Your Company's Strategic Marketing Team

I know you don't have a strategic marketing team. I know everybody in your organization is too busy doing what must be done today to attend one more meeting or be happy about being put on another committee.

In fact, even if you thought a strategic marketing team made sense - you wouldn't know how to put one together. And you aren't likely to find anyone around the company who knows much more about it than you.

A strategic marketing team, like some many other operational groups does not have to be complicated to set up and run as all that. And it doesn't require anyone's time and energy - on a sustained basis, than yours.

Who can you get to be on your strategic marketing team? Who should be actively involved in the process and who can be counted on to provide the resources and perspectives you need?

To begin with chose three to five business owners from within your industry, people whose companies are well outside of your marketing areas. Ideally some members would be like you, others older with more experience, and younger with fresh perspectives.

Getting them on board may take a little arm twisting, but when you promise to be on their strategic marketing team they'll most likely agree to get on board with you.

Based on their experiences they'll provide input to help you get started on your strategic marketing - and you'll reciprocate. They will ask tough questions and provide welcome and unwelcome feedback from their perspectives. Their feedback will include shared experiences, industry knowledge as well as totally different approaches that have worked successfully for them.

To begin the first, of many, strategic team sessions, you'll be identifying specifically what you want to accomplish. You must be able to look down the road, beyond today's fires, and picture a target that is both far enough to be attainable - this takes time you know, yet close enough to be important. These are strategic sessions not crisis identification and management - and yet there should be a level of urgency in the process or nothing will get done.

And from the beginning you must communicate openly to your strategic marketing - explaining clearly how the results achieved will be measured. Be prepared for some meaningful discussions around this process, accurately identifying and agreeing on your targets, benchmarks and the definition of success in advance is critical to keeping the process moving forward and on track. If these things are not clearly agreed upon in advance the resulting excuse making a restating them will destroy you credibility with your peers and eliminate the momentum from the process.

As the strategies develop and you take the results back to your company watch out for the agenda's, hidden and otherwise of your staff. Every decision steps on somebody's toes, at least a tiny bit - and unless they are universally willing to set aside their internal issues and get together on the big picture, they can stop your progress dead in its tracks.

Every manager, supervisor, and employee has concerns about how these plans will effect them. Such things as cash flow, profitability, market share, employee satisfaction, and many other things will be impacted by the final decisions you and your strategic marketing team make. Be sensitive to their concerns and comments, Your people from the loading dock to the Board room must be 100% on board or all your strategic marketing team's efforts will be a waste of time.

You and the strategic advisory team of your peers must consider how each element of your strategic marketing plan impacts your organization. This is an never ending story - your peer to peer strategic advisory team will meet continually. The topics discussed in these strategy sessions will expand to every area of your organization, creating a very real teams of advocates who will help you focus on your continued future.

A peer to peer collaboration process removes the number one problem faced by today's business owners, making decisions in isolation with no one to trust to talk to, who will not hold it against them in some way.

Wayne Messick reports on how Main St. businesses are poised to succeed in the 21st Century on his blog http://www.WayneMessick.com His updated peer-to-peer collaboration report can be found at http://www.SelfDirectedPeerGroups.com

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