The first step to devising an effective Marketing and Business Development strategy is to ensure that above all, the strategy is built using SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely – Objectives.

A strategy developed with clear and precise SMART objectives at it’s core is one that is accountable, measurable and easy to translate throughout your organisation.

This is what is going to happen if businesses and marketers forget the basics of marketing.

As an independent marketing consultant I sometimes come across businesses which want to be part of the “social media stuff” in order to financially grow and eventually to gain more exposure. This is obviously more than understandable BUT opening a Facebook account and hoping that the world will know about it or sending tweets to your followers to let them know that your company has just signed a $1,000000 contract won’t help.

Several reasons drive companies to start networking on-line, the one that I find the most relevant in the case of financial growth is to generate leads and this is why the fundamentals of marketing have to be considered when coming on-line:

1. Define your 6 P’s: Product, Price, Promotion, Place, People, Performance
2. Identify your audience and therefore your positioning strategy
   
3. Plan a strategy including all the stakeholders
4. Set up SMART objectives
5. Have a strong call to action

Although the list above is not exhaustive, it will give sustainable guidance to anyone trying to launch an on-line campaign. It is clear that internet marketing is virtual in a way because of the lack of tangible elements, however this is not a reason to ignore the different factors which drive a simple idea into an outstanding marketing campaign.

John Ekambi New marketing trends

After a round of performance reviews with my team, I’m so with Jonathan Becher about the pitfalls of management by objectives (here).  It is easy to fall into the vicious cycle he describes, where

MBOs that measure outputs, rather than impact, [which then] cause outputs to decrease. Which encourages more bad management by bad objectives.

Poor MBO procesess also tend to encourage Pareto suboptimal solutions to business problems, especially when coupled with an out-of-whack incentive structure.  Like where the incentives for individual objectives — oh, let’s say bonus payments for objective achievement — outweigh those for more organization-wide objectives (e.g., firm margin, revenue growth, market share).

Not that I’ve seen that anywhere…

How did I do against the developmental goals I focused on last week?

1. Goal: strengthen reputation as outperformer. MIT: push hard hard hard in the goal/objective setting offsite Monday to ensure the management team in general, and I specifically, do NOT sign up for ANY objectives that are not seriously specific and measurable.

Sort-of accomplished.  The way the goal-setting session was run, it was hard to push for measurable objectives, because we rarely got down to the objective level.  However, I was an active participant and was vocal about making our goals specific and not boil-the-ocean big.  I was also able to ensure all my goals were represented and that I didn’t sign up for anything vague or that I didn’t expect.  And I made it abundantly clear — I was funny, funny, funny about it but very serious — to my boss (shout-out for managing up!) & a couple of peers that I am not signing up for any work that isn’t prioritized, meaning: doesn’t align to my goals

2.  Goal: strengthen my reputation as an outperformer. MIT: once the offsite locks down the management team goals/objectives, lock my g/o into a final draft by Friday.

Accomplished.  I noodled all week and took the the goals I owned coming out of the goal-setting session down to the objective level.  All my objectives are measurable, even the more strategic ones. (Don’t get me started on strategic objectives).  I’m working now on crafting a reference document that actually lays out the measures I’ll use. This will help me track performance and gather data along the way, and I’ll also review this document each Friday during my weekly review at work, to keep me focused.  I’ve also got my G/O document out for review & feedback with to of my favorite (read: smartest & most trusted) peers.

3.  Goal: be courted for new roles & new jobs.  MIT: work on re-opening my network, by scheduling two coffees, lunches or statuses, one with a hiring manager who has a prospect for me, one with a former manager, director or VP, to reconnect, hear what’s up in their world, drop my elevator speech, and remind them (sweetly, graciously) how great I am. 

Not accomplished!  I did set up coffee with that hiring manager, for after the holiday break. But I totally shied away from reaching out to any of my former leadership at that Director or VP level.  Why am I so shy about this? Well, reaching out and taking positive risks is the big weakness in my resilience profile.  What am I so skeezed out about? I have been thinking about it all week: more to come in a post about it some time this week.

Goals & MITs for next week:

1. Goal: strenghten my reputation as an outperformer. MIT: finish crafting the measures for my objectives. Review and revise my goals overall.

