As I have grown in my career, and as I have consulted with clients in different industries and backgrounds, it has become more apparent to me that the ingredients for success in marketing (or any functional area of business) are often the same and are usually very simple. If you have a marketing team, lead a marketing team, or ARE a marketing team, start here every time.
Clarity
This may be the most important part. For your marketing team to succeed, they have to know what winning looks like. They also need to know what they are ultimately responsible and accountable for. This starts with setting very clear goals and having KPIs tied to them. In other words, state the objective and keep score. When you do this, keep dialing it in until your team has full understanding of what you’re going after. When you do this, they’ll be happy. And when they’re happy, they’ll be productive. And when you do cross the goal-line, don’t forget to celebrate that achievement together.
In his best-selling book, The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni focuses on four disciplines to achieve organizational health. #2 is Create Clarity, #3 is Overcommunicate Clarity, and #4 is Reinforce Clarity. So, if you’re keeping count, that’s three out of four disciplines focused on clarity. Yes, it’s that important.
Focus
With all the technological tools we have at our disposal today and the interconnectedness of teams and the complexity of some of our product offerings, marketing today can be complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s the thing. You get to decide just how complicated things need to get. What are the outside factors pressing on you to speed up, multi-task, go to more meetings, etc.? How much of that do you bring on yourself? What would happen if you started saying ‘No’ more?
It’s been scientifically proven that multi-tasking is a myth. Juggling multiple projects (especially big ones) at once is only going to create frustration, lower productivity and lower quality results. There’s a reason surgeons don’t also check email and answer texts during a procedure. Be where you are, give the right time, energy and attention to your one-thing-at-a-time, and give your team that same charge.
Tools & Resources to Accomplish Goals
If you were a contractor, you wouldn’t dream of agreeing to build a huge house or a major structure without lots of high-quality tools and a team of workers. If you were a real estate agent, you’d struggle mightily if you didn’t have access to a cell phone, a vehicle or the MLS. If you were a dentist, you wouldn’t hire a hygienist and then hand him or her a travel-sized toothbrush and toothpaste.
Don’t expect results (relative to the goals you set for your team) if you haven’t provided the right level of support. There are LOTS of marketing tools, some essential, some not…but it’s all relative to what you’re trying to accomplish. Provide the basics, expect basic results. Provide more, get more.
Again, if you’re serious about growing your business through marketing, you can do it the easy way or the right way. The right way is being true to your vision and values as a customer-centric, service-focused business and creating a culture of caring about what’s important, creating traction for your teams and growing in a smart healthy way and not just chasing dollars. It’s easy to get caught up by the prospect of “more” instead of focusing on “better,” but in the long-run, the companies that last are the ones that use this formula to get the right results, not just the most.
