Key Strategies and Supporting Tactics – Turning Talk into Action!
Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes
This is the ninth post in the series on Strategic Planning. Note that you can subscribe to the blog postings by completing the form in the “Subscribe Free” tab. Or, you can link with an RSS feed.
In the last post on the subject of strategic planning, we made sure we understood the difference between strategies and tactics. And, we had a little fun using a New Year’s Resolution as a Key Goal. Then we came up with a Key Strategy and supporting Tactics to support that goal of losing weight. I sincerely hope that no one in the blogosphere picked up my post in a search for weight loss and ended up buying blinders and a nose plug to use in the grocery store. If you see someone walking through the candy aisle with blinders on…..you know where they got the idea. And, you have my permission to gently take them aside and tell them that this part of my post was just some good humor. Better yet…maybe I could start a business selling Diet Blinders! OK…never mind…bad idea.
Back to business!!
In today’s post we will take one of the imaginary Key Goals I used in post number 7 on “Key Strategic Goals” and make a Key Strategy and supporting Tactics for this goal. All the initial elements of strategic planning seem a bit cerebral at first. Some people may demand, “Where is this going? I see lots of meetings and brainstorming and no action!” By the end of this post we will see very clear tasks that can be assigned to individuals and give very clear expectations.
Let’s use goal #3. Lead management is a pet peeve of mine. A lot of companies do a poor job of lead management. They spend a lot of money to advertise and attend trade shows. They get a lot of leads. And, they DO distribute them. The problem is lack of follow-up. Another problem is that the leads do not become part of a database for emails and mailings. So, these companies are not getting a good return on their advertising and tradeshow investments. They are leaving money on the table.
3. Lead management software and/or system in place by April 1st . (Note – this could be part of a CRM program. I am trying to be very specific.)
The Key Strategy could be:
“Improve return on marketing investments by implementing a lead management system that assures complete qualification and follow-up of leads.” This is a clear overall descriptor of the effort that will support the Key Goal above.
The tactics and sub-tactics(tasks) that support this strategy could be:
- Select Contact Management System (CMS) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software by February 15.
- Assign project manager by January 14.
- Assign Lead Management Coordinator (LMC) by February 28. Project Manager to involve LMC in as many planning meetings as possible.
- Project manager to hold meeting with prospective users and other stakeholders to explain strategy and projects and to get feedback/ideas.
- In one of these meetings, with an executive leader present, gain commitment of users and stakeholders to support strategy.
- Via networking with business colleagues get recommendations for 3 vendors or software programs.
- Study reviews on-line.
- Present costs, features and benefits to strategy team on February 1 for decision.
- Place order by February 4.
- Load software on one computer and run beta testing with other systems if other systems are involved (customer service, accounting, etc.) by February 18.
- Hire consultant to assist project manager and IT with install and testing
- Meet with IT support and schedule load by Feb. 11.
- Write draft lead management protocol by February 11.
- Review, revise and gain agreement from prospective users by February 25.
- Train various users and stakeholders by March 25.
- With help of consultant, create training agenda and curriculum.
- Set training dates for various users – marketing, sales, customer service, etc – all to occur by March 25.
- Organize and create training support materials – presentations, handouts, manuals, etc.
- Coordinate with IT so they have time to load software into user computers prior to training.
- Conduct training programs.
- Begin feeding leads into new CMS or CRM system by April 1.
You can get as detailed as you want. Notice that I did not get into the supporting tactics for the follow-up percentage rates that were part of the Key Goal. I think you understand enough now to do that. And, I don’t want to take more of your time here.
A comment on lead management systems – if you are a small company, don’t be intimidated by the feature rich and expensive lead management options available on the market today. You can start with a simple yet effective system by purchasing one software license to ACT, Goldmine, Salesforce.com, etc. and have one person in the company be responsible for managing the leads, distributing them and insisting on follow-up. From this simple beginning you can always expand and buy more licenses. The important thing is a closed loop system that really tells you what happened with a lead and lets you go back to the prospect later.
Now, take the Key Strategies and have your team build in the tactics that support them. Soon you will have the foundation of a Strategic Marketing and Sales plan!!