2. Goal: Be courted for new roles and jobs. MIT: figure out why I’m so gun-shy about networking with leaders way above my pay grade.

Only two goals this week, and probably fewer posts too: Merry Christmas!

I know I’m a little bit of a broken record right now, but I am growing ever more annoyed with our goal-setting process this year.  There is a stronger and more consistent focus on goals, with performance review points assigned, than ever before. Partly this is due to the economy’s effects on the F50C’s financial performance, and partly this is due to a change in leadership at the C-level.

The problem is, as a company and as a pyramid we’ve never been that consistent about setting measurable goals and don’t have a good methodology/discipline about it.  I’m hella glad for the goal focus this year but I’m having a heckuva time trying to wrench my objectives into the weird structure that maps them to my leader’s goals. (His in turn maps to his leader’s goals, and hers to her leader’s and on up to the CEO).  Cascading goals are not a bad idea but the way we’re executing them is wonky. Here is what I know about setting performance goals, and how we are doing at the F50C on each point.

1.  Goals should describe your end state or desired outcome. Most of the goal setting literature agrees with this point.  What will occur, be created, or be different as a result of your activity? How are we doing? Good. From the CEO on down, we are all expected to have goals related to bottom-line deliverables. But take note of my objective point in #2.

2. Objectives are the specific, measurable activities that you plan to undertake to achieve your goal. SMART goals, blah blah blah. If I achieve my objectives I will know my goal is met.  And they’re measurable, so I can prove my goal is met. I’m not signing up for anything not directly impacting my goals, and I’m not undertaking any major work efforts not outlined in my objectives (and thus not prioritized).  How are we doing? Fair. Problem is, everyone from the top on down has strategic objectives as well as goals.  Maybe I’m just stuck on the language, because it’s being used imprecisely.  The strategic objectives are really just squishier goals — goals where the measure of success is more subjective, or possibly where success is just having ‘moved the needle’ on an issue instead of outright solving the issue.  I’m anchored to objectives rolling up under goals, so having a list of strategic objectives with other objectives rolling up under them makes no sense.  See the next point for my further annoyance with these.

3. Objectives MUST be measurable. If you can’t find some kind of specific measure, you can’t set a baseline or a bar. If you have no bar, you can’t define success and you certainly can’t exceed expectations or outperform.  And why on earth would you sign up for something you can’t prove you did? Sure, you might get off without being held accountable or held to task, but the downside of that is that you might also be accused of having done nothing when in fact you did a lot of hard work to great results.  How are we doing? Poor. We seem to be completely let off the hook to measure the strategic objectives. It makes no sense to me. I’m designing measures for all of my objectives no matter whether they are “regular” or “strategic.”

4. There are lots of ways to measure, both objective and subjective.Pass/fail, % achieved, $$ achieved, customer/client/peer/partner satisfaction, movement up a maturity curve, etc.  Use direct measures, surveys, self assessments.  How are we doing? Good. The door appears to be wide open and I can set any measures I want, as long as I can make a reasonable case to do so.

5. Do not boil the ocean. The point of setting goals and objectives is to force you to reflect on what’s very important, and then set a focused plan of action for yourself to achieve that very most important stuff.  Set 3 to 5 goals to keep you focused, and set perhaps 5 to 7 objectives at most for each goal.  Too many goals dilutes what’s important and puts you at risk for diminishing returns vs effort. Focus like a laser, know what a successful outcome looks like, monitor progress, achieve your results, measure your results & compare to your baseline, and then check that sucker off your list. You can always set new goals later when you achieve your current goals. How are we doing? Poor. Today I looked at what my boss just signed up for on Monday and identified which parts of his goals & objectives I own.  I also listed out everything major on my plate.  I combined the two lists.  I wrote out my goals & measurable objectives, outlining them to follow my boss’ goals.  I had to jet to a 4:3o meeting, but by the time I left I was already up to ten goals, a few of which had more than five objectives.  Way too many!  I  feel like everything on my list is important, but I’m not being forced to choose, and my boss/his team is not being forced to choose. Anyone can be great at a few things, but no one can be great at everything. Why would we want to set ourselves up to not be great?
Next steps: I’m going to re-roll and revise tomorrow.  Some items that are separate goals should be collapsed.  For some goals, I’ve got too many objectives and I will get focused and delete some.  I’ll also challenge my boss about whether I should sign up for a couple of things at all.

