What actually goes into the Marketing Plan? It is important to all businesses, and how much do you have dedicated to this plan after you account for forecasted revenue and all costs. Doctor Dave dives into detail and talks specifically to this. What steps to take and what are the considerations? Doctor Dave speaks to the EPIER analysis vs. the older school SWOT analysis. Concepts such as sustainability and DEI are brought up and talked about. What are the new responsibilities with respect to the environment? CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility is a thing, and it's important. How does this all play in to the Marketing Plan?

POST-SALE follow-up and IN-SALE follow-up is discussed in detail. Making the tough calls and connections is something all sales consultants must learn to love. It's part of you and part of your personal Brand or Promise to the customer. Keeping all of this in mind, follow-up is necessary and we, in the industry, do not generally do it well. Ramblin' Rob tells us how to get this done. As with anything, we have to embrace the opportunity, and just get good at it!

Doctor Dave is talking about money! The Return on Investment. Financials and Budgets are discussed - they are vital. What will we spend and how will that relate to our forecasted revenue? That will dictate ROI, of course! How are budgets determined? How can they be adjusted, how can they be influenced? How is the money distributed?

Ramblin' Rob speaks in detail about reinforcing the promise made by the consultant to the customer with respect to the product, service, or solution that has just been agreed to. Sorry, I know - preposition! We'll get over that. The importance of these steps also are designed to eliminate any potential buyer's remorse and solidify the deal! Once the documentation is accomplished, now the consumer must know HOW to use what they have just purchased. Nothing can have a more negative result than a customer not being able to use your product, service, or solution to it's full potential. If this does not happen, they might feel as though they overspent, did not receive full value, or worse, cheated. Repeat business and referrals are dependent upon the ability to feel full value in the item purchased. Implementation, in the proper way, fulfills this and makes the future more of a certainty!

Doctor Dave's students are doing a case-study of the automotive manufacturer, Subaru. The are reading the book Where the Suckers Moon, a book from 30 years ago about the advertising campaign developed for Subaru. The students have hypothetically hired Ramblin' Rob as a Executive Vice President of Business Development and have a whole host of questions for him. Kind of a departure for this podcast, but not so much! It is marvelous!

The first order of business is to recognize your KPI or Key Performance Indicators. This has to be done while not losing sight of relationship building and understanding how this might influence everything. Revenue must be targeted, of course, but considering the cost of getting your product, service, or solution into the customer's hands. There are many factors to finely balance and Doctor Dave gives keen insight to these, all the while taking into account how these KPIs relate to the target market. Desire vs. Require vs. Acquire. Total cost management and what can we do with what we have...