The Critical Step continued...


Left to right are: Kacee Vasudeva, CEO, Maxtech Manufacturing. Vince Schiralli, President, Communitech. Monica Reid, President, The Reid Group. Federal Industry Minister, John Manley.

For most businesses, strategic planning can start by asking four imperative questions:

1. Where do you want to be? Define measurable goals like increasing sales by 2% in one year or creating awareness in 2% of female teens living in Ontario. It sounds like an easy question to answer, but consider how critical the answer was to Lee Iaccoca when he first took over Chrysler.

2. Who do you want to reach? Define who your market is (i.e. age, gender, income, lifestyle, location, values.) Contemplate how differently the brand manager at Dove would answer this question compared to the one at Irish Spring.

3. How do you want to be perceived? Choose a category you want to own (i.e. quality, reliability, innovation, customer service.) With every Nike image the message is clear, "Nike makes serious footwear for serious athletes."

4. What do you want your customers/clients to do? Take action, change brands or increase product usage. Pizza advertisements are famous for asking you to take action and call, while the Marketing Board for eggs has mastered the increase usage concept. They continually encourage you to eat eggs for lunch, dinner and in different dishes. The answers to these questions provide the foundation for the development of a solid communication strategy. It can be used somewhat like a road map, "you now know where you're going, how you will get there, and at what speed you're travelling," explains Reid.

This is by no means the end of your strategic process, but at this point you are ready to let the big lightbulb flash and flicker above your head. Now if you encounter any road blocks along the way, you can simply return to your map and find an alternate route toward your destination.