If you’re planning a new year or writing a new marketing plan, get rid of all the junk. A short plan is harder to create than a long one, but it works better.
The “delete” button is your best friend—a garbage collector. America is full of obese people and fat plans. A leaner plan is meaner.
Here are some ways you can hone and simplify:
- Rewrite your mission statement so it means something. Phrases like “We are the on cutting edge—of something” and “People are our most important product” are management ego trips. Replace them with a vital customer need that we will fulfill. This will point the plan down the right, narrow path.
- Eliminate all but two of the new products or strategies you think should be tested or explored. Two is the most that small organizations can handle effectively.
- Put at least 95% of the numbers back in the exhibits or in the waste basket. What are the key facts—the drivers that will determine your success? These are the signals and changes the organization should live with every day. All the rest are just fillers.
- Narrow the focus of your advertising and promotion. People will think only of the one thing you do best. Don’t say, “And we also do this—.”
- Put your plan on one side of a 4”x6” card. This will be your company’s equivalent of its 30 second elevator speech.
- Appoint someone as the CSO—the Chief Simplification Officer. The duties will include—monitor straying, encourage expunging, and reward pruning.
- Make the lean plan be the company’s marching orders. Otherwise it will be a guilt machine, found only on the shelf.
With planning, as with architecture, less is more.
What does your plan say about your company?
George Lemmond
