Well-structured meetings are a vital strategic planning tool. Setting an organization’s strategic plan involves industry exeprtise, current research,organization knowledge, staff understanding, and management commitment. Leaders can design a planning process that exploits the benefits of different types of meetings at different stages to make the best of this knowledge and insights.

The strategic planning process is an excellent platform for assessing a company’s situation, performance, and likely future and then deciding how to improve the organization’s prospects.  Most planning processes incorporate basic elements: customer needs and wants; the market landscape including competitors, product substitutes, and regulation; product profitability and company economics; and internal capabilities and gaps.

The challenge for leaders is to structure distinct strategic alternatives, evaluate each alternative based on benefits and implementation capabilities, and select a path forward. Planning meetings are where this work can take place to maximize successful thinking and action.

The objective and structure of each meeting depends on where it falls in the strategic planning sequence. The major meeting types are outlined below.

To help clarify, consider the example of a non-profit organization went through a multiyear planning process. The CEO sought fresh ideas and fresh approaches to old problems, with particular emphasis on emerging technologies. Her key goal was to involve and motivate a variety of diverse constituents.

Here are major meeting types arrayed in sequence followed by a typical strategic planning process:

Idea Creation: Generating lots of ideas and putting creative thinking on the table suggests that a large group—from 20 to 35 participants—is a useful size. Breakout groups can be programmed to allow more conversation.

The non-profit invited key players from all constituencies to maximize idea generation and lay the ground work for buy in. The designers developed clear criteria and enforced good meeting behaviors to promote quality "structured" brainstorming.

Agreement and Alignment: Gaining alignment on a set of options, through either consensus or majority, calls for a smaller group, say 6 to 14 participants. Smaller teams are very good at considering and selecting options. To maximize the chance for closure at the meeting, relevant data should be available and the final decision-making process should be understood.

The non-profit used a group with only a few representatives from senior management – the bulk of the group was comprised of highly engaged and well-informed representatives from major constituencies. The team was empowered to articulate core beliefs, validate the external environment, and draft strategic imperatives for Board approval. This group was convened several times over 18 months to drive key elements of the strategic planning process. At the end, the members were fully aligned around the options under consideration.

Decision Making: When the stakes are high, as they are when shifting an organization’s direction, decisions must be made by a small group of key executives and Board members. Typically, these people have been involved throughout the process.

In our example, there was a key group of leaders – three executives and three Board members. The final decisions, including resource allocation, were made by them.

Action Planning: Once decisions have been made and options chosen, a larger group is required to put plans in place, particularly if implementation requires cross-functional planning. These meetings should be structured to develop key implementation steps with goals, objectives, metrics, responsibilities, time-lines, and budget. Typically, the members are those staff required to implement so this step ensures both communications clarity and more thorough implementation.

At the non-profit, a team of approximately 35 met to hear a presentation of the strategy and then broke into teams of five to seven individuals to sketch out first drafts of the action plans. The group members both heard the strategy and understood the execution requirements and the specific roles they would play.

Information Sharing: Information sharing meetings are one-way communications, so group size can be unlimited. Meeting planners have to make sure that participants' expectations are clear and that not everyone is able to speak. The objectives are to announce and explain the new plan and to generate enthusiasm for moving forward.

The non-profit used information sharing meetings several times during the planning process. The first was to reveal that management and Board concluded the organization needed to make some fundamental changes and that the strategic planning process would be the tool to make that happen. A second meeting updated the organization and external constituents about progress and the draft set of decisions and alternatives. The final information sharing meeting unveiled the final decisions and action plan calendar, and invited participation from all concerned.

To recap, here are meeting design principles.

¨        Have a strategic plan formulation sequence in mind. This allows you to make the tradeoffs between staff work to prepare for meetings and the pattern of meetings themselves.

¨        Determine each meeting’s objective. Is it to brainstorm ideas? To discuss options and improve them? To make a decision or select an option? To align people around the action plan?

¨        Align group composition to meet these objectives. The starting point is a naturally occurring team of senior executives: the CEO and his direct reports. Sometimes this team is the perfect size. But some managers try to use this fixed group for all purposes, rather than expanding or contracting a meeting's size to suit the topic.

¨        Tailor meetings to ensure thorough discussions – otherwise it is cheaper to just send an email or make a You Tube video!

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Salesman Equivalent Units: Quantifying Expectations from Marketing 

Just about all corporate business sales involve sales people. Even MRO transactions consummated electronically have their beginnings in personal sales, negotiation, and contracting. It goes without saying that a sales force is expensive. That is why so many companies look to marketing and alternate channels, both online and offline, to leverage this expensive resource and make it more efficient and effective.

Making ROI decisions on sales and marketing mix alternatives has been too often considered an art form but it does not have to be that way. With a simple sales pipeline model, management can calculate opportunity benefits and costs of various sales and marketing configurations using the Salesman Equivalent Units model.

