Pre-Marketing Conversations for Business Leaders

Has your business changed? Are you searching for new clients but unsure how to go about it? There are many reasons you may be looking for new clients. The challenge is knowing where to start and dealing with the internal politics, fear and resistance to change.

Marketing Assumptions

Too many people assume marketing equates to advertising, websites, sales, and social media. There is a tendency to jump into a project like a new website or some other busywork, hoping to “tick the marketing box” so you can get back to business and be done with it.

Others hum and haw over the decision and fail to act. They may not understand marketing and are reluctant to throw money at the problem. Doing nothing feels safer and easier.

What you know is your current efforts are not working, and doing something feels better than doing nothing. Then, off you go into the marketing busywork vortex.

What’s the Alternative?

The alternative is to get clear on your situation, goals, and constraints and develop a purposeful plan of action.

Marketing is not a bunch of tasks to complete. Marketing is the system you build to develop target relationships and drive earnings growth. If you’re unclear about why you’re considering marketing and how you’ll define success, you’re not ready.

Strategic Conversations

There are several important conversations to work through before you invest.

1. Clarifying the specific problems you need to solve
2. Identifying economic constraints and success criteria
3. Assessing client needs and competitive factors
4. Considering alternative courses of action
5. Mapping out the logistics and developing forecast models
6. Determining how to implement your plan

Once you’ve worked through these conversations, the heavy lifting begins.

Pre-marketing Is Not Ownerous

The whole pre-marketing process boils down to doing your homework and having a plan before you start. It’s not a herculean challenge. It may be unfamiliar territory, but it’s not rocket science either. It can happen quickly once you decide to act.

Hiring a guide to facilitate makes a world of difference. You need someone who understands the whole commercialization process to facilitate, direct your efforts and help you commit to a worthy plan of action. You want a sales and marketing coach, consultant or Fractional Chief Marketing Officer to guide you.

Where to Begin?

The pre-marketing process always starts with a conversation about context and purpose. Where are you now? What’s not working? What are the implications of inaction? What are the target outcomes, and what are the risks?

If you’re not ready to engage in a discovery conversation, you’re not prepared to invest in marketing.

Focus on overcoming your fear and resistance to change. If you don’t address the root issues, you’ll doom your efforts from the outset.

Your marketing is an expression of your leadership. More than anything, it’s about clarity of intention and commitment to act. Unclear intentions and a lack of commitment create lousy marketing programs that fail to deliver.

Getting Started Is Easy

If you’re not sure where to start, speak with a coach about the process. You can also read a few of our free ebooks to frame the conversation. What Is Marketing? and The First Seven are good starting points to read and share with your team.