Bottom line: We are going to be busy in 2009, and with fewer staff and resources!  Having focused, well-crafted goals and objective that directly link to our leadership’s goals should help us work on the right things efficiently, instead of just working more hours.

Much of the time I operate on instinct, and it serves me well, because I have excellent instincts.  I firmly believe that instinct is much more sophisticated than simple “gut feel.” It’s born from data gathered via years of experience, that our higher and subconscious levels of the brain analyze and deliver to us in the package we call instinct.

And I’m very strategic.

So I should love strategic objectives, I should loooooove them like a schoolgirl in a pleated skirt, since they fit my Hermann Brain Dominance profile so well and since they are a kindred spirit to instinct.  (Well, maybe that’s just my brain, but the right strategic choice almost always feel like the right instinctual choice.)

Oh, but I hate them, I’m growing to hate strategic objectives with a passion.  Why? Because they are not measurable.  Oh, sure, you can measure them with some very soft, strategic, instinctual, qualitative type metrics, but in this economy who the hell wants soft outcomes?
We are in the process of setting 2009 goals & objectives at work, and looking at my SVP’s goals, I see she has 60 points allocated to hard goals with measurable, factual bottom-line objectives, and only 20 points allocated to strategic objectives.  (The other 20 points I’m glad to say are team and leadership oriented).  I’m under water compared to her: my job is by nature strategic, so I have far fewer bottom-line, measurable objectives.

My job entails verbs like “align,” “influence,” “synthesize,” “promote” and “expose.”  Most of this stuff doesn’t seem measurable other than on a pass/fail scale. I struggle with doing things like signing up to promote best practices via the stakeholder group — this is a group of 20 or so Level 3 managers — and then attaching a hard measure like “all departments will adopt six best practices,” because a) I don’t own the best practices, I’m just promoting & exposing them and b) I can’t legitimately hold that many people at several pay grades above mine accountable.  All I can actually control is that I promote & expose.

Here’s another example: my boss once put on his annual review the key accomplishment of “getting an enterprise focus on data.”  That’s a direct quote.  And a soft outcome.

I’m tired of not having hard stats on my resume, and I’m tired of not having proof that I accomplished anything or that I outperformed.  How can you outperform when you don’t actually have a bar to raise? My former director and I have a running joke that I used to complain I didn’t know what to put on my review.

Whatever you do, don’t google “how to write measurable strategic objectives.” All you get is the same tired crap about SMART objectives.  I know they need to be measurable.  I just don’t know how to make them legitimately and achieveably measureable.

I had a chance to talk with Nick again, while he was revving up to go to the annual car show in Pireaus.

The topic of discussion was…Focus.

In order for anyone to enjoy any measure of success, Focus is an important ingredient in getting where you wanna go.

In any type of martial art, the goal isn’t to start a fight, its actually to avoid getting into a fight (I once asked a certain student why the master, Sensei of the Dojo never got mad, and avoided conflict at all cost. His anwer was “Because he is a master“). So in martial arts, you focus on being one with your environment, you focus on avoiding a fight, and if a fight starts you focus on finishing the conflict in the quickest way with minimum collateral damage.

A business that strives for success has a core area, a focus area. Big businesses (businesses that have enough backing to be in multliple areas) that wanna get somewhere break into business units each business unit focus on its area of expertise, its core area. A business that doen’t have focus is a mediocre “Jack of all trades and master of none” one at best.

Sometimes, companies that need to get into multiple areas in order to maintain and eventually grow, initially break their organization into

corporate merger

different segments and then individually spin off these segments, or sell these segments to other companies that specialize in the particular segment (this is happening more and more and is presently under way in one or two major “segmented” companies that I know).

If you as a person want to achieve notable success in an area, you have to choose the area you believe you’re good at (and this is the difficult part) and then focus on becoming the best in that area.  You have to have  a strategy and break that strategy into step by step achievable, SMART, objectives.

