Coaching Your Marketing Leader | Team

Yes, regular assessments can require two to three working days. Travel expenditures are additional.

No, coaching sessions are via Skype or a video application.

The assessment is designed to gather the information needed to coach your leader/team to success. We will identify barriers to success and make decisions on how to navigate through these barriers.

Stage One: Strategic Direction

1. Training and Content Prep – Acquire all business training or marketing materials required.
2. Organizational Overview – Our initial meeting, include other departments in your organization besides marketing. Share a brief history of the organization and product/service(s), details describing how your product/service is unique.
3. Policies and Guidelines – Discuss non-negotiable policies such as data and privacy policies.
4. Research/Competitors – Share main competitors and any industry/market research you may have completed. If the general competitive analysis is not complete, we will require this during our first coaching session.
5. Strategy & Action Plan – Share what the business would like to achieve, and how you think it should be delivered.

Stage Two: Operational Plan 

1. Establish Plan – Collaboratively, we will build an action plan with goals, tasks, and processes required for success.
2. Determine Workflow – Determine an operational workflow to produce consistent results.
3. First Project(s) – Set an initial marketing goal that is defined and measurable.
4. Regular Meetings – Provide and schedule a weekly meeting with a consistent agreed upon cadence.

Stage Three: Communication Requirements

1. Contact Information – Daily contacts required to achieve results.
2. Schedules and Meetings – Establish an ongoing check-in meeting schedule as well as for deciding upon possible standing meeting schedule for updates and collaboration.
3. Communication Protocol – Provide a communication protocol for escalating any issues that may occur.

Stage Four: Measurement & Performance

1. Establish Measurement – Determine criteria for measurement (metrics) then decide which specific KPI(s) (Key Performance Indicators) are required. Ensure that all the necessary tools and analytics are set up for tracking/reporting purposes and establish the frequency of reporting needed/recommended.
2. Final Arrangements – Discuss any challenges with past marketing leaders/team or agency partner(s) and ensure a transition plan is in place.
3. Begin First Coaching Session – Ensure the leader/team use a project management process/system consistently with continued tracking reporting and optimization occurs throughout the relationship.

Weekly sessions will primarily focus on the goals set during our assessment meeting(s). However, the below steps will be integrated.

Step One:  Define a clear Vision, Mission, and Core Values Statements.

Every firm has a set of core values that complement its Vision and Mission. Even if not written, a firm’s statements do exist and will require identification as part of this process. We will examine your core values to understand how they should influence the development of your marketing strategy.

Step Two:  This step will be a focus of analysis, we will consider: your company, your brand, your customers, your industry, and your competitors.

We will analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to your business. We will assess your competition. We will define how to measure your marketing efforts and who in your team is responsible for which marketing activities.

Step Three:  To this point, we will prepare goals and developing the business Marketing Strategy and Calendar for approval.

Step Four:  We will build a profile for your ideal customer to target. We will explore how sales and marketing should work together to complement each other.

Step Five:  We will prioritize your marketing channels (examples include: social media platforms, email marketing, online advertising), refine your core messaging, and build a marketing program calendar.

Stage Six:  We will ensure that there is a rationale marketing budget in place to support your marketing efforts.

We will provide you an onboarding checklist. We require the following surveys completed:

1. Brand Assessment Survey
2. Business and Marketing Alignment Survey
3. Sales and Marketing Alignment Survey

Coaching sessions are priced based on the number of individuals requiring coaching and marketing budget/activity.

A typical coaching session is one hour and once a week. The hour creates a demand for preparation and focuses on the topics needing immediate attention.

The meeting agenda prepared by the marketing leader then sent to meeting participants one working day before the session. Agenda items will include standard topics, needs of the marketing team, and requests from Darlene Gagnon.

We recommend our Coaching Package for anyone who has an annual revenue of $1 million+ and/or a yearly marketing budget of $50K+ — “Budget should be inclusive of the salary cost of your marketing leader/team.”

The US Small Business Administration states that the average marketing budget is 7.5% of gross revenue. We know this cannot always be a rationale dollar investment, so we will work with you to define what you need to spend on your marketing efforts to ensure a safe return on investment.

Key decision-makers that partake in the long-term planning of your business. Founders, Co-Founders, Board of Directors, Marketing Teams, and C-Level Executives.