If you’ve got “strong-willed members” on your team, you’ll benefit from this admonition of bitchy resistance and the free download below that our CEO created to get teams aligned on marketing initiatives.
The productive powerhouses on your team can be the most difficult to get on board with company priorities. But, once they’re on board, you’ve got rocket fuel!
As an admittedly feisty team member here at Heal At Scale, I’ve definitely been guilty of dragging my feet on executing marketing initiatives that were anything less than stellar in my often strong opinion.
I have high standards for what’s worth my time. When I perceived a project didn’t make the cut, I showed up with righteousness and a twist of superiority. (Sorry guys!)
I’ll never forget the day that both the worst and best ideas came across my desk and changed all that for the better.
Upon arrival at my desk that morning, I saw an Asana task notification that I had been assigned to create YET ANOTHER four day cash machine for a brand that had already mailed three of these promotions in that quarter.
The classic Four Day Cash Machine promotion, made popular by the oh-so-cool Frank Kern, has a place in marketing plans. I don’t question that or Frank's hot/coolness. But, a third 4DCM in a single quarter? I was sick at the thought of pushing the same offer in the same way.
It felt like a desperate ringing out of the list for the last possible dollar that was highly likely to result in recipients digitally flipping us off by classifying that brand’s communications as spam. YUCK.
Just as I was rolling my eyes at the Asana task, I got a Slack message from Travis, our CEO, inviting the key players for that brand to an urgent Strategic Alignment meeting.
I could not have felt less aligned, but I also didn’t want to bring any ‘hater’ energy into my writing because I believe that negatively affects the campaigns. So, I got excited that this might be my chance to be heard regarding the overuse of the 4DCM promotions and the high cost brands pay in lost connection with their list.
What Travis pulled off was AMAZEBALLS.
Travis rallied the team that was physically present in the boardroom, looped in the ladies on the customer service team via conference line, and the traveling brand leader attended via Zoom. The whole team was invited to put their ideas for marketing initiatives on the table.
As everyone shared, it was the first many of us had heard about the challenges others were experiencing in their respective areas of responsibility.
The customer service team had an excessive amount of tickets about the cost of shipping and the high purchase amount required to qualify for free shipping. The CTO expressed his concerns about deliverability, open rates and engagement. The CFO needed a quick cash infusion. It was the perfect opportunity to voice my concern about yet another 4DCM and offer up replacement ideas.
To be clear, this wasn’t a complaint session. No. It was a brainstorm in which we proposed marketing initiatives we suspected could have a high probability of solving the challenges we were experiencing. We all had issues and ideas for fixing them, so before long we had a LONG list of ideas that Travis stored in a spreadsheet called the Quarterly Scorecard.
The brainstorm was followed by a sorting process that evaluated our ideas based on potential to cause growth in 5 areas; Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue (from Dave McClure's Product Marketing For Pirates).
The top ideas were further scrutinized using three crucial questions:
When that meeting was over, the Four Day Cash Machine I was dreading was cut in favor of running a ‘Buy More Save More' promotion. It solved the most common complaint the customer service team was dealing with by getting average order values up high enough to qualify for free shipping. It gave less of a discount than the 4DCM which meant the company kept more profits. It gave customers a sliding scale discount that went up the more they bought. It gave the CFO the bump in revenue he needed to make the quarter’s numbers strong. It was an all around success.
Even better… we executed in alignment more than ever before. Seriously!
The customer service lead gave feedback to the designer about the Facebook ads and to me about adding details that would prevent inquiries over what qualified for the discounts. Neither of us had ever heard from that team member before except at the weekly team meetings when she simply rattled off how many tickets were in ZenDesk! The team became a well oiled machine, cranking out a quality promotion in record time!
With that kind of aligned energy behind a promotion, it's no wonder that promotion was the brand’s second biggest sale of that year. Let me tell you… 4DCMs for that brand never came close to those numbers!
Thanks to the Quarterly Scorecard and the process that goes along with it, I transitioned from having an extreme distaste for an assignment to total delight.
Was it because I got my way? I suppose one could assume that, but the truth is that getting a company-wide vision of what was and wasn’t working for customers and for the team gave me a much broader vision than was available in solitude at my desk. The process ignited commitment to doing what’s needed to solve problems and elevate lives.
When you use the Quarterly Scorecard to go through this process, you end up with a combined score being generated for each opportunity. Your next moves become crystal clear AND, best of all, team members become clear on WHY initiatives are being executed!
Passion ignites when purpose is clear!
Joy Houston, Chief Connection OfficerI feel guilty that I’ll never know if the initiatives I disapproved in the past of were bottom shelf ideas or if I wrapped them in bad energy because I didn’t see a positive purpose behind those ideas. Regardless, since I’ve vowed to get clarity of purpose before I commit to ANY copy creation, I am happier in my work and my copy converts even better!
I believe that’s because everyone who touches a funnel or promotion in any way adds their own bit of energy to the project. What would happen if your team was strategically aligned on the initiatives you roll out in the next quarter? Here’s your opportunity to find out!
Stop guessing. No more chasing fruitless failures. Focus on the initiatives you’ve vetted through this proven process!
If you’re up for elevating profits and improving company culture, you’ll love this process and the spreadsheet that captures and organizes it all!
Putting it ALL out there…I still get grief for having impossible standards and I still suck at sugarcoating my views, but thanks to our CEO, I’ve learned how to play full out in executing initiatives that are best for brands given the tech, time and team they’ve got available. I credit Travis and his process using the Quarterly Scorecard for showing me how to lean into projects instead of having a “peace out” attitude.
If you’ve got strong-willed team members, I don’t know of a better way to get them on board with what your brand is up to than going through the process of completing the Quarterly Scorecard. Fingers crossed you love it as much as I do.