Consider a straightforward sales pipeline with five stages defined as the “state of the selling conversation.” Stage 1 is beginning to learn about a qualified business’s problems and needs. The successive stages can be called Prospecting, Identifying an Opportunity, Developing an Opportunity, and Negotiating a Contract. Analysis of a well-defined pipeline’s transaction history measures the probability of advancing from stage to stage. For example, over time, 40% of prospect move from stage 1 to stage 2, 50% of those move to stage 3, and so on. Furthermore, the average sales time spent with a prospect at each stage can be estimated by the sales force. Taken together, some interesting data can be estimated:

·        The number of new prospects required to yield one closed contract.

·        Sale person time required to convert a new prospect to a customer.

·        Aggregate sales time required to work all prospects at each pipeline stage to yield a closed contract.

One financial products example: each stage required increasing amounts of time to understand a prospect’s problems and needs, contact and persuade the buying influencing network, craft a solution that met the needs of the customer, and close the sale. It took a sales person about six hours over 13 weeks from initial qualification to closed sale. But of course not all qualified leads turn into customers. In this company’s case, 14 prospects had to be qualified for every one contract. In aggregate, a sales person spent an average of 80 hours, or 2 weeks, to get one sale. 

Assuming an average salary, commission, and benefits cost of $40 per hour, a single product sale cost $3,200. With this insight, the company was able to evaluate several trade-offs about its sales and marketing strategy.

·        Contract sales people are somewhat common in the particular market space segment. The typical finder’s fee was about $2,500, so the company was ahead by $700 per referred sale through this channel.

·        Google AdWords campaigns can result in prospects at the Opportunity sales stage or at least very interested leads. The company found that 10% of click throughs were classified as Opportunity. This was equivalent to a sale person working through six prospects for an aggregate time commitment of 12 hours or $480. A single click cost about $5 each, so the AdWords cost per stage 3 prospect was $50, a clear cost savings.

·        The company’s participation at trade shows was in the process of being phased out because participation cost $15,000 at each show plus sales force time. Yet analysis using this framework showed that overall sales force productivity was improved to the tune of almost $1,000 per closed sale, which more than paid for the out of pocket costs.

·        An outside appointment-setting service was retained to secure phone appointments. The arrangement was to pay the service $50 per appointment, which seemed like a good deal. Yet analysis showed that the sales force was able to qualify 80% using similar lead lists with an average time commitment of 30 minutes per name. Even though the sales force preferred that someone else make the cold calls, it was more expensive to use the outside service.

·        The company invested in a new branding campaign. Was it worth it? Electronic versions of collateral were used in a series of email blasts. The results of followup sales force calls were compared to a similar list without the email campaign. Using this framework, the company was able to measure the benefits of the branding campaign in terms of Salesman Equivalent Units.

The marketing function has three purposes: identify prospects, increase awareness, and reinforce the brand. The Salesman Equivalent Unit model can help evaluate marketing’s contribution and guide planning and increment spending.

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Market Segmentation and Cost-Effective Marketing  The marketing function has three purposes: identify prospects, increase awareness, and reinforce the brand. Effective marketing programs focus on viable market segments, as defined by profit potential, and are crafted to communicate how prospects’ needs and wants can be satisfied by your product or service.

Market segments are defined along two dimensions: demographic and psychographic.

 Demographic characteristics include customer type, size, and location. Demographic segments determine market potential. Segment members tend to share similar business problems and the need for a particular product or service.

 Psychographic characteristics describe customer attitudes, needs, and buying behavior. Two prospects with identical demographic characteristics can have vastly different needs and behaviors.

 Using Segments in Marketing

The marketing plan must address both dimensions – first to find prospects (demographics) and then hook them with focused marketing messages (psychographics).

 Demographics are the physical characteristics that define the prospect’s buying environment, a combination of variables such as its target market and number of end users, age and condition of buying firms’ present equipment, geographic distance from shipping points, proximity to service and support centers,  and compatibility of product or service with buyer’s existing facilities. All are objective and measureable characteristics. This helps figure out how to find prospects through sources such as mailing lists, industry associations, and trade shows.

 Psychographics are the values and attitudes shared by the Buying Influences within a company and held collectively by the company itself (its culture). Examples include company reputation, ethical standards, and attitudes towards people including customers, suppliers, and employees, openness to innovation, and relative importance placed on quality compared to quantity of sales. Understanding a prospect’s psychographic characteristics is important to hook the prospect by matching your offering with the way he or she thinks and decides.

 Psychographic segments can be uncovered by understanding the industry, hypothesizing likely segments, and then testing with structured marketing interviews.

 For example, a marketing agency finds that its clients can be characterized as Experts – “I am the expert, do what I tell you, no more, no less,” Collaborative – “I know enough to trust your expertise; help me as I need to get the job done,” and Neophyte – “There are too many choices and variables; make the pain go away.” Another example is an avionics manufacturer which describes its aircraft manufacturer customers in three segments: “Extremely Conservative,” “New Kids on the Block,” and “Leading Edge.”

