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Does Your Contracting Pipeline Live in the Owner’s Head?
Relationships matter in construction, and most subcontractors have good ones. The owner or president carries the key customer relationships, and the project managers carry everything else. That arrangement can work well. It is also fragile. In our last post, we asked whether you know by name who owns each strategic account. This one looks at what happens when the answer is the owner.
Avoiding Random Acts of Marketing: Five Essential Strategies
Wed, Mar 20, 2024 — Ever wonder why some marketing initiatives crash and burn despite leadership oversight? The culprit often lurks in one fatal flaw: random acts of marketing. In this article, we delve into five indispensable strategies for dodging these missteps and the dire consequences that follow when marketing lacks a solid game plan.
Preparing for 2024: Is Your Marketing Funnel Integrated with Your Sales Funnel?
Wed, Dec 20, 2023 — Final article of the 7-part series: Accelerating Growth In 2024 with Strategic Business Planning In the relentless pursuit of growth, businesses often find themselves at a crossroads - a bustling marketing funnel generating a stream of leads, yet somehow, the path to conversion seems elusive. One study found that 71% of potential customers are not contacted, while only 13% of potential customers become opportunities.
How to Allocate Your Marketing Spend for Maximum Effect
Tue, Dec 19, 2023 — Accelerating Growth In 2024 with Strategic Business Planning, Part 6 In a marketplace that's more competitive than ever, optimizing your marketing spend isn't just a best practice—it's a necessity for survival and accelerated growth. With shrinking resources and an ever-more diverse array of marketing platforms upon which to reach the customer, shooting arrows in the dark is no longer a viable marketing strategy.
5 Things You Should Know Before Spending on Marketing Execution
Thu, Nov 9, 2023 — Accelerating Growth In 2024 with Strategic Business Planning, Part 5 If you have been under pressure to tighten your marketing budget this year, you’re not alone. According to a survey, B2B companies' marketing spending in 2023 increased by only 2.3%. This growth rate is lower than the 3.7% inflation rate, impacting businesses and individuals.
7 KPIs That Should be in Your Annual Growth Plan
Fri, Nov 3, 2023 — Accelerating Growth With Strategic Business Planning, Part 4 Measurement is where good plans either become real or quietly become optional. The risk runs in both directions. Too few measures and you are steering by anecdote. Too many and you get paralysis by analysis: the leadership team drowns in dashboards and loses sight of the handful of numbers that actually indicate whether the business is improving. The goal is to keep your head out of the clouds without getting lost in the weeds.
How to Establish a Strategic Growth Plan and Justify Your Marketing Budget
Wed, Oct 25, 2023 — Accelerating Growth With Strategic Business Planning, Part 3 Post 3 of 7 in a blog series on accelerating growth through strategic business planning. Conditions move fast. Customer expectations shift, competitors adjust, and technology keeps changing how companies reach buyers. So the first question to ask about your growth plan is whether it reflects the year ahead or simply repeats the year behind.
Analyze Your Current Customers to Supercharge Your Annual Business Planning
Thu, Oct 19, 2023 — Accelerating Growth With Strategic Business Planning, Part 2 Post 2 of 7 in a blog series on accelerating growth through strategic business planning. When we ask clients why their customers buy from them, the answers fall into three groups. Some know precisely. Some do not know and say so. And some are confidently, expensively wrong.
Why You Can’t Afford to Cut Your Marketing Investment
Wed, Oct 11, 2023 — Accelerating Growth With Strategic Business Planning, Part 1 Post 1 of 7 in a blog series on accelerating growth through strategic business planning. In our last post, we made the case for why written, cross-functional planning is the first step toward building a growth system rather than just completing an annual exercise. This post gets into what that means for your marketing budget, specifically what to protect, what to cut, and how to make the call without flying blind.
Accelerating Growth With Strategic Business Planning
Tue, Oct 3, 2023 — Introduction: Take Action Now to Plan for Success Introduction to a seven-part blog series on accelerating growth through strategic business planning. The annual planning cycle is starting, which means you are sharpening your pencil, corralling your leadership team, and bracing for the meeting where everyone agrees on the number and disagrees on everything else.