As the Chief Visionary here at Marketing Heroes, part of my job is to come up with the vision for the company. Since we’re a marketing company, it’s also my job to sit down with our clients and build the vision for their company as well.
Part Visionary – Part Business Coach
I’m surprised almost daily about how many companies have a lack of understanding of business models and how to run a business. So I find myself in a business coach role as well – especially with startups.
You see, there are lots of ways to run a business; however, for the past four years, I’ve been working on a “self-proclaimed” MBA and studying how to structure and run businesses. Mainly so my own business is run like a well-oiled machine.
I try to read a business book every week. This year alone, I’ve read 38 books (some two or three times) and have implemented a lot of things in my own business.
Good Read!
One of the best books that I’ve read on how to structure a business is Traction by Gino Wickman where he outlines a simple “Operating System” for businesses called Entrepreneur Operating System or EOS.
In it, he describes the ideal structure of a business as the following:
Although I don’t want to go into much detail here, know that I serve in Marketing Heroes in the Visionary as well as the Marketing and Sales seat.
What Are Quarterly Rocks?
Quarterly Rocks are your big business goals that you as the business owner, whether a Visionary or Integrator, determine and set for your company. In the structure above, your leadership team will determine the top 3-5 Rocks for the company, the department, and themselves.
Why Quarterly? Well, we as humans can only concentrate on something for a quarter, I.e. 12 Weeks or 90 Days. It’s ingrained in us. Some of us Visionaries struggle with even concentrating for 90 days.
How to Set Quarterly Rocks
Now that you know more about Quarterly Rocks, you need to know how to establish them.
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Sit down with your leadership team for a Quarterly meeting. I like to run off-site meetings so we’re not distracted by email, phone calls and people in the office.
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Review your yearly goals. Ensure you’re on track or off track with them.
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Set your 3-5 Company Rocks for the Quarter. Come up with a list of big goals you need to achieve before the quarter is finished that will take you towards those big yearly goals. Ensure that the Rocks are S.M.A.R.T. What does that stand for?
What Exactly Are S.M.A.R.T Rocks?
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S – Goals That Are Specific
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M – Goals That Are Measurable
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A – Goals That Are Attainable
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R – Goals That Are Realistic
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T – Goals That Are Timely
So, an example of a S.M.A.R.T. Quarterly Sales Rock would be: “Close $20,000 in Business by December 31.”
How Do Marketing Rocks Work?
So how do you set Marketing Rocks? I like to work backwards on Marketing Rocks from Sales Rocks. If your Sales Rock is the one above and you sell IT Services let’s say for $5,000 per month, you would need 4 sales.
If your Marketing and Sales Funnel works like this:
Leads -> First Meeting -> Discovery -> Presentation -> Close
Then I would work backwards with known (or guessed) conversion rates:
So the Marketing Rock would be: “Get 64 Leads by December 31”
Better Get More Specific!
With the example above, we could generate 64 Leads - but would they be the “Right” leads for your business? If we want you to grow, we would need to be a little more specific.
So, with the example of an IT Company above, I would want to dig deeper into a vertical like CPAs or Attorneys or Health Care. But how do you know which one to focus on?
To me, that’s easy. Who’s your best client? Focus on that company and determine what makes them an ideal client. Is it the vertical? Or is it the personal attributes? In the above case, let’s assume that the IT Company’s best client is a divorce attorney.
The next question is – can we target that vertical and get in front of more of them? The answer to the above is a definite, “yes.”
Let’s change that Rock to: “Get 64 Divorce Attorney Leads by December 31.”
Oops – Maybe Not Quite That Specific!
Is it too specific? That’s highly possible. We would want to be able to target at least 1,000 attorneys or Law Firms in this case and if the IT Company is in a smaller area like College Station Texas and they don’t want to work with anyone outside of that area, there are probably not enough Divorce Attorneys in the area to target.
Yet there are probably around 1,000 Attorneys in the College Station area – so maybe that would work?
Let’s back off on the specificity a bit and set the Rock as follows: “Get 64 Attorney Leads by December 31.”
Now that’s something we can work with!
Marketing Rocks – Rock!
Setting your Quarterly Marketing Rocks doesn’t have to be hard. It can be fun if you take the time to work ON your business and not IN it!