The same applies for blogs. Mediocre blogs such as the one you’re reading don’t have a focus area (but that’s ok ’cause this blog isn’t here to act as a reference point but rather act as a portrait of the authors instantaneous mental projections..read the about part) but there are blogs that focus on a particular topic and become the reference information point for that topic.

Out of work? Well you’re well on your way to becoming part of a growing percentage of the population. Sit down, use the greatest asset that God gave you, your brain, and self analyze (and maybe get someone to help you) on what you’re really good at, or what you’d like to become good at taking into account the times, and forge a strategy with step by step smart objectives to get there.

It’ll work out, I promise.

Save the Planet. Vote for OBAMA !

While I don’t know if I’m “Smarter than a Fifth Grader”, I assumed that I was smarter than a goldfish.  But when I read Contrarian Goldfish’s “Smart Goals are Stupid”,  I began to wonder.  After all, I wrote about the usefulness of SMART objectives.  So, let’s investigate:

1.    Specific

CG says “you cannot predict the future and you need to be flexible to change course as circumstances change”.   I agree but think that’s missing the point.  Objectives are destinations, not paths to get there.  If there’s too much traffic on a road, you should be free to try a different street.  And yes, you should have the flexibility to update your objective as execution influences strategy.

2.     Measureable

CG says that the best goals are closely tied to very strong feelings and emotions which you can’t measure.  I think he’s confusing quantitative and qualitative measures.  If you want to know how people feel, ask them.  Surveys can measure lots of things.

3.    Achievable

CG says that “achievable goals will not inspire you, and you will give up because the end result is not motivating enough for you to go the extra mile”. I say that objectives should have multiple stretch targets over time so that 85% attainment at any given point should be rewarded.

4.    Realistic

CG says “competition is much higher for realistic goals” and that we should stretch for unrealistic ones.   We should definitely set stretch targerts (see my comment on Achievable).  However, I think the ‘R’ should be Relevant, as in individual objects should support team and organization objectives.

5.    Time-Bound

CG says “it is more important that you make progress towards your goal each and every day than to set some arbitrary date for achieving your goal”.  Good news.  We agree on one.

Regardless of whether they are SMART or something else, be sure that people understand the objectives before your start measuring them. 

Personal Goal Setting

Find Direction. Live Your Life Your Way.

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn this vision of the future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You’ll also quickly spot the distractions that would otherwise lure you from your course.

More than this, properly-set goals can be incredibly motivating, and as you get into the habit of setting and achieving goals, you’ll find that your self-confidence builds fast.

Achieving More With Focus

Goal setting techniques are used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. They give you long-term vision and short-term motivation. They focus your acquisition of knowledge and help you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. By setting goals, you will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognize your ability and competence in achieving the goals that you have set.

Starting to Set Personal Goals

Goals are set on a number of different levels: First you create your “big picture” of what you want to do with your life, and decide what large-scale goals you want to achieve. Second, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit so that you reach your lifetime goals. Finally, once you have your plan, you start working to achieve it.

We start this process with your Lifetime Goals, and work down to the things you can do today to start moving towards them.

<!–(Don’t forget: If you want to fast-track your goal setting and get the most from it, then either join our Design Your Life program or talk to one of our coaches.)

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Your Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or by a time at least, say, 10 years in the future) as setting Lifetime Goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of these categories (or in categories of your own, where these are important to you):

• Artistic:
  Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? If so, what?

• Attitude:
  Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.
• Career:
  What level do you want to reach in your career?
• Education:
  Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to achieve other goals?
• Family:
  Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
• Financial:
  How much do you want to earn by what stage?
• Physical:
  Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure:
  How do you want to enjoy yourself? – you should ensure that some of your life is for you!
• Public Service:
  Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?

Spend some time brainstorming these, and then select one goal in each category that best reflects what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals on which you can focus.

As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want (if you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants, however make sure you also remain true to yourself!)

Starting to Achieve Your Lifetime Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a 25 year plan of smaller goals that you should complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Then set a 5 year plan, 1 year plan, 6 month plan, and 1 month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.

Then create a daily to-do list of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals. At an early stage these goals may be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.

Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Staying on Course

Once you have decided your first set of plans, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily basis. Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience.
<!– An easy way of doing this is to use the goal-setting software like GoalPro 6 on a daily basis (you can download a free trial version of GoalPro from Success Studios web site.) GoalPro uses a similar set of categories to ones we recommend – either use theirs, or adapt the software to use ours. –>

Goal Setting Tips

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective goals:

• State each goal as a positive statement: Express your goals positively – ‘Execute this technique well’ is a much better goal than ‘Don’t make this stupid mistake.’
• Be precise: Set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you will know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
• Set priorities: When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
• Write goals down: This crystallizes them and gives them more force.
• Keep operational goals small: Keep the low-level goals you are working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Derive today’s goals from larger ones.
• Set performance goals, not outcome goals: You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. There is nothing more dispiriting than failing to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control. In business, these could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, for example, these reasons could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals and draw satisfaction from them.

• Set realistic goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (employers, parents, media, society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions. Alternatively you may set goals that are too high, because you may not appreciate either the obstacles in the way or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

<!–This is something we focus on in detail in our “Design Your Life” program, which not only helps you decide your goals, it then helps you set the vivid, compelling goals you need if you’re to make the most of your goal setting.

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Achieving Goals

When you have achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress you have made towards other goals. If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve!

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

• If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goals harder.
• If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goals a little easier.
• If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so.
• If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Failure to meet goals does not matter much, as long as you learn from it. Feed lessons learned back into your goal setting program.

Remember too that your goals will change as time goes on. Adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, then let them go.

Key points:

Goal setting is an important method of:

• Deciding what is important for you to achieve in your life;
• Separating what is important from what is irrelevant, or a distraction;
• Motivating yourself; and
• Building your self-confidence, based on successful achievement of goals.

If you don’t already set goals, do so, starting now. As you make this technique part of your life, you’ll find your career accelerating, and you’ll wonder how you did without it! <!–These services and resources can help you set and achieve your goals more effectively:

• Design Your Life: Mind Tools life design and goal setting system. Click here to find out more.
• Make Time for Success: As Mind Tools’ time management and personal productivity course, this contains more than 140 pages of tips, techniques and skills that can help you work better and get the most that life has to offer. Learn how to set realistic goals, generate a life plan, and master powerful organizational techniques that help you turn your goals into lasting achievements. Click here to learn more.
• Goal Setting with Mind Tools Career Coaches: If you want help and support getting started, then consider working with a Mind Tools coach. Our coaches specialize in helping you think about what you want to achieve, coach you through the setting of clear and appropriate goals, and then help you make success, the achievement of these goals, a habit. This speeds you on your way to well-balanced, long-term success. Click here to find out more.

Also, consider joining our members area, the Career Excellence Club, to build the many career skills you’ll need for lasting success.

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A good way of getting going with this is to use the Mind Tools Life Plan Workbook. Supported by worksheets and advice, this guides you through a simple 5-step process for setting your life goals and for organizing yourself for success.

The next article explains how to schedule effectively- this is essential if you’re going to manage your workload and still keep time for yourself. To visit this, click “Next article”, below. And for other useful techniques, see the suggested links underneath.

I bet you said “Duh” to that one?  Increase the odds of making your’s stick by applying the concept of “smart objectives” to your  life. 

1. What one thing do you really want to do this year – passionately?
2. Is it REALLY important to you? (Not just a “should.”) 
3. Now apply the “SMART” formula.
   - What is it = Specific
   - What indicates completed = Measurable 
   - Is it something you can do = Achievable 
   - The most impactful goal and you want to do it = Relevant 
   - When will you do it = Timeframe
4. What’s the plan? What steps are you going to take to achieve it. Break it down to simple behavior not end result focused.    
5. What do you need to change in your environment and habits that will make it easier for you to focus on your steps and achieve your goal? (e.g. If you want to lose weight: who will support you, what will tempt you etc.) Put them in place up front and stick to them. 

