Do you have complete command and knowledge of your companies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (a/k/a SWOT analysis) in the marketplace? Have these been used to develop your marketing and sales tactics and strategies into messages which truly resonate with people whom you are trying to build business? Strategies and messages which cause potential customers to stop and actually consider or ask questions about what your company says or does?

If not, then you might consider getting a small team together to contribute and work through their thoughts on your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (a/k/a SWOT analysis).

In this episode of Ask The Interviewer, we start to take apart the SWOT analysis and provide you with a roadmap or a process for conducting a simplified SWOT analysis to help uncover new marketing ideas and approaches, see strengths you haven’t seen before, and drive internal initiatives which lead to external improvements and increased market share among your potential prospects.

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When was the last time you actively sat down with some colleagues to outline your companies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT for short) and what does that have to do with marketing anyway?

If you are like most business people, you aren’t really familiar with the SWOT concept and the suggestion of it seems like a lot of time for not a lot of return on your investment. The concept also seems only lightly related to marketing.

But in fact, a SWOT might be just the concept you need to inject some new marketing ideas and approaches, see strengths you haven’t seen before, and drive internal initiatives which lead to external improvements and increased market share among your potential prospects.

So, in this episode, we preview the SWOT concept as an introduction to what it means, why you would use it, and how it relates to marketing.

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A lot of business leaders (i.e. entrepreneurs, existing small business owners, and licensed professionals) procrastinate and downright resist putting together a marketing plan. Why? Here are some typical reasons:

• It's time consuming - time that could be spent on improving operations, doing general marketing, or making a sale
• It's complicated - lots of concepts and terms to figure out before you even begin
• It doesn't have an immediate payoff
• It will probably change, so why even start
• It's inflexible - if we want to change direction, we can't because of this document

But marketers know the benefits of the marketing plan far outweighs these objections and believe it can be closely linked to corporate strategy. In response to these reasons, consider:

• Yes, it takes time, but in not doing a marketing plan you will waste more time on fruitless and unfocused efforts
• No, a marketing plan doesn't have to be complicated if you establish a couple of key concepts and work toward completing them
• No, a marketing plan doesn't have an immediate payoff, but it does have a long term one - in channeling your efforts and expenses to accomplish goals
• Yes, the marketing plan can and will change as you go along but that should be built into it

In this episode, we empathize with business leaders about the marketing plan, address objections, and provide some insights into preparing one including connecting it to the corporate strategy.

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If you are a student, small business professional, or new marketer and expected to create a marketing plan, the whole concept can lead to confusion and procrastination. Lots of big concepts and terms that sound good, but don't mean much and are a struggle to translate into actually accomplishing a plan.

We know, we've been there.

In this episode, we continue to discuss the important effect the marketing plan has:

• A means to connect your corporate strategy - which markets you are trying to grow your products or services - to your marketing/sales efforts
• As a more intentional option to the "marketing calendar".
• As a means to appropriately target the marketing funds you do have.
• As data or backup in the event of an internal conflict in appropriating dollars for marketing investment.
• As "cover" for telling an existing vendor "no" or "not this year".

A marketing plan starts to become more accessible when we consider how it can help alleviate a company's marketing and sales struggle.

If you are an entrepreneur or a licensed professional (i.e. accountant, architect, attorney, consultant, engineer, IT professional, etc.) who is great at what you do but dying to have a bigger client base, you need a value proposition and in this episode, we talk about why you should take the time to research and develop one.

What will you say when you connect with a new contact:

• On a cold call or cold email and they want to blow you off or object to what you have to say.
• At a networking event and they want to know how your company or firm is different.
• In a 1st official meeting and they bring up your competition or stereotype of what people think of companies like yours.

What do you want:

• When you are meeting with an existing client who is skeptical about keeping your company or your companies product/service?
• When you are trying to train someone new for a new position about how they should look at a customer?
• When a representative of your company or firm speaks with an existing client who is having issues with your product or service?

These just some of the ways the value proposition can play a vital part in your sales/marketing and operations.

In this episode, we take a look at the marketing textbook to discuss a critical concept that every company or practicing professional (accountant, architect, attorney, consultant, dentist, doctor, engineer, etc.) needs - the value proposition.

