Weekly Tip

It’s ALL About Growth & Peace of Mind
By Frank White

For many attempting to do business the same way they used to is yielding second-rate results. When was the last time you addressed and reworked your business plan or more precisely your revenue plan? As the age old mantra goes “Failure to plan, is a plan to fail” How long has it been since you have referred to your sales and marketing plan? You know the drill – this is part of your business plan. 57 years ago, Peter Drucker, the business and quality icon said it a bit differently in his book “The Practice of Management”:

“Any organization in which marketing and sales is either absent or incidental: this is not a business and should never be run as if it were one”

In a brief and unscientific survey of our professional services team this author could not find even one member who felt that the dealers in our industry use business planning or more specific marketing and sales planning as a strategic part of the way to run a business. Now there are some individual dealers who are hitting on all cylinders in this arena, but for the most part our industry could seriously lift our game in its sales and marketing endeavors.

The fact is that most of the contractors and even some suppliers in our industry sell and market “incidentally” and could do a dramatically better job in execution on the sales front. But where and how does one start? Given the day-to-day operational challenges, and all the other distractions it is dreadfully easy to put this on the back burner. The consequences are holding you back.

When one asks about your sales and or marketing plan, do you feel that the term and the document might require the work of some ethereal MBA from an institution that employs people to hang ivy on it’s walls? This is not a permanent parchment destined to be enshrined in some museum, but a living document to be changed, flexing with opportunities that come up, reacting and evolving.

A plan must be a written document, not some collection of intellectual concepts kept in your mind, that is what Mr. Drucker was referring to as “incidental”. Just to detonate this point a bit more – there is vast and deep research showing that a written plan/goal is attained so much more often when written down that no one even questions the fact, or practice.

Shortcutting:
Here is a ten-minute version on writing you sales and marketing plan. Use some caution here though, this is not the first step in your planning process. This becomes part of your previously developed business plan. In the theme of keeping things simple we will just harvest some of the pertinent but key elements from that plan. If you do not have a current plan or if your plan is no longer serving your current situation, just respond with the best estimate. Remember, there are no right answers, and you can change them as much as you want, whenever you want. Do not over think this; just use your best approximation:

The first step here is to define your current situation; actually fill out this worksheet:
1) Your Brand means what? ________________________________________________________.

I have found that if you replace the word “brand” for “Promise” it makes this much easier. Some tools to assist you to architect this statement would include referring to your company’s Mission, your Goals and your Vision statement.

2) Profile your current job type ______________________________________________________.

This is what percentage comes from residential, industrial, new construction, retrofits, massive rebuilds, and others listed here.

3) How do your current clients find you now?___________________________________________.
List your current clients came to you through various venues:

a. Referrals
b. Networking events
c. Yellow book
d. Associations and groups

i. Chamber of commerce
ii. Charity boards
iii. Designers
iv. Architects
v. Builders

e. Others here.

4) What are your current marketing and sales activities? _________________________________.

a. None (don’t laugh…just be honest)
b. Association and group promotions
c. Advertising
d. Sponsorships
e. Web activities

i. Newsletters
ii. Twitter
iii. Facebook
iv. Other social media stuff here

f. Direct Mail
g. Other sales and marketing activity here:

5) How much do you spend on your sales and marketing:

a. As a percentage of sales
b. Or just your best guess on about how much you spend:

i. Per Month $______ or
ii. Annually $______

Take a second and reconcile your marketing/sales expenditures and efforts versus where your clients really come from. Are your current sales really coming from your current marketing efforts? (Yes, No, or Kind of).

Up untill now this has just been a quick review of your current situation. In step two, detail the way you would like things to be.

1) Types of jobs:

a. Commercial
b. Residential
c. Retrofit
d. By dollar volume

2) By customer type – this could include

a. Doctors
b. Entrepreneurs
c. Executives
d. a particular community (say Cota de Caza)

3) By technology

i. Whole house audio
ii. Media rooms
iii. Techcomm (IP telephony, networking and Web entertainment)
iv. Green
v. Lighting
vi. Automation
vii. Other tech stuff

4) Other things you would like to see and or change:

Finally detail the small steps that would be needed to attain your vision.

Getting Strategic:
Making some calculated changes now could reap stratospheric returns in a very short time. Up till now in this commentary we have dealt with your planning and changing your organizations direction to sync up to your plan. Maybe you just are not getting the results you foresaw, or have been less then effective at generating the new business you need to grow. For instance, ask yourself:

“If you had an additional 8 hours per week to only focus only on sales, with mathematical certainty, how much new business would you be able to close?”

CEDIA’s PSAT or Professional Service Action Team is really good at fueling CEDIA type organizations in this arena assisting in adapting and planning strategic direction. I can hear you now, “This is so self serving…” Ok in some sense it is, but: there is much to be gained from the council of a 3rd party expert. In addition you are so close to your business that at times it is helpful to see yourself and the company from a different, objective perspective.

To outsource some version of this would likely cost less than a single pair of mid-range speakers, and your return on investment could be astronomical. You could be 4 or 5 hours away from a whole new perspective and revenue road map.

CEDIA Professional Services Members, trusted for their professionalism and reliability, offer CEDIA members unmatched channel expertise in specialized fields and insight into the latest trends and tactics in the custom installation industry. These individuals and companies offer a wide-array of services and consultation programs including support with marketing and advertising strategies, graphic design, website design, product launches, public relations, promotional goods, product design and development, hardware and software engineering, trade show management, strategic business planning, financial and administrative development, and more. For more information on CEDIA Professional Services Members can help you and your business, please visit www.cedia.org/psat.