Finally, make yourself accountable to someone in your life who supports your goal. Nothing impacts whether you will actually achieve what you set out to more than this simple step. I forget where these often cited  stats come from, but they ring true.  Your likelihood of success is:
- 10% Hear an idea.
- 25%  Decide to adopt it.
- 40%  Decide when you will do it.
- 50%  Plan how you will do it.
- 65%  Commit to  another that you will do it and.
- 95%  Commit to an actual date and time for to that person for completion.

Be kind to yourself. If you slip at one step, don’t give up. Just re-commit, adjust what you need to and move forward. Remember why you wanted to do it in the first place and what you will feel like when you accomplish it!

Happy New Year Everyone!

MaryAnn 

Setting objectives for yourself and for others is a critical organizational function.  This will be painfully clear to anyone who’s ever sat in a team meeting where some “critical corporate goal” was described but no specific actions were assigned and everyone left the meeting wondering, “Ummm, so what am I supposed to do now?”

The SMART framework helps make objectives crystal clear so that anyone who is on the assigning or the receiving end of a SMART objective really understands exactly what actions are going to take place, by when, and how to measure success.

SMART is an acronym for:

• Specific: is the objective described in concrete, actionable detail?
• Measurable: what quantitative measurements will tell us when the objective has been achieved?
• Attainable: is the objective really achievable within budget and schedule constraints?
• Results-oriented: what tangible work output does the objective produce?  (i.e., not just conversations and ideas)
• Time-driven: what is the due date for the objective?

I think the SMART framework for writing and communicating objectives is invaluable — it applies at all levels of any organization, whether setting corporate objectives for a business unit, specifying product initiatives/featuresets, or day-to-day management of individuals.

How do readers of the blog, I hope all is well?

Bit of a late post today, it’s past 5pm and I’ve only got round to finishing this weeks blog. I hope no one did anything silly in the anticipation? I’m aware my grammatically incorrect ramblings are important to a couple of you out there. I don’t know why, I may never understand, but never-the-less, I’ll never let you down… (apart from that time when I didn’t do it til the Tuesday…)

Anyway, the reason the blog is pretty late is due to my mass of stuff to do on my ‘to do list’, a whole melange, neigh, superfluity of things ranging from contracts to festivals from iTunes to royalties, I’ve had a bit of everything to do. Luckily for me though, a mixture of degree level training, a fair bit of experience and a slight case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder means I’m fully prepared for my working day ahead. But what if was just a drummer? How could I manage to do such things AND keep a 4/4 beat?!

(I’m just going to say here that drummer jokes are a cheap and nasty dig at the population of vital musicians that serve the music industry so dear. I’m only being jovial with you all. Don’t hate me. I even have a friend who is a drummer! Honest!)

What I’m going to go on about in this blog will seem so inherently unappealing to the majority of artists who read this blog that they’ll more then likely not take any of the advice I suggest, which is fair enough, hopefully the ones who will may find it useful and slowly but surely, using Darwin’s theory of evolution as the base concept, the unorganised ones will die out and we’ll have a superbreed of bands who (and as I write this I realise it just isn’t going to happen) could arrive at places on time! You may say I’m a dreamer eh?

I’m going to suggest 3 basic management theories to you all today which I genuinely believe may help you discover what the craic really is with your band (this obviously applies to solo artists as well, I apologise that I keep referring to ‘bands’, but if you are a solo artist I do suggest doing these with someone who knows your career and music really well so they can offer some constructive criticism). These 3 methods are: SWOT analysis, PEST analysis and SMART objectives (I’m fully aware that friends who I went to uni with who just read that sentence most likely said aloud ‘oh for Gods sake’, but hear me out!)

SWOT analysis

Stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats A SWOT analysis should be really personally focused towards the individuals of the band whereas a PEST analysis should be more outward focused (and I’ll come to that in a moment).

Right first and foremost. Ego’s at the door alright? You need to brutally honest with each other, as simple as that. Obviously you can phrase a brutally honest statement in a delicate way, lets not hurt each others feelings here, but still, honesty is key to discovering your bands weaknesses and what you can do to fix them. I’m going to say this again as I’ve worked with many an artist in the past and although essential to a performer, they can still be a downfall. So: Ego’s at the door.

