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a SharkProof Marketing Plan
Eric P. Canada © Blane, Canada Ltd. Published in EDCO (Canada) & Economic Development Review, Spring 1999 How important is good marketing planning to the average development professional? Take the case of the development professional who was judged a failure after accomplishing 37 of 42 goals including almost 2,000 new jobs and a new technical college in four years. What went wrong? Everything started out well enough. One consultant left a "to do" list of 42 goals and an impression. A second consultant raised the needed new money and expectations. The executive tackled the list spending hundreds of thousands of new funds. As in this case, marketing failure can often be traced to two avoidable factors: planning gaps and too many yardsticks (unclear evaluation criteria). A well designed marketing planning process could have avoided both problems, saving time, money, and frustration for the executive. SharkProof lays out a process and provides tools for creating and testing your marketing plan to identify gaps before it is too late. The bottom line is, a promotion schedule or series of goals is a poor substitute for a comprehensive marketing plan. When your career is riding on the outcome, the SharkProof Marketing formula will make a marketing plan more powerful, more comprehensive, and more influential.
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