Maybe your usual monthly brand review starts with the sales performance and immediately moves to a heated discussion on who’s fault it is that your behind target, or conversely each team member quickly asserts why their project is driving success ahead of target. Either way, the result is often to increase the number of tactics and you add them to an expanding “To do” list.
To avoid this becoming a repetitive cycle, here is a practical 3 step process you can try when completing your next review. The surprising thing is that it doesn’t start with the sales performance.
Step 1: Are your insights still valid?
Your plan should be based on insights and assumptions of the market and your competitors. Therefore, if any of these have changed significantly then there is little point reviewing anymore of the plan as it’s based on old assumptions. This is also a great time to see if there are any new insights that have arisen since the last review. If there is a big change in your insights then you need to spend your time discussing if/how you want to address them.
Step 2: Is your execution on track?
Before you get to sales performance you need to see if the list of tactics you planned to impact the market are on track. Don’t just look at the spend, check the timing/size/volume of activities being delivered to affect the market. Check on the number of digital engagements, sales calls and webinar attendees etc. If you’ve got gaps here, then there is little point looking at the sales performance because you know you’ll be behind. You can spend your time discussing how you get on track with the existing execution and not try to add in more activities.
Step 3: How is your performance?
Hopefully you have a mix of lead and lag indicators to review and you can draw a line between the insights, execution and performance. If your insights and execution are off, but your performance is on track or ahead, don’t go high fiving each other just yet. In this situation something other than you is driving your success and if you can’t identify it, then you’re missing an insight. If your insights and execution are good, but your performance is poor, then you need a new plan or at least you should dump some of your tactics before you start new ones.
Will these 3 steps fundamentally change your brand performance? I really doubt it, but you may be surprised how it focuses the team discussion on external insight and performance improvement. Try it out share your feedback with me - mike@miraveta.com