E143: Traction 3 - Setting Your Marketing Strategy and 3-Year Plan

This is the third episode of the series I'm doing on the business book Traction by Gino Wickman. In episode 1 we covered the importance of setting your company's core values and communicating them to the entire company. Next we covered setting the company's core focus and 10-year goal in episode 2.

Here's where most people hit a snag. 10 years is a length of time most people can't wrap their heads around, and we certainly did not have an easy time thinking about where we want to be in 10 years. On the other hand, setting a 10-year goal will definitely make you think what it is that you actually want to achieve with your company long term. Once you have an idea what 10 years would look like for your company, it's time to break it down into smaller goals achievable within a smaller span of time, and that's what we will cover in this episode.

Before breaking down the 10-year goal into smaller goals, Traction advises that you first set up your marketing strategy. In this phase you'll need to set up your customer avatar, the three things that make you unique, and what process you'll need to put in place in order to be successful. The book provides help along the way as you set these up.

Once that's done, it's time to sit down and formulate a 3-year plan. For most people, this means setting up a revenue number. That is definitely a part of the 3-year plan, but Traction emphasizes that it's so much more than that. You need to visualize not just the amount of money you're raking in by that time, but also the landscape of your company--how many employees you need to have, the products you'll be selling, systems and processes you'll need to set up, etc.

To help you along the process, I share my marketing strategy and 3-year plan in this episode as an example. In particular, I talk about the following:

Customer avatars for some of our brands Our three uniques--the 3 things that set us apart The process we'll follow to be successful Our 3-year plan revenue and profit number Our 3-year plan company landscape Acquiring new businesses to enhance our growth Upgrading our IT systems

In the next Traction episode we further break things down to a 1-year plan. It's very important to keep your core values in mind as you go through this stage to make sure that what you're doing does not go against what you set out to become in the first place.

Resources mentioned:

Amazon launch strategy webinar
E138: Traction Part 1 – Company Core Values
E140: Traction Part 2 – Company Core Focus and 10 Year Goal
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (Amazon afiliate link)
E129: How to Pick the Perfect Product to Sell in eCommerce
E102: Amazon Product Launch Strategy for 2018

Thanks for listening to this week's edition of the podcast. Until the next one, happy selling!

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