The Vision/Traction Organizer™ includes a section called “Marketing Strategy.” It is designed to identify who your ideal customer is and what you should be saying to them in all your marketing and sales campaigns.

A clear, well-defined Marketing Strategy must align with your Core Focus™. A clear, well-defined Marketing Strategy enables your people to make better decisions.

The heart of great sales and marketing strategies answer four simple questions:

1. What is our target market? 
2. What are our three uniques? 
3. What is our proven process? 
4. What is our guarantee?

Three elements define your ideal customer or target market:

• Demographic—who are they—i.e.: companies with at least 2,000 employees and five physical plants
• Geographic—where are they—i.e.: within a 100 mile radius of our location

The third element is the psychographic, and the focus for today’s discussion. Your ideal customer’s psychographic describes what they value most.

It identifies:

• how they think, act, and feel
• what they appreciate; and
• what motivates them

Your ideal customer may value a relationship with your company over price. Perhaps they want a single point of contact for all their locations. Maybe a well-proven track record is most important to them. Then again, lowest, best price may be the most important consideration when selecting a service provider. It is possible just-in-time delivery is critical to their production capabilities. You get the picture.

The value in understanding your customer’s psychographic is this is where your real magic and value live. This is your opportunity to shine.

So gather your Leadership Team in the conference room, close the door, and start making a list of what your ideal customer wants. Then identify how you can give your customer “that”—because otherwise your sales and marketing efforts are wasting time and energy.

If you know your target audience but not how to reach them, or need assistance identifying their demographic, geographic, or psychographic, I’m here to help. Please use the consult form below if you’d like to schedule a free phone consultation with me. I would be happy to help you get inside the minds of your target market so you can understand their psychographic and make your marketing strategy as effective as possible.

I recently saw a commercial that asked a question I found interesting: “If you looked at America as a bird does, would you understand it?” I don’t remember what the commercial was promoting, which is my usual practice.

The question caught my attention because it correlates to what EOS Implementers™ do when we engage with a Leadership Team to implement EOS^®.

If you think about your business, I bet there is a lot of activity on a day-to-day basis. I expect there are a lot of interrelated components to what you do. And your employees, vendors, and customers routinely interact with each other, as well as all those aspects of your business. You and your team are busy. As a leader in your company, it is important that you understand the intricacies of your operation and the internal and external relationships.

In order to effectively implement EOS^®, the Leadership Team needs to step out of the business.  We need you to disconnect yourself from your ego, your role, and past beliefs and do what is best for the greater good of the organization going forward.

The only way for a Leadership Teams to do that is to elevate above all that “stuff” and work on the business as if they are a board of directors.

Looking at your company from a 30,000-foot view allows a Leadership Team to survey everything that is going on and identify those aspects that may be out of alignment.

That can be hard to see when you are so close to the business, working in it while also working on it. Business owners may need a guide—someone whose wings they can hold on to and soar above the daily operations to get to the birds eye view. That guide is your EOS Implementer™. We see things you often can’t because you are in the weeds. We can offer a fresh set of eyes, help you see your business the way we do, while helping you implement EOS^® in your business.

If you’d like to talk about this or any other aspect of EOS^®, please fill out the contact form below to request phone consultation with me. Grab my coattails and I will lead you to the horizon until you can view your business from that vantage point on your own.

Remember EOS^® shines a light on every corner of your business. It’s time to take a bird’s eye view. Let’s set up a time to talk about how to get it done.

The Vision/Traction Organizer™, also known as the V/TO™, is one of the tools we help Leadership Teams create. It is a 2-page strategic plan, and it is all you need to manage your company.

The Marketing Strategy is one of the eight sections of the V/TO™. Included in the Marketing Strategy is the identification of your 3 Uniques™. These are often known as differentiators or value propositions. Your 3 Uniques™ are what make you stand out in the mind of your ideal customer. You may share one unique with one of your competitors—but you are the only one that exhibits all three.

Once your Leadership Team defines and is in 100% agreement with what your uniques are, they then need to become a common thread through all your marketing and sales communication. The purpose of this approach is to create a consistent message in the marketplace.

At some point during a Quarterly Pulsing™ Session, I will ask the Leadership Team how they are using their 3 Uniques™ in their marketing tactics. In my experience, most of the Leadership Teams with whom I work have not thought about using their 3 Uniques™ to market their product or service.

So, here are three ideas you can adopt so your ideal customer has a clear understanding of why they should engage with your company:

1. Create a standard “About Us” description. Keep it simple; 2 – 3 sentences. Show your ideal customer what they will miss by not engaging with your company.
2. Craft a 30 second elevator pitch; teach it to every employee. This is a great way to tell a prospective client how you help them.
3. Create a “What Makes Us Different” webpage or video. This is an opportunity to demonstrate how you help a client solve a problem.

