Today's Marketing Cookie - Act Loudly

Today's fortune came from Katharine Conroy in Seattle, Washington. Katharine is a Marketing Strategist at Accenture, where she develops CRM strategies and execution for Fortune 100 companies. Today is Katharine's birthday! Please Tweet the following message to her: "Happy Birthday to @celtickat I hope the sun shines in Seattle for you today."

Today's Marketing Cookie is where the rubber hit the road. Will you do what you say you will do, by when you said you would do it? In business, you do not always get to pick what you say that you will do. Sometimes your goals are made for you. For example: The board of directors wants to see year-over-year growth in the business, so the CEO says that he will product X-amount of revenue. He then tells his sales manager that he needs X-amount of new business in order to make his numbers. The sales manager then tells marketing that he needs X-amount of more leads in order to make his sales numbers. This request often comes without any additional budget and so the marketing managers freak out a little, and then come to us for help.

Producing more for less is the place where we live.

If we believe that we can reach the new lead generation numbers, we give our word to it. The marketing manager then reports to the sales manager that he has hired an agency to help him get the leads he needs. He smiles. The sales manager reports up to the CEO that the marketing managers have hired an agency to generate the leads, so he can produce more sales, and he will get the revenue numbers he needs. The CEO smiles. Then he reports to the board of directors that a marketing agency is helping them get the revenue they need. Everyone smiles.

Do you see what happened there?

A command was given to the CEO and he gave his word to an outcome that he can only trust will happen. Each layer of leadership under the CEO also give their word, and they each make promises all the way down the line - until you reach the offices of CommCreative on Union Avenue. The buck stops here. We accept responsibility of making sure their promises are kept.  We give our work so that their word is good. 

Our office is where all of the promises, projections and plans must be converted to action. When we take the right steps, and make the right moves, we generate momentum and move closer to the goals. If there's one thing I've learned about generating leads and revenue, it's that promises can only be kept when actions speak louder than words.