Strengths: Quite simple really. What are your strongest areas? Do you have a virtuoso guitarist? A drummer that could keep time in his/her sleep? Are you all drop-dead gorgeous? Does your lead singer demand attention and sing like an angel? Figure out what your strongest points are and exploit them. Figure out ways to make them more prominent and maybe help to combat your…

Weaknesses: Have you got a bass player that makes Sid Vicious sound talented? Does you front man have a face like a bag of smashed crabs? Is your equipment so old and decrepit that even the White Stripes would turn their nose up at it? Figure out where your band really struggles and set out a plan on how to solve it. Now I don’t want you to all go out and sack your bass player because Sentric Music’s blog told you to do so, figure a way around it. Make him/her practice more, punish them with ‘pint fines’ (every time he/her messes up during a song they have to buy another member of the band a pint), be creative and you should be alright.

Opportunities: Does your drummers dad own a building company who are looking to get rid of an old transit van which could be a handy tour bus? Has your bass players younger sister just started at that university that has both practice rooms and studio time for free to students and ‘student projects’? Has your lead singer just won the lottery? (bit far fetched that one). Think outside the box to discover opportunities that you never knew you had, you’ll be surprised what you’ll discover with enough time and thought.

Threats: Is your guitarist moving cities to go to uni? Is your bass players relationship with the drummers sister causing frictions between the two? Is the singer blissfully unaware that the rest of the band really can’t stand his mother/brother/uncle Geoff dancing down the front at all their gigs? Again, talk about it and figure out how you can solve it.

And now onto the:

PEST Analysis

Stands for: Political, Economic, Sociocultural, Technological.

A PEST Analysis should be focused on the industry that you’re in. keeping away from the personal stuff (although the two can be closely interlinked). For a good PEST you need to be fully aware of the industry around you: trends, news, advances etc. All the stuff a good manager should know

Political: Does Labour taking money out of the arts to fund sport effect you in anyway? Is your band eligible for funding from the government to help with such costs as travel to international music conferences to aid the exposure of British Music? Will the recent rejection to extend the copyright laws spur you to handle you rights in a different manner? Does your local council offer ways to expose your music like the Make Your Mark scheme? Some of these may be relevant and some may seem way out of your league at the moment but they’re still worth considering.

Economical: If you’ve got limited funds, what does the current music industry offer you in the ways of cheap exposure? What does the new higher priced/non DRM music mean for you? If anything at all? Which high street bank can offer the best high interest account to hold your bands finances?

Sociocultural: In laymen’s terms: trends. What are the current trends in the music industry? What are the current trends full stop? What are bloggers talking about? How can these trends effect your music? How can your music exploit these trends?

Technological: Pretty self explanatory this one; what can new technology to do you? How can you exploit it? Whats the crack with these new MP3 blogs? Are illegal downloads actually killing the music industry? Or is it extra exposure for the artists? Right then, lots to think about there eh? Once you’ve gone through all this and made a ‘to do’ list (the muse for today’s blog, you see how I come back to these things?) you then need to make sure all the things on this to do list are SMART:

S pecific –make sure you really want to know what to achieve in a specific manner

M easurable – How do you know if you are meeting your objective? Can it be measured?

A chievable – lets not be silly, you’re not going to sell a billion records in a fortnight now are we?

R ealistic – Very similar to achievable, I’m not going to lie, but it makes the acronym work

T ime – how long to do want to take to achieve this?

So an example of a SMART objective for an unsigned band would be:

S: We want to be playing at least 1 gig per month outside our home town

M: Yes it’s measurable, are you actually doing it?

A: Yes, we have the drive and ambition to do so

R: We have all the correct resources, a car, some funds for petrol and the best of Journey CD to keep us company

T: We want to achieve this objective within 2 months.

Jesus, I think it’s the longest blog I’ve ever written! As I said before, some of you may turn your noses up at this but I genuinely recommend you all meet up, have a beer and spend a couple of hours going through this. You’ll discover some nice truths, some truths you may not want to hear, you may laugh, cry, fight, but ultimately you’ll come out a stronger, more focused band. Promise.

What I’m listening to this week: The Editors

What I’m reading this week: Dooley’s weblog

Stay tuned

sP

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