The value proposition (30 second elevator speech to potential clients or customers) should be the first and regular message customers or prospects hear or read. It says a lot in a little package; who you are, what you do, how you are different from the others, and what problems your service or product solves.

The value proposition initiates or continues a conversation, causes people to stop and consider you, your products or services, and can lead to more conversations or meetings around how you and your company can help.

But it can't do everything and it needs critical support if its message is to sway someone to do business with you. The value proposition doesn't make a sale or bring in new business but it:

• Gets prospects thinking about their problem and making a connection to you or your company as the solution
• Provides a new mental framework or standard for these customers to think about solutions to their problem
• Gives them a message to send to their boss or other internal decision makers
• Gives prospects a vision of a better future

In this episode we take a deep dive into the development and use of the value proposition by considering:

• What is a value proposition?
• Why would you need one?
• What goes into developing a value proposition and how much work can you expect to do?
• Who is involved in developing a value proposition?
• Who is involved in disseminating the value proposition message?
• What can and can't a value proposition do for your company and its growth?

Why would you want to "think like a marketer" and how do marketers think about what they do?

Because marketers, like professional accountants, architects, consultants, dentists, doctors, IT engineers, and others are educated and practice a specific craft. A marketers craft is dedicated to developing approaches, plans, and strategies to get and keep customers.

In our "Ask The Interviewer" series, we sit down with your MSW host, Julie Meegan, to see how marketers think, so you can think like a marketer too. In this episode, Julie discusses the "customers journey" which includes:

• Self-discovery of their "problem" - the crucial first step
• Research into potential market solutions to their problem - how marketing can make your company competitive
• Consideration - when your marketing messages can help make your case
• Unfavorable decision - a dispassionate analysis of what you will do differently if you didn't win the business
• Winning the business - how marketing can leverage that business for more opportunities

We hope we helped!

Welcome to the Market.Sell.Win. podcast. Marketing and sales are the drivers for the success of any business endeavor, yet many people may not have the specific skill sets and processes to drive new business in the door.

The purpose of the Market.Sell.Win. podcast is to interview seasoned professionals, who provide our listeners with information and insights that help them develop or refine their marketing and sales processes.

At some point, every company has to outsource some of their marketing services. Are you really creating, designing, negotiating, producing, implementing, tracking, and following up on all of your creative marketing ideas or do other parties help out?

Probably.

That's where the concept of marketing procurement comes into play. Marketing procurement is the subtle art of sourcing, selecting, managing, and accounting for services provided by the third party companies we rely on to compliment our marketing and sales efforts.

Here are a few examples:

• Maybe you or your marketing/sales people have the seeds of a creative idea and you mock something up - but do you design it or do you use an "outside" designer or design firm?
• If it's a digital effort, do you actually do the code to your website, prepare all the digital outreach and then execute it across multiple platforms or do you hire someone else to do that?
• What about follow up on a marketing effort - reaching out to people who attended the event or webinar or received the digital or 3D marketing campaign materials - are you doing this in house or looking for someone else to assist?
• And how will you know if you're really getting value received from the agreement you entered into

In this episode, my guest Mark Hudson gives you a high speed version of his career history and takes you on a tour of what marketing procurement really means and how you should think about it. Marketing procurement is about building relationships to make sure that you get the biggest bang for your marketing buck.

In part 1 (our free segment) of our four part interview, Mark Hudson shares with us some of the guiding philosophies of great marketing procurement which include:

• Developing a long-term strategy both on which services you will outsource and what you want those relationships to look like
• Building trust with internal clients (managers, marketing/sales people, or high-level company decision makers)
• Developing a rapport with all parties (the outside provider and inside colleagues) to define your role to protect and improve the process
• Working toward mutually agreeable project targets
• Defining savings, efficiency, and value
• Strategic thinking about the relationships you have with your outsourced providers
• Learning how to tell the same story to different audiences in different ways for different purposes

If you want to learn more from Mark's experienced insights, future episodes in the premium section of our forthcoming website will include:

- Marketing procurement ABC's for marketers (finding the best value for your business) (episode 2)

- Insights on building a better proposal process for companies in need of outsourcing (episode 3)
- Defining a contract scoping process (what to look for in a vendor's brief and statement of work) (episode 4)

If you have suggestions for future episodes or questions regarding marketing or sales issues, please reach us at marketsellwin@gmail.com.