 Tying it All Together: Tailored Marketing Messages

An effective marketing program has different message layers. For example:

 1.      The first set of messages could be the benefits of your product or service compared to product substitutes in order to explain the concept to Neophytes and to demonstrate expertise to Collaborative and Experts.

2.      The second message set demonstrates positive differences compared to competitors and provides evidence in terms of marketing language, the business process, and client testimonials.

 3.      The third layer is tuned messages which capture the attention and interest of the psychographic segments within the target market segments by first demonstrating that we understand their needs and problems and then showing that we have the best solutions.

 Not all marketing communications can capture all three layers at once, but the overall marketing mix should be designed to get these messages to prospects.

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Managing the Sales Pipeline

In commercial sales, especially for complex products and services, it is all too easy for a company’s sales force to concentrate on closing deals and lose focus on regularly working the remainder of the sales pipeline. Once pending proposals are resolved – one way or another –sales people are often chagrined to find out the number of prospects is low and their quality is poor.

The sales pipeline metaphor can help a sales person manage his or her book of business to increase sales productivity and success.

 The pipeline is initially filled from the marketing funnel. The marketing function has three purposes: identify prospects, increase awareness, and reinforce the brand. The first two functions yield names and contact information of companies that potentially need and desire your product. The initial work of the sales force is to qualify these leads and determine if the company is willing to engage in conversations about how your company can meet their wants and needs.

 Once initial contact verifies a potential sale, the prospect is entered into the pipeline. This next step is to cover the basics. This includes understanding the prospect’s situation, business problem, and needs; identifying and contacting the key buying influencers; and articulating the results each influencer needs to win.

 The next pipeline objective is to identify the Best Few: those prospects which are expected to place an order in one-half or less of the normal selling cycle. The sales work is to understand the response mode of the buying influencers and show how the product or service can eliminate Trouble, promote Growth, or both, depending on the influencer’s perspective. The idea is to eliminate barriers and close the sale.

 Throughout the pipeline process, the obligation of the sales person is to continually reassess the sales picture and regularly update the sales manager on status and next steps. A wide variety of CRM tools exist to help the management aspects. The key is to set an appropriate reporting structure and measurement discipline.

 Many companies set up sales pipelines like this:

1.                   Qualify: based on research and inbound inquiries, assess potential fit.

2.                 Prospect: gather information about the company; establish the company’s willingness to engage in conversations about its relevant problems and needs.

3.                 Opportunity Identification: learn about the company’s specific needs, identify and contact buying influencers, and educate them about how the product or service can solve their particular problems.

4.                 Opportunity Development: more focused conversations about needs and solutions; begin to remove barriers.

5.                 Proposal: company has requested a bid; the sales person finalizes all the details to craft a specific proposal and reviews it with all buying influencers.

6.                 Close: overcome all remaining objections and get a signed contract.

The management process depends on regular review of pipeline status and planned next steps. The value added by the sales manager is to provide ideas and guidance on overcoming influencer objections and moving all names along the sales pipeline.

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There are five buyer roles. Sometimes a single individual may have more than one role. Sometimes a role is filled by a committee or work group.

 Technical Buyer is tasked with accepting, or more often than not screening out potential products or services.  “Does it meet specifications?”  Typical titles: staff specialist such as an engineer, brand manager, or someone tasked with ensuring compliance with company standards.

 Functional Buyer, who is worried about how the potential product or service will impact his or her job performance. “How will it work for me?”  Typical titles: manager in procurement, production, logistics, sales, or marketing.

 Economic Buyer is focused on the financial bottom line. The economic buyer can often be the final decision-maker. “What kind of return will we get on this investment?” Typically a controller, CFO, or finance committee.

 Strategic Buyer, who is focused on brand implications and the impact of the purchase on the organization. “How will this help the company?” Since this person has veto power, it is the CEO or General Manager, or a committee that reports to him or her. (Footnote for Miller Heiman purists – the Book says that Economic Buyers are the final decision maker, but the increased understanding of strategic brand planning and management in the last ten years has led to the distinctions here.)

Coach is a credible internal person who wants to help the sales person succeed with a particular sale because he or she perceives benefits to the company and to the Coach. The Coach acts as a guide for the sale. “How can we pull this off?” A Coach can be almost anyone, including one of the above Buyer roles or sometimes an outside expert on the company such as a consultant or business adviser.

 The Buying Influence analysis should be part of a sales person’s planning. The task is to understand how buying decisions are made by a prospective client. Who are the individuals? What are their titles, roles, and responsibilities? What are the relevant committees? What are the company’s purchasing policies and decision-making criteria?

 The better this mosaic is understood, the greater the chance of closing strategic sales.