Apprentice Level Marketing Competency

Has Your Company Reached the Marketing Apprentice Level?

If you subscribe to the basic keys to success that apply to any marketing competency level and your company has achieved marketing novice competency, you are ready to design a marketing strategy that will support your long-term goals through tactics and objectives that evolve during the next 3 to 5 year time horizon.

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By John Bernardi

Monster Goals

Monster Goals Are Imposing

Simplify each goal into sequential, measurable milestones.

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By John Bernardi

Market Research is Essential Prior to Capacity Investment Decisions

What To Do When Your Company Reaches Capacity Limits? [People, Facilities and Equipment]

Status Quo Strategy

You selectively determine what sales opportunities to pursue in order to optimize available capacity.

This short-term strategy will lead to trouble mode and storm clouds will eventually appear on your horizon.

If market research proves a total available market that is growing or significantly higher than your available capacity, then status quo is a high-risk strategy.  When your market share declines you will become a higher cost producer in your category.  This opens the door to growth mode competitors who will become more attractive to your customers and employees.

Growth Strategy

You aggressively pursue all sales opportunities that match your ideal customer profile.

If market research proves a total available market that is growing or significantly higher than your available capacity, then lower your risk by implementing a growth strategy to maintain or increase your market share.  You will improve your position as a low-cost producer in your category.  This will spell trouble for your competitors as you become more attractive to their customers and employees.

If you opt to invest in more capacity in order to elevate a key aspect(s) of your business, you will also need to invest in skill development, process enhancement and productivity tools in order to capitalize on your growth opportunities.

Market Research Competency Is Essential

Without the appropriate market research competency [in-house or external], you won’t be able to make objectively correct capacity investment decisions.

By John Bernardi

Important Vs. Urgent: The CEO's Dilemma

Important Vs. Urgent: The CEO's Dilemma

If you don't complete the urgent stuff, you will fail.

                                    But

If you don't complete the important stuff, you won't thrive.

Importance Vs. Urgency Applies To Marketing

Marketing means finding customers and converting them to raving fans because of their great experience dealing with your people, channels, touch points, and products and services that give them pleasure or eliminate pain.  If you can't do this, you will always be suffering the pain of competing on price.

What Happens When Business Owners Retire?

When Business Owners Retire 

What Enables Them To Sell, Merge Or Transition To A Legacy?

If I were looking for a company to buy or for a merger partner, I'd be searching for one whose core competencies wouldn't walk out the door with its current owner.  Ethics, integrity, design, engineering, production and customer service are baseline essentials, but the company's customer facing competencies must be atop its resume.

As a CEO, are you also responsible for business development and closing key deals?  Unless you can proudly brandish excellence in customer facing competencies as a business differentiator, you will not be optimizing your company's legacy.  This means process competency in marketing, business development, sales and CEM that is supported by the right automation tools and implemented by the right people.

The real value of a business relies on the quality of its customer and product/service portfolio assets. Market penetration, market development and new product/service development competencies will enable you to optimize the ROI of these vital assets.

It's time to make the investment - and this can't be outsourced!

By John Bernardi