and be succesful over time, you must create and implement a measurable marketing plan. You must also be willing and capable to make adjustments based on your measured results. This is not an option, it's just like death and taxes. If you don't realize it now, you will when your business fails. I hope I'm preaching to the choir, but for those of you who still don't have a plan, please understand how critical this is. Yes, this can be done on a zero budget.
There are four key components needed for your plan to be successful. They are:
Create
Implement
Measure
Adjust
I'm going to focus most of this article on the creating portion of your plan. Here is a simple overview of what you should do: Create your plan based on where you would like your business to be in one year. If your number is reasonable, it should be achievable. In fact most numbers are achievable when they are based upon an appropriate, corresponding amount of capital to be invested. If you don't have monetary capital, you will have to rely on human capital. That means your time and energy. Money is time, time is money and neither comes free. If you have little or no money, determine how much time you have to personally spend on this, at least initially. If you have monetary capital to invest, decide how much is appropriate for you. Determine what you would like your monthly sales to be at the end of the next twelve month period. Then, plot out the pace you will need to achieve this by recording where you are now. Subtract your current monthly sales from the monthly sales you want at the end of a year and divide it by twelve. Let's say you are doing $8,000 per month now and you want to be at $20,000 per month at the end of one year. The difference is $12,000 per month. That means you will have to pick up and keep an additional $1,000 per month in new business. How many accounts will this take? You might consider averaging out your current account values to estimate what each new account may be worth.
Next, you need to determine one or more methods of marketing for your business. Will it be telemarketing, yellow pages, radio, knocking on doors with flyers, classifieds, billboards, cross- couponing , the internet? Are you ready for a salesperson, or perhaps a sales manager? Once you have decided, assign a monthly budget to one or more of these methods. If you are just starting, with little or no budget, it may be your own telemarketing, or cold calling. In that case, assign the number of man hours you will dedicate to this task each month, then break it down into smaller numbers each week or day, depending on your schedule. You have just completed the first step. You have created financial targets, determined a method of marketing and set aside a portion of capital, either monetary or human, to invest in your plan. Next, TAKE ACTION! Implement your plan. What are you waiting for? The key is that you expend the energy to get this moving. Don't second guess yourself about it any further, or make excuses for why you should wait. No, you don't need to do that first. Getting a new account should be a nice problem to have.
Next, measure your results. After the first month, examine what you have accomplished. Track the following 3 pieces of information;
The number of attempts of contact that you made and / or the amount of capital you invested (dollars or hours). If neither of these apply , somehow quantify the action that you took. Let's call this figure, result A.
The number of proposals that you were able to submit. Let's call this figure, result B.
The number of accounts that you gained as a result. Let's call this figure, result C.
Now let's put these numbers into a simple formula. It takes how much of "A" to result in "B", then how much of "B" to result in "C". Perhaps you spent $300 on yellow pages, classifieds or better yet, telemarketing through Cleaningcoach ! Maybe you invested 20 hours in knocking on doors or making calls yourself. Determine how much money, or how many hours you have to spend to create the opportunity to submit a proposal. "A" divided by "B", will give you the answer. If you spent $300 and wrote 2 proposals as a direct result, they each cost you $150 If you spent 20 hours cold calling to write 4 proposals then it costs you 5 hours per proposal. Next determine, how many proposals you need to write in order to have one accepted. Divide "B" by "C" and you have the answer. Let's assume you had to write 4 proposals to get a new account. Now you can work the formula backwards to determine the investment required for each account. In this example you had to spend $600, to write four bids, in order to get one new account. Whatever the method that you use, you must measure your results as you go forward. After you measure the results, you will need to adjust as needed. Are there things you need to do better? Would your time or money be better spent pursuing another method? If your numbers don't improve as you move forward you may want to take a closer look at those two questions.
I realize many of you already understand this basic concept of business. I'm amazed that while many business owners understand this fact, they don't measure their results regularly. I've talked to at least half a dozen owners of mid-size companies in the last month (and you know who you are) who could not give me a brief description of their marketing plan. A couple of them said "you're it". Take a few minutes to determine the A, B and C of your Marketing Plan. Is your salesman producing as well as he did six months ago? Were those color glossy brochures worth the printing cost? For the A, B and C of our Guaranteed Lead Program just click on the link below. If I can help you with any of the other elements of this process please let me know.