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Lisa Shepherd

• Events—trade shows, webinars, and lunch and learns

• CRM system—review existing system (or lack thereof)

Compile your findings

By gathering answers to these five questions, you can
establish a strong foundation. Where is the company now,
what are its strengths, its assets, its opportunities? Where has
it performed well in the past? Where might its opportunities lie
in the future? How is the marketing function performing?

Once you’ve completed the assessment, take one sheet of
paper and summarize your findings. This sounds easy but is
often quite difficult. It can take a few rounds of work. Start by
writing your key findings from each question on a page. Then
work to distill the five pages down to one page of key findings.
Walk away from your review for a few days and come back
to it—did you miss anything important, have you included
anything that isn’t really essential?

Once you have the key findings, identify the implications of
those findings. What do the facts mean for your business?
How do you need to react to capitalize on opportunities and
neutralize threats? Should you focus on a particular product
line? Customer type? Is there anything you’re doing that
should be stopped?

And finally, store all the information you have gathered in one
place—after all this effort, you should capture the information
and make it easy for your team to access in future.

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© 2012 Lisa Shepherd