By : Ramiro Roman
Last week I was asked by a marketing manager I'm mentoring how to conduct good mid-year review sessions. My advice to her was not to focus on the YTD metrics solely but to use these sessions as platforms to drive a broader and more strategic conversation. Think about it, the numbers are black and white... nothing can change them now... but if you focus on the strategy, you can significantly impact performance on the back half.
So in a list form, here are my top 7 recommendations for marketing managers attempting to assess their mid-year performance:
1. Is the strategy still valid? Who cares if you knocked out your metrics if the strategy is off. Reminds me of the old strategy matrix which shows that if you're executing very well on the wrong strategy you're just killing yourself faster. Don't underestimate this question.
2. What's happening in the market? Time to confirm the macro trends at this point in time. If you did your homework, these should not dramatically change... but there are always surprises.
3. How is the competitive landscape changing? Speaking from my current experience, the fragmentation of our markets has accelerated... it's difficult to see all the angles, particularly from new entrants... yet some of those are the most threatening in my view.
4. Is your value proposition still relevant and differentiated to your target audience?
5. How can you make your positioning more compelling? Don't think of product releases in a year to year format... look for adjacent opportunities all the time, particularly during mid-year after answering questions 1-4.
6. What was your opportunity cost? You'll never know the full answer, but if you think about where you spent most of your time and budget... with little result... what could you have employed instead. This is particularly difficult to assess with human capital. One way to look at this is to assess what internal efforts are draining your team. Some of this you cannot avoid... but much of it you can with a simple "no, we don't have the time to do that" - check yourself and ask your team.
7. Is this still the place you want to be for the foreseeable part of your life? In summary, life is too short... if you don't love where you work change the scope, projects or negotiate. This is a tough market, so use your judgment, but if you're not happy life is too short to keep living this way - find a better opportunity.
I'll be the first to admit, most of these are common sense... but common sense is not so common... try these points, it'll help you drive better discussions with your teams.
Job Vacancy , Indonesia Job , Job Indonesia
Last week I was asked by a marketing manager I'm mentoring how to conduct good mid-year review sessions. My advice to her was not to focus on the YTD metrics solely but to use these sessions as platforms to drive a broader and more strategic conversation. Think about it, the numbers are black and white... nothing can change them now... but if you focus on the strategy, you can significantly impact performance on the back half.
So in a list form, here are my top 7 recommendations for marketing managers attempting to assess their mid-year performance:
1. Is the strategy still valid? Who cares if you knocked out your metrics if the strategy is off. Reminds me of the old strategy matrix which shows that if you're executing very well on the wrong strategy you're just killing yourself faster. Don't underestimate this question.
2. What's happening in the market? Time to confirm the macro trends at this point in time. If you did your homework, these should not dramatically change... but there are always surprises.
3. How is the competitive landscape changing? Speaking from my current experience, the fragmentation of our markets has accelerated... it's difficult to see all the angles, particularly from new entrants... yet some of those are the most threatening in my view.
4. Is your value proposition still relevant and differentiated to your target audience?
5. How can you make your positioning more compelling? Don't think of product releases in a year to year format... look for adjacent opportunities all the time, particularly during mid-year after answering questions 1-4.
6. What was your opportunity cost? You'll never know the full answer, but if you think about where you spent most of your time and budget... with little result... what could you have employed instead. This is particularly difficult to assess with human capital. One way to look at this is to assess what internal efforts are draining your team. Some of this you cannot avoid... but much of it you can with a simple "no, we don't have the time to do that" - check yourself and ask your team.
7. Is this still the place you want to be for the foreseeable part of your life? In summary, life is too short... if you don't love where you work change the scope, projects or negotiate. This is a tough market, so use your judgment, but if you're not happy life is too short to keep living this way - find a better opportunity.
I'll be the first to admit, most of these are common sense... but common sense is not so common... try these points, it'll help you drive better discussions with your teams.
Job Vacancy , Indonesia Job , Job Indonesia
No comments:
Post a Comment