Clearly communicating your 3 Uniques™ creates awareness and excitement. And it helps a prospective client point to your company and say, “I want that!”

Some leadership teams have trouble drilling down and coming to an agreement on their business’s 3 Uniques™. It often takes an outside perspective to listen to everyone’s thoughts and suggestions, ask questions, and facilitate conversation that gives clarity to those 3 Uniques™.  That’s one of the many jobs of an EOS Implementer™. If you’d like to share where you are in the EOS^® process and get my input on your 3 Uniques™, please complete the consult form below. We’ll set up a phone call that will answer your EOS^® questions and help you narrow down what makes your business different from your competitors.

Leadership doesn’t start with a fancy title. Leadership starts when you realize:

• what you are doing is important
• you can’t do it alone
• you’re going to get it done somehow, regardless

If you are part of a Leadership Team, are you ready and willing to become your best? Before you answer, let me explain the four things “your best” requires.

1. Becoming both Healthy and Smart
   I find the Leadership Teams with whom I work are smart. They produce a quality product or provide an exemplary service, which requires them to be experts in their industry.
   
   Where they need assistance is in becoming healthy. That means they are open and honest with each other, not at a superficial level, but at a deep level that allows them to be comfortable admitting what they don’t know – or where they need help – all the while knowing their colleagues will help, not criticize. Perhaps the team needs to learn how to not allow politics to impact their relationships, their work together, and the company’s vision. And teams usually need to master becoming a united front that discusses issues and reaches a solution, which every team member supports. This is possible when every team member has been heard.
   
   
2. Becoming a leadership team
   Strong Leadership Teams manage their company with a handful of rules and they demonstrate the behavior they want to see throughout the company. Your Core Values represent your “handful of rules”.
   
   Being your best also requires Leadership Teams to understand that everything wonderful about their company is their doing, and everything that is an issue within their company is also their doing. EOS^® provides the tools to strengthen the former, and resolve forever the latter.
   
   
3. Run your business on one operating system
   We have a creed within EOS^®: You cannot build a great organization on multiple operating systems – you must choose one. The issue with having multiple operating systems is that everyone speaks a different language and everyone does it their own way. This does not work. Think about your marketing department using a word processing software that does not integrate or communicate with the word processing software the operations department uses. Confusion, to say the least!
   
   
4. Strengthen the Six Key Components™ of your business:

• Vision
• People
• Data 
• Issues
• Process
• Traction

Are you willing to become your best? You do not owe me an answer. You’ll know in your mind and in your heart. Leadership, at its best, is intensely personal. And the people who follow you, they can tell.

Becoming your best is a journey, and you may find you need a guide along the way. If you’d like to talk more about your road ahead, I invite you to complete the consult form below to request a free phone consultation with me. I’m confident that when you focus on building a smart and healthy leadership team under one operating system, you will be well on your way to becoming your best.  

My previous company engaged the expertise of an EOS Implementer™, and one of our favorite tools was the Level 10 Meeting™. We embraced the tool because it helped us develop a cadence; gave us a pulse on our company; created a routine that improved efficiency; and it prevented bottlenecks and train wrecks.

In short, we eliminated situations where the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.

I find the Leadership Teams with whom I work quickly embrace the Level 10 Meeting™, as well.

At the end of every Level 10 Meeting™ the leaders review the decisions they reached, and determine if there are any Cascading Messages to convey to their colleagues. If there are, the team then decides the answers to the following questions and acts accordingly:

1. Who is affected by this decision? 
   
   Perhaps the entire company needs the information. Then again, maybe the decision is pertinent to a company division or an individual.
   
   
2. What is the agreed upon content we will all share about this decision?
   
   Make sure everyone hears the same message from each Leadership Team member.
   
   
3. Who will communicate it? 
   
   The answer to this question depends on the answer to question #1. That said it is imperative every member of the Leadership Team is prepared to address questions.
   
   
4. How will we communicate it? 
   
   Face-to-face communications are always preferable. If that isn’t possible, be sure people have an opportunity to ask clarifying questions.
   
   
5. When will we communicate it? 
   
   I encourage teams to share the information as soon as possible. Doing so will limit rumors, misinformation, and confusion.

Cascading Messages ensure everyone is 100% aligned on communications. And answering the 5 questions is equally as important as every other agenda item.

And don’t forget to rate the meeting. It is the responsibility of each Leadership Team member to make the Level 10 Meeting a “10”; if the Leadership Team doesn’t do it, who will?

Is your Leadership Team embracing Level 10 Meetings™? If you’d like to discuss your progress or need to be pointed in the right direction, I can help. The consult form below gives you the chance to pick my brain about EOS^®, Level 10 meetings™, Cascading Messages, or any other EOS^®concept you’d like to discuss. I offer this consult with no fee or obligation because I believe in the process and I know it can help you.

So let’s talk all things EOS^®, and help you get the maximum benefit from your Level 10 Meetings™.