Introduction
In most SME’s, the owner constantly wears multiple hats. Those hats must be worn well if the business is to complete the multiplicity of tasks and actions it faces to achieve success.
As the owner, your first thought every day is how do you make the best use of the resources available to you, to achieve that success. Those resources are people, money and time.
The skills of the human resources always need evaluation and training. Cash is always a consideration, but planning helps manage that aspect. Time, or rather the lack of it, is the one resource that is always under the most intense pressure. There never seems to be enough of it.
So, what can you do to get the most out of the least?
The most singular factor is leadership. Leadership starts with building common business goals and objectives. A clear understanding of what is needed will get all your team heading in the right direction. So framing clear goals and objectives are the first to stand out.
The next step is to review “where you are”. Before any business can decide what it’s going to do, it is going to complete an audit, that audit describing the current situation.
The “where are you” or the audit.
That audit is filled with acronyms, SWOT, PESTLE, 7P’s, SOSTAC. GAP analysis, Porters 5 Forces and STP. That audit requires “big picture” strategic thinking skills, which evolves into planning, scheduling and finally implementation skills and responsibilities.
That begins to describe the desirable skillsets the resources must have. You must have leadership, that is obvious, but what of the rest of the journey to success?
Resources
The first comment here is that every SME team is made up of multiple characters. In a SME everyone, like the owner, wears different hats. But each individual needs a slightly different management approach to bring out the best. Above all those individuals must be skilled, and experienced and if gaps are evident, the individuals must be trained.
By now we have clear objectives, a comprehensive situation analysis and have a cler concept of the human resources that are required.
These blogs are authored by a marketing specialist so let us first look for a moment at the skills any marketing team needs in abundance.
Marketing skills
The steps that translate a situational analysis and business objectives into marketing tactics require discussion, communications, leading and working with cross-functional teams or interdisciplinary teams and even stakeholders. Remember these stakeholders are removed from the operational side of the business. The marketer must also get to the consumer, the final responsibility of the marketing strategy. Ultimately the skill of getting disparate people to work and deliver together is a critical marketing skill. Those skills span political and communicative, problem solving and effectual, analytical and numerate, esoteric and conformist, creative and disciplined yet action and results oriented skillsets. Thus, your marketing person is a strategist, an analyst, a diplomat, a creator and importantly must be an executor too.
Who else in the organisation needs that kind of skill set?
You, the owner do. Your executive team does. More importantly anybody responsible for making things happen does. More specifically every project management responsible does as well. Critically a project manager must be able to think on their feet, ensuring the project is delivered in the manner intended: to budget , in quality, and most importantly, on time. Virtually each of the marketing skills described match the project manager requirement, and even more so when the broader Agile project management methodology is applied.
A closer look
Think about a product launch. In the beginning that might be a research document, which is escalated by a random stakeholder comment into a discussion with the R&D team. Discussions with salespeople and key accounts customers lead to sales forecasts and ultimately a marketing budget to launch the new product. Sales forecasts lead to production forecasts. And raw materials requirements. By now a marketing strategy is taking shape. And a sales strategy takes shape too. Who is going to buy the new product. In what quantities? What about customer training? When will the product launches occur? Who will attend? When will communications start? More importantly when will advertising agency briefing occur? When will you see the first ideas about launch advertising campaigns.
There are a million things that need to be arranged and managed. And in the corporate marketing world they’re managed around a time and a budget,
That brings us back to project management and the alignment marketing management skills and responsibilities.
Marketing people have those skills and it would be good practise to expand that skill set within the resources that support your SME.
Conclusion
Success comes with balancing creativity and structure, taking up a hybrid approach. That hybrid approach must always talk the SME owner back to the business objectives. Once that is verified the owner must get back to making things happen, on time, on budget and to expected quality.
When you , the SME owner, are looking at resources, why not combine marketing skills and project management skills. Your business will benefit.
That might require marketing management or project management or perhaps your success will result when you combine both into your brands personality.
About Garth Sutherland
You’re a busy business owner, not a marketing manager. Your focus is on customers and operations, not wrestling with complex marketing strategies. That’s where I come in.
I’m Garth Sutherland, and with vast experience in the marketing solutions available to small businesses, I truly understand what it takes to drive growth. My background, spanning both local and international brands, has equipped me with a strong strategic focus for marketing delivery. I know you need action and results, not just elaborate plans.
If the insights shared in my blog (and others at www.smallbusinessmarketing.co.za) resonate with you and highlight a solution that would add tangible value to your business, then you’re in the right place. As a fractional marketing consultant, I don’t just develop actionable marketing plans; I crucially manage their execution. This frees you up to do what you do best: build your business, without the added overwhelm.
Ready to achieve your personal and business goals, and reclaim your valuable time?
Contact me, Garth Sutherland, today for a direct conversation about your growth challenges:
Email: garth@smallbusinessmarketing.co.za
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garthrsutherland/
Call: +27 (0) 81 265 5803
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