I’ve been (un)fortunate enough to witness first-hand strategy voids several times over the years. My view is that there are three principal categories, or business situations. Each can be made up of one of more of the four conditions that result in a strategy void forming.
The three categories I see are:
Start Up Voids – usually associated with growing pains in business yet to invest in marketing
Stagnation Voids – occurring in business that have stopped growing
Integration Voids – present following merger or acquisition of a business.
This is quite a long read. I’ve included tips specific to crossing each type of void. If you don’t have time for all that, then the long and short of it is:
- Use a positioning on a page framework. It’s the simplest (and most challenging) thing you can do to make sure that every piece of content and communication you build is consistent, clear, and aligned to your business growth strategy.
- Build out a simple deck and talk track. Don’t leave it to chance and risk misinterpretation, dilution or bending of the story.
- Align what you do to what you need, and what you are capable of. Don’t spend money on marketing activity for the sake of it. Don’t expect to do things that your company doesn’t have the skills to deliver.
- Connect marketing teams’ goals to business goals and track them. Ensure marketing goals connect to goals the business understands – think new client targets, revenue and retention vs. engagement, cost per click and MQLs.
A marketing strategy bridge is designed to carry your business growth strategy across the void and take it to meaningful action and activity. By using a bridge, you can bring in the specialist skills you need, when you need them to solve specific marketing problems and remove implementation headaches.
The Three Strategy Void Categories
Category 1: Start Up Voids
Start up voids are an unavoidable truth. They will happen. Why? Simply, because the model that has taken the start up through its initial drive for growth will not scale any more.
Founders/owner managers will have taken on the roles needed to run the business, sharing out disciplines to those with the best or nearest matching set of skills. They won’t or won’t have needed to invest in marketing. For sales, that means selling will have been based on relationships. Small business owners (like me) are HUGELY passionate about what they do and truly believe in what they have to offer. Their storytelling is a rich mix of successes, failures and experiences that are compelling when delivered with their passion and drive to succeed.
So, what happens when the business needs to scale? The business HAS to be able to get their story to customers and future hires consistently in order to scale. It needs to move from relationship-led to a scalable sell.
If they are fortunate, some CEOs will have the skills required. However, this isn’t always the case. For many, the positioning will be clear in the mind of the CEO. Their challenge is that they lack the ability, tools, and time to be able to go to market with a consistent story told by all and with meaningful activities.
Tips for Crossing Startup Voids
- Use specialist marketing strategy skills to solve specific problems. Do pay for the expertise you need, when you need it, for long as you need it. Don’t rush to make permanent marketing hires until you know you need them and can afford the employee costs.
- Get your story down using a framework that puts your positioning on a page. Get it clear and concise. Don’t rely on word of mouth – no one else will tell it like you do.
- You cannot spend your way out of the problem. You will get plenty of offers to invest the marketing money you have (never that much!) in platforms, tools, advertising and so forth. Don’t do it, you really do not need to.
- Tie your marketing to your business growth goals. If your goal in the next 12 months is, say, to add 5 new clients, tie your marketing effort to that goal.
- Inputs drive activity, not outputs. Outputs are simply the result of what you do. As obvious as it sounds, tracking your outputs won’t make them happen. Ask what you need to do to achieve the goal. Write them down and then how you will measure progress.
- Track, track, track. Make progress review part of your monthly cadence. No excuses. It’s every bit as important as the day-to-day.
Category 2 – Stagnation Voids
Stagnation voids can stick around for a long time. They are independent of the size of the business. The problem here is not that the business is unsuccessful. It delivers a reliable revenue, return and year after year is sustainable. The problem is that is has stopped growing. It may change things around, tweak the model, but continues to deliver the same result.
Initially, this is not a crossing the void problem. There must be a period of reflection, review and refocus.
Once that strategy is set, it must be cascaded through the organization to move to activity. In larger organizations, the leadership team that planned and developed the strategy with little or no involvement of the rest of the organization. Yet the expectation is that the company will quickly move as one and accept a story written in the language of leadership teams. This will not happen. The void is one of lack of understanding, connection and sense of purpose that creates uncertainty, resistance, and inertia. Without crossing the void, action will not happen.
Tips for Crossing Stagnation Voids
- Make sure you have a ‘customer first’ story. Translate the business growth strategy from leadership language to a story that your whole organisation and your customers can connect to. A framework that puts your positioning on a page will help you do this.
- Tell it, tell it again, and again (and again….). Whatever you say is going to take some time for your organization to get used to. Build a simple deck from your positioning framework – don’t just present the framework.
- Watch out for interpretation. Some will feel they ‘get it’ and then come up with their own version of the new positioning. Dilution can cascade to customers and leave everyone confused. Add a talk track to your simple deck with keywords that are non-negotiable.
- Don’t let your positioning get bent out of shape. In some organisations, business unit leaders may feel that need to bend the new positioning and focus to better suit their own goals. Ensure that business unit goals are connected to and align to the business goals.
- Keep checking in. Review progress as part of the monthly cadence. A new strategy can result in a shift of focus and make some feel like there are winners and losers. Take time to listen to concerns and work with teams to understand what the positioning means for them.
Category 3 – Integration Voids
Voids that come from merger or acquisition happen when a business is unclear or ill-equipped to deal with the integration. The problems can appear similar to those of a stagnation void and are magnified by the need to bring together not only their existing organisation around a new story, but also the acquired company or companies that have their own history, language, and culture.
In addition, expectation on capabilities and skills needed to deliver actions is very likely to be unclear and in the worse cases, unreasonable. The different organisations will have different go to market models. It will have invested in the skills needed to drive the activities that match their model. A mismatch of expectation to deliver with capability to deliver adds to the void. The momentum post-acquisition to deliver new growth can result in dilution, misinterpretation, and inconsistency that can be damaging to customer and employee relationships.
Tips for Crossing Integration Voids
- Decide if the acquisition story is ‘internal’, ‘external’ or both. Acquisition doesn’t always mean change to the external story. It may add depth and strengthen but not change positioning to customers. Use a positioning on a page framework to figure out what that story is, and if there is any need to change the external story.
- Make sure you have a ‘customer first’ story. Whether the external story changes or not, be able to articulate the value of acquisition in terms of benefits to customers. The positioning framework will help you do this.
- Don’t leave it to chance, write it down and share it. Getting one organisation on the same page can be a challenge. Adding more organisations magnifies and amplifies the challenge. A simple sales deck and consistent talk track will help.
- Use a common marketing strategy plan. Provide all organisations with a common way to plan and measure their activity. An input/output framework is simple to complete and will roll up into a common summary that allows you to see where the focus and effort is being placed.
- Align your marketing activities with the capabilities you have in each organization. Each organization will have its own marketing strengths and weaknesses. Setting unrealistic expectations will result in resistance and inaction or poor delivery. Use a marketing program framework that you can use to track the growth and maturity progress for each marketing team and for your organisation overall.
- Keep reviewing, take it a step at a time. Integrations take time. Regular review against milestones allows you to adjust your marketing strategy and activities ‘in flight.
The Advantages of A Marketing Strategy Bridge
For all categories of void, a marketing strategy bridge will take you from growth strategy to actionable activity. Using a bridge enables you to move confidently across the void, with a consistent story that is understood and told consistently. It will ensure that you have a marketing strategy plan that has clear inputs and outputs that enable teams to feel connected to the business strategy and able to track their progress. It will keep your marketing activity aligned to your capabilities using a marketing program framework that governs activities and spend.
