Develop a Plan to Rebound by John Dinkel

I participated in a panel discussion not too long ago with a colleague that has a local marketing firm. We were addressing a specific industry group about marketing and business development tactics and how they’ve changed during the pandemic. We talked a lot about adjusting your marketing tactics, going virtual with events, building your relationships with COI’s but then one common theme we both kept coming back to was planning.  Having a good marketing or business development plan is a key factor in how successfully you’ll rebound in the new economy. 

Whether you had a business development plan at the beginning of the year or not, it’s more important than ever to have one now. If you had a plan, that’s great. I would revisit that plan, take a look at your activity and tactics and make the necessary adjustments. Ask yourself these questions:

·      Has your target market changed?

·      Is there a new market that you can go after?

·      What additional BD tactics can you implement now?

·      What BD tactics will not work now?

·      How are you executing on the plan and are you measuring results?

These are just some of things you need to think about when adjusting your plan. Most importantly is implementation and execution. Stay focused and make sure you have someone internally (or externally) to help hold you accountable to your goals.

If you didn’t have a business development plan at the beginning of the year, now’s a great time to start. I would suggest making a plan for the rest of year and then in the fourth quarter determine a plan for 2021. Your plan doesn’t have to be complicated. Better to have a simple plan and goals than no plan at all.  Start with a vision statement. Where do you want to be at the end of 2020?  What does success look like? Next, determine 3 to 4 goals that you want to achieve. They could be revenue based or activity based. I tend to advise clients to have a combination of both revenue and activity goals. Next develop specific tactics, KPI’s, timelines and accountability measures to achieve those goals. The questions above are ones you should consider along with:

·      Who will be implementing the plan?

·      Who will be holding them accountable to the goals?

·      What reasonable business development goals can you set for yourself?

·      Do you have a system of tracking leads?

 Again, keep it simple. And whether you run a large or small business, the important thing is that you have a plan with a vision, reasonable goals, effective tactics, KPI’s, timelines and accountability measures. If you do this, you’ll feel better and more prepared to take on this new challenge and successfully rebound!