Find Your Nerve
“Never use a bad economy as an excuse for flat growth. “
As a young marketing professional during the last big recession, I remember hearing Al Schuman, the passionate and tenacious CEO of Ecolab admonish a lunch crowd of local business leaders with those words.
Fast forward to November 10, 2009. No doubt the last year has been challenging, but those words ring no less true.
At today’s annual conference of the Minnesota chapter of the American Marketing Association, Steve McKee, president of McKee, Wallwork , Cleveland addressed a similar crowd with a similar message, but backed it by research that confirmed what leaders like Schuman probably knew in their gut.
-77 percent of healthy companies report having a clear understanding of the direction they are heading. Only 47 percent of struggling companies do.
-69 percent of healthy companies report having a leadership team that is aligned. Only 39 percent of struggling companies do.
And for those of us, who are engaged in business development and marketing, the following statistics are especially compelling:
–71 percent of healthy companies believe that their prospects understand their differentiation while only 43 percent of struggling companies believe this to be true.
–59 percent of healthy companies reported fully funding their marketing plans during the downturn. Only 35 percent of struggling companies do.
Citing sources from the Wall Street Journal to Accenture reports, McKee has documented these and other relevant statistics in his blog: findyournerve.com. It’s his grassroots effort to call companies to task for what they can do to grow in good times and bad.
We may not be able to control global events or larger economic forces, but as we come out of the spin of the past year, we can and should focus on those things that will allow us to thrive, not just survive.
Having recently joined Popular Front, I appreciate our clear direction and focus as a full service digital agency. It’s the kind of fundamental discipline combined with new tools that we can bring to our clients as they forge their plans for growth.
From: Find Your Nerve
posted by Popular Front on November 10th, 2009 at 11:45 pm Permanent link to this post
