Written by: Jodie Gallant, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
We’re all in the habit aren’t we? Marketing beyond our products and services, when we’re looking to grow our sales and visibility, we often go straight into marketing strategies. It makes sense… I get it. Data shows these marketing strategies work. But what if now is the time take an inward look at how building culture, team, and communicating desired outcomes is the new driver for success?
In a time when so many communities are challenged by limited resources when it comes to human contribution, we need a new way to elevate and achieve success in today’s environment. It is time to consider internal marketing strategies as a new focus for businesses of all sizes. Let’s consider some ways you can secure your teams and collaborations to drive your business’s vision.
Strength
Strength comes from your VISION, your solid and discerning commitment to your goals, desired outcomes, impact, lifestyle, and emotional wellbeing.
That strength has been tested in an entirely new realm since the Coronavirus Pandemic began and ultimately, it has tested our core values, desired quality of life, and vision. What we knew before is no longer the norm.
Our survival to remaining in business was determined by the strength we carried in our commitment to our decision and our vision. Now we are challenged to surrender to how to achieve that vision and how to think differently about the decisions we make.
I do a lot with Vision Mapping with clients, because if we don’t know where we are going, we will make decisions that keep us stagnant or take us off path.
But I also know when we don’t know what to do, our vision does. It gives us the foundation to navigate new ideas, different approaches, and new technology, forcing along with new efficiencies and a solid check and balance on what we have in place. How we are working today, maybe supporting an old version of life that is no longer or is creating new possible pathways to the vision we hold steady.
Strategy
This is the plan of ACTION based on your desired outcome or vision!
This is where we would reverse engineer a road map from where we stand today to where we are going. Keep in mind, this is just a guide. If we come up against a challenge and we don’t know what to do, our vision knows!
We need to lean into the thinking and creative design, dreaming and etching of options, so we can make a decision that allows us to continue moving toward the desired outcome.
Strategy essentially is the journey, the data, the feedback, and is effective only when we are accountable to the truth of what we are seeing, hearing, and experiencing within the confines of our actions.
Let’s remember though to be careful of our tendency to move right into strategy to achieve. Sometimes, there is more in the trust, the knowing and the operation over the strategy. If we are narrowed in on a specific path to grow or achieve, we will miss the budding opportunities that may just make the journey and the speed of progress EASY!!
Three Types of Strategy
1. Business Strategy – How a company will approach the marketplace, taking their products/service to the community.
2. Operational Strategy – the action plan to implement the business strategy. Asking questions like…
What processes do we need to have or improve?
What capabilities do we have or do we need?
What technologies do we need?
What are the human resources we need, and what is the desired outcome they are responsible for?
3. Transformational Strategy – The strategy most avoid, that delivers the greatest result. The strategy of disrupting and questioning everything from systems, operations, people and approaches; essentially to really test if that is what it will take to reach the desired outcome or is it an old pattern that is no longer driving success.
And, of course, the end game is…
Success
Ultimately, this is seeing the reality of your desired outcome manifest!
So, if you are one of the many businesses challenged by the lack of human contribution I mentioned earlier in this article, allow me to challenge you to think outside the box. Consider engaging your existing team to create a new way of operational strategy where you can embark on a transformational strategy that will ensure your human contribution in whatever form that flows and brings you SUCCESS!
Ask Yourself…
How are you effectively building retention?
How are you evaluating your team of skill and talent toward implementing strategy that drives your goals to reality?
Are you asking your team what they need to thrive? What are they looking for in quality of life between work and home?
Are you staying solid in the old paradigm of job descriptions over how you are using the talent within?
Are you staying in an old structure of hiring vs outsourcing?
Based on your answers, look into options that…
Weave the digital and physical experience
Open space to express what is needed today
Trial new ways of doing things, start back at defining the desired outcome, and create a new approach
Co-create and look at how to balance “we” and “me” work
As a marketing strategist, I also encourage you to leverage your community, whether online, social, digital, email, or walk-in. Highlight and show how fun it is to work on the inside and create a culture that leaves potential employees asking how to join your team because of FOMO. We need to elevate our efforts of marketing, relationship building, communication and experience from within, as that is equally as important and valuable as our customers and lead generation initiatives.
Leverage the strength of your vision, embrace the strategy that will guide you toward your desired outcome and success is to follow.
Jodie Gallant, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Business Strategist and Coach for JMG Business Strategy, Jodie Gallant, uses her experience in marketing and planning, paired with owning 5 NH local businesses while raising a vibrant family, to inspire, lead, and support entrepreneurs to achieve the life they desire through the design of their business. Having left a secure 15-year corporate marketing and leadership career in 2012 to build two family businesses alongside her husband and three small children, Jodie quickly realized the hustle and grind was not going to work. Today she guides her clients to achieve their goals with the support of the strategies and tools she lives by. Jodie is the host and curator of the Connect Mastermind for ambitious female leaders, offers 1:1 Coaching for high-performers, and is the host of the To The Point Podcast.
