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Chapter 8—Clarifying your company’s
goals and assets

The first step in developing a solid marketing strategy is to
confirm information about your company. What are your goals?
Where are you relative to those goals? What do you offer?
How do you make money? This chapter walks you through a
practical, step-by-step process for obtaining this information.

This is an important step regardless of your company size.
Sometimes the leaders of small and mid-size companies
believe they know all the answers, because they’re involved
in the day-to-day operations of the business. What’s important
about this process is that it forces executives to take a step
back to ask and answer broader questions in a systematic
way and to get those answers down on paper—where they
can be shared with others and updated periodically.

There are five questions to answer in the company assessment.
Most of them are straightforward and can be accomplished
through a team workshop or individual meetings with the
managers and staff. Some answers will come from reports
that already exist within the company.

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© 2012 Lisa Shepherd