Finding Clear Direction with a Strategy Coach
Do you ever feel like your marketing is a maze? And all you have is a poorly marked map? It’s hard to find the right direction when you don’t know where you are in the market and when you feel alone.
In previous case studies, we’ve talked frequently about Marketing Guides helping our clients through this marketing maze. We’ve spoken less about our Strategy Coaches. However, our Marketing Strategy Coaches are critical in helping our clients know where they are and where they should be going.
Every Rosewood client using the Marketing Guide Path™ has two dedicated consultants focused on their account. The Strategy Coach works at a high level to keep each client pointed toward growth by finding and illuminating their “North Star,” and the Marketing Guide™ is an everyday partner for the path toward success, seamlessly managing projects and streamlining communication.
Many of our clients come to us because they feel lost and uncertain about how to market. Consider 5 powerful truths that Luke Flory, a senior Marketing Strategy Coach at Rosewood, compiled to clarify what is often intimidating to an owner navigating business in a rapidly changing environment. Luke also talked to five business leaders who are leveraging the Rosewood Marketing Guide Path™ in their operations. They shared their experience with these realities and the value they enjoy with a coach at their side.
Truth #1: Your business has life stages.
The startup stage is about building enough revenue to become sustainable. Investment must be carefully calculated. This stage usually takes a bunch of sheer effort, and you wear a lot of hats.
When your business takes off, it becomes important to streamline production, navigate hiring, and improve efficiency. Growth follows and your time is more and more precious. After that comes scaling and continuous innovation. The stakes of both opportunities and threats are higher. Acquisitions, line additions, operation expansion, and on it goes.
During each step of the expansion journey, your Rosewood Strategy Coach is within reach–offering insight and advice as you navigate the shark-filled waters of the marketplace.
Benuel Stoltzfus, from Stoltzfus Forest Products, says:
“I like the accountability in the once-a-month meeting, strategic annual planning, and budgeting, where multiple people on our team can collaborate with the Rosewood Marketing Guide and Coach. Rosewood understands marketing better than we do, giving us a tremendous resource to tap into.
“It feels like the Coach and Marketing Guide are a part of our team, not just a design company that does what we say, but a marketing company that truly cares about the success of our business as much as we do, ensuring that we get the very best in all we do.”
Truth #2: Marketing is a sleeping giant.
No matter which way you stack it, marketing matters. If you give it attention, a friendly giant will come to life, supplying you with happy business days. If you ignore marketing, you never know when the unhappy giant of competitive challenges, poor positioning, or changing consumer focus will wake up to give your business grief.
Your Rosewood Strategy Coach has a quarterly call with you to stay abreast of market conditions and walk with you in the land of the giant.
Merv Esh, from Windy Valley Woodworks, says:
“It is a wonderful thing to have Roy and the Rosewood team come alongside us and coach our marketing decisions. We have always appreciated their help in navigating the road map of advertising!”
Truth #3: Marketing is more complicated than it used to be.
In the new digital economy, consumer shopping patterns are creating fundamental changes to the way products and services are bought and sold. Except in unique niches, gone are the days when hanging out a shingle or printing a few brochures would adequately expose your business to your customer base.
Your Rosewood Strategy Coach explores optimal blends of digital and print solutions for enterprise annually in a Strategy Refresh leading to a fresh Annual Marketing Plan. Plans that will require a primary focus on digital marketing are led by a Digital Marketing Strategy Coach to help you meet the unique challenges of the digital landscape. Rest assured that your coach will keep you relevant in the market.
Delmar Hoover, from HooverTec, says:
“At HooverTec, Rosewood has been our marketing coach over the last couple of years. It has been a valuable tool to gain an outside perspective on our way of marketing. A guide who is experienced in many different types of industries provides fresh ideas that we can use to our benefit.
“We have found that market trends make it difficult to remain current with the latest strategies, especially with online marketing. Rosewood has been a helpful guide to steer us in the right direction and to provide valuable feedback and tracking of our marketing returns.”
Truth #4: Marketing is a business system, just like accounting and operations.
Unfortunately, your marketing systems are easy to let slip since negative consequences in this area are often not immediately obvious. Business leaders are incredibly busy people. The clamor of the daily din can mask the importance of staying sharp with market strategy.
Your Rosewood Marketing Guide often collaborates with your Rosewood Strategy Coach after Monthly Action Sessions to identify looming issues in the marketing landscape and watch your back as you lead your business. Together we keep you at the top of your game.
Burnell Oberholtzer, from Green Acres Sew & Vac, says:
“I really like Rosewood’s Marketing Guide Path. The accountability is very helpful across the business, in everything from a periodic review of our strategy to watching the industry and planning our next moves. I love the brainstorming sessions each year to constantly explore opportunities. I haven’t found any other companies that offer a systemized approach to marketing at this level of integration. This is a tremendous value to me.”
Truth #5: Marketing done right optimizes profit opportunities.
Most businessmen are “wonder-workers” in creating a business machine that runs like a top. It’s in the matter of connecting that wonder to a market that wants it, among competitors that are wonders of their own, where we see some of the biggest hurdles in business.
Your Rosewood Strategy Coach is your personal idea machine. Professional understanding of market positioning along with a huge arsenal of initiatives that will set you apart–these are the things that will make you go home smiling at night.
Jay Miller, from Buckeye Metal Sales, says:
“Having several people that are not in the “day-to-day” to talk and plan with has been a huge help because they have a more simple outside opinion on things that when you are in the “day-to-day” seem so overwhelming. . . . The pressure we put on ourselves to please the customer at almost any cost can hinder long-term decisions at times, but it’s very difficult to pick up on that without outsiders’ perspectives. Having those 2-hour planning sessions with [Rosewood] has helped tremendously in that aspect.
“Also being able to have [Rosewood] ask us questions in the marketing sphere that pertain far out into the future helps us rethink current things internally. There are questions we would not have thought to ask but through their expertise and advice, we were able to more efficiently plan.
“The strategy time we spent [with Rosewood] also forced us to plan/think more about what we want for the current year. Armed with that knowledge, we made decisions right away that would probably have been made later than they should have, if we had not taken the time to strategize our future marketing year.”
Looking for an “Outside” Strategy Partner for Your Business?
The Marketing Guide Path™ at Rosewood is designed to serve Plain Community mid-sized businesses that are (1) growth-oriented, (2) willing to take action, and (3) looking for marketing professionals that integrate with their business like an in-house team.
Rosewood clients on the Marketing Guide Path™ enjoy an annual marketing strategy refresh, marketing plan, and marketing budget along with monthly action sessions tracking KPIs and project details. This process creates laser-focused support to develop and manage effective marketing systems. It’s like a cockpit full of controls that gives business leaders potent tools in guiding their enterprise.
Are you interested in enhancing your marketing?
- Explore our website to learn more. Schedule a call, and we’ll discern together if Rosewood is right for you.
- Get onboard and start your journey. Your Marketing Guide™ and Strategy Coach work with you to create a marketing strategy, set goals, and plan your projects for the year.
- Watch your business grow with purposeful marketing as your marketing plan comes to life through creative messaging and designs, both print and digital.