“It is not unusual to do an inspection and find something that needs correction.” – Sharon Watson

Last week we discussed how fine dining establishments separate themselves from your typical eateries through consistent inspection of the customer experience to justify the higher pricing by delivering greater value.

A similar approach can be found within sports teams and how they are coached to play.

Teams that are about learning the sport, learning to communicate with one another and/or finding an activity to keep a child or adult busy are treated very differently from teams that have an expectation to perform well (think of a kid’s peewee team vs. professional team).

Teams that are for recreational purposes will typically practice once or twice a week, have one or two coaches present and all instruction occurs during the actual practice.

Teams that have an expectation to perform at a high level practice more often, have a larger coaching staff and the majority of instruction happens off the field or court. The benefit of having more coaches present and instruction happening not in real-time is it allows for more in-depth inspection to occur. One gets to inspect what they expect out of the play, series, event, practice or game.

A favorite line of many coaches is “the film doesn’t lie.” In other words, they can inspect what you thought occurred in the play and see if it lived up to the expectations.

As the expectations rise, you’d expect that the amount of time practicing on the field would also increase.

While the amount of practice time does go up, it is not reflective of the increased expectations or revenue generated. Rather, the amount of time spent studying film, or game-planning and the number of individuals involved in both processes are exponentially increased.

In other words, inspecting what is expected out of the final product, increases dramatically.

So what does that look like for your marketing department?

#1: Tool Usage

This is a vital part of every business as today’s tools come with huge price tags both in terms of time spent learning/utilizing them as well as the financial cost.

Inspecting that the tool is paying for itself and understanding the return on the investment from both a time and monetary standpoint are critical keys to success.

Similarly, for a coach, are the best players being put in situations where they will have the greatest impact on the game? If not, how do they design situations to best utilize the talent?

#2: Growth Channels

In business, acquiring and retaining customers is the key to successful growth. Finding the channels that lead to growth and maximizing them is an essential part of the marketing department.

Once found, continuing to inspect and verify that these channels are leading to growth and tinkering with them will enable the business to grow at a faster rate.

#3: ICP

There are 2 distinct stages to your ICP:

#1. Unknown – This is when you do not know who your ICP is. If your business is still in the process of finding out who your ICP is, focus all of your attention on this.

#2. Known – You understand (or at least you think you do) who your ICP is and your marketers can target the individuals who will generate the most revenue for the company using the least amount of resources.

While knowing your ICP is essential to doing efficient business, it is the marketing department’s job to ensure that you are targeting the ICP in the most effective way possible.

#4: Sales Enablement 

Empowering the sales team with content and resources that speak to prospects in the proper voice and meet them where they are in the journey can help close business, shorten sales cycles and broaden the industries or geographies that you sell into.

Consistently inspecting these resources for their effectiveness and determining that sales is actually using them is essential to the material performing well.

#5: Customer Acquisition Cost

Understanding the ins and outs of the cost required to bring on new customers is an  essential metric for marketing to understand.

Constant tweaking, adjusting and then testing is needed. Whether you are pleased with the $ value or still looking to bring the cost down, it is important to understand how it is established and the different levers you can pull during different economic environments.

Similarly, coaches go into games with a game plan. Depending on different variables like injuries, weather, and player performances, adjustments are made.

The best in the business have an adjustment already planned for every negative situation because they have inspected what they expected and planned for where the expectation falls short.

Inspect what you expect.

Let’s get to work.