Since launching I’ve used the mission statement “success starts with strategy”
It was a rallying cry and campaign line as well as a mission. Simple, memorable and used to differentiate from the plethora of marketing consultants who are just freelancers writing social media posts.
Times have changed and things have moved on.
Success does still start with strategy, but that line doesn’t full represent what happens at Eximo Marketing.
Which is why I’d like to introduce the new mission statement:
Strategy x People = Performance
Now, I’m aware this might look very much in the marketing wank camp of mission statements.
But read it out loud first once you’ve finished rolling your eyes.
Strategy multiplied by people equals performance.
What’s Changed? More People
The new mission leans heavily on the original line.
Success is still represented but replaced with performance.
Why? It fits a little more with the business discussions I have and brings, in my opinion, a tighter alignment with business goals.
Strategy is still at the start of that successful approach to business too.
But ‘People’ is a new addition. Not in terms of the business – I’ve always focused on people. But it’s new in the mission.
I’m fond of telling anyone who will listen that marketing is a people discipline.
We’re blinded by new tech, old tech, analytics and metrics. But, at its heart, marketing is fundamentally about people.
We’re taking our product (or service) to a defined group of people and explaining why they should buy it. Everything else is just the means to make that happen.
If we don’t put people at the heart of our activity, we’re doomed as marketers.
And People also works in an internal sense too.
I work with the marketing team and the senior team at my clients and help them improve. I train leaders and teams to improve their skills and help them implement the plans.
Because the best marketing strategy won’t perform if it isn’t brought to like by a talented team.
I also speak at number conferences and guest lecture at two universities to, hopefully, spread more understanding of basic principles of marketing.
People are at the heart of marketing and now at the heart of Eximo Marketing’s mission.
What Do This Mean For You?
In practice, not much has changed. The day to day activity at Eximo Towers is still broadly the same, it’s more that the mission has been updated to more accurately reflect the activity.
Recently I worked with Evolved Search to help them develop a strategic framework to improve the discover stage of their work with clients.
I’ll take you through how this worked and highlight how the Strategy x People = Performance position worked in practice.
When I first met the Evolved team, it was in a bar after I’d spoken at SearchLove London. Our discussions highlighted some issues the agency was facing as they grew and we agreed a way to solve the problem – improve the discovery process.
I could have worked with the senior team at Evolved to develop a new discovery process and then pushed it on to the team as a new way of working. It would have been cheaper and quicker for Evolved to take that route.
But they believe in their team and I believe in tapping into a wide range of opinions to improve the outputs. It was a marriage made in heaven.
What followed was a series of workshops with a range of people from technical teams, account management and business development.
Over a couple of days, we explored what a framework would need and how it could be uniquely Evolved Search.
After all, this would be their IP – a revenue generator that they would they would sell to clients at the start of their engagements.
The final outputs (which you can read about on the Evolved site) from this process were infinitely better because we involved a wide range of people. During the workshop, practical issues were discussed, problems solved and workflows changed.
Everything got better because we involved the team.
Moreover, everyone involved with the framework’s development felt ownership of it. That meant that rolling it out to the agency was the easiest part of the whole process.
The final step was training. We made sure everyone in the team was comfortable using the process and happy to run with it with a client.
The best bit of it all? Within three months of launching the new strategic framework, Evolved Search had made a 6X return on their investment.
For me, this example highlights that success did start with strategy. But the that success was multiplied by the input of a wide range of stakeholders from Evolved Search’s team.
Strategy: development of their own strategic framework to sue in the discovery phase with clients
People: improved the framework and rolled out training for the whole team
Performance: 6X return on investment and, just as importantly, feedback like “The training was fresh and down to earth – some of the best I’ve been in and I’ve been in a lot of training seminars”
Strategy x People = Performance.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you.
The new mission will roll out across the business and will be making its way into more communications and across the website.
It’s a subtle shift internally and should help to keep the focus on what I do. Externally, you won’t notice much difference, but do feel free to hold me to account if you think something I’m doing doesn’t fit with the new position.
Andi