Lou Lasday: Implementation: 'Make it so!'

Implementation: 'Make it so!'

Make certain your top strategic initiatives spotlight your most unique team talent.

The ultimate corporate tactic is to "get it done," "implement the plan," "make it happen!" According to the American Marketing Association, the Fortune 500 crowd says their first tier Ivy League M.B.A.s get high marks on planning strategic corporate initiatives, but flunk on crossing the line of proper execution.

If this gaping, costly hole in marketing at the big companies is now so prominent and wide-spread, is it possible that with or without the coveted M.B.A. designation, the problem is also prevalent at smaller Gulf Coast enterprises? Could headquartered corporations and professional services groups in Clearwater, Tampa, Bradenton, Sarasota, Ft. Meyers, and Naples also be facing their biggest threat to successful marketing plans - poor implementation?

Ambitious strategy

Authors Larry Bosspy and Ram Charan, in their best-selling book on "What the CEO Wants to Know" define this critical final step of execution as a process of rigorous discussion on "the how, the what, the follow-through and the accountability. It includes making assumptions of capabilities, linking strategy to operations and the people who are going to implement the strategy. It also includes mechanisms for changing assumptions as the environment changes and upgrading the company's capabilities to meet the challenges of an ambitious strategy."

How many times have you run the corporate marketing race of conjuring up an epic for profit enhancement: A series of dynamite concepts to blow out the profit line! For some unknown reason, it just didn't happen. There wasn't enough time, your management did not buy in, the staff was otherwise engaged, your assistant or assigned team leader was overloaded, the budget wasn't available, you couldn't handle it yourself or dozens of other legitimate, yet disappointing reasons for failure.

It's a little like running a race and not be able to cross the finish line. Your look is contemporary, your sprint is swift, your endurance is strong, your stride is consistent but your finish is weak; or worse, non-existent. You were in the race all the way, but the winning final step eluded you.

Make it happen

So now that we have some background to this hot discussion in the executive suite, how can you personally profit from a focus on "implementation insight"?

Consider what it is you'll want to accomplish next quarter or, more realistically, this new year. As a Gulf Coast leader, you'll want to focus on just a few very clean priorities that everyone on the team can grasp. Highlighting a maximum of three or four will provide the best results. Then take ownership of the process.

A certified financial planner may want his professional team to sign up three, $1 million growth and income portfolio clients per quarter during 2007. Parameters may include that the management fee is 1.5% of the gross account whose value should increase at least 10% annually. Now, that's specific!

If you're a commercial realtor, perhaps one goal is for your team to increase by 50% the sale of warehouse showrooms or strip centers to non-user investors who qualify for multi-unit investments near term. That's certainly specific. Then, make it happen! In a very fundamental sense, implementation of a marketing plan is simply acknowledging the need, devoting the resources, setting the budget and timeline then acting on it!

Outline for success

If this type of strategic growth is your goal, your first task is to think it through. Get "stakeholder" buy-in and then take the most important step, without which you will surely fail: Write it down. A simple, one-page segmented position statement with desired outcome, timelines and budget tell what you want to achieve. Detail each goal in this manner. It's your outline for success. When you do it right, you'll consider it a smart achievable Mini-Marketing Plan.

Test your implementation activities on a quarterly basis and not just by sales numbers. Consider measuring results by rating team excitement, by building the customer base, qualified personal relationships, getting good referrals, increase in brand value, and my very favorite, cost-effective, number one profit-maker: organic growth. Remember please, "you can't manage it if you can't measure it."

The final point of difference between any enterprise and its competitors is the ability to "implement." If your competitors are delivering or executing better than you, they are winning.

Implementing on-time, on-target, on-budget may be the big unaddressed issues in the tightly knit professional services community. Its absence may be the single biggest obstacle to success and the cause of most disappointments that are mistakenly attributed to other causes.

After the brainstorming, the partnering, the planning, the teaming, the nurturing, the reporting, the rewarding and more - take stock in the epic words of Star Trek's commander of the starship Enterprise, Jean Luc Picard's now famous instruction to his executive staff: "Make It So!"

Lou Lasday, an independent marketing advisor residing on Longboat Key, creates action-oriented Strategic Marketing Initiatives for Gulf Coast emerging companies. A career Direct Response Executive, he has been a general partner of a major national marketing communications firm and Regional President of the American Marketing Association. Lasday can be reached at [email protected].