Archive for TOC
Lean your Marketing thru Segmentation
Posted by: | CommentsHow do you look at your marketing? Do you know where your leads come from? How are you processing leads to make them successful? In my recent blogs about marketing and the Theory of Constraints, I discussed the connections between each step of the marketing hourglass. Many organizations do not look at their sales and
marketing process in a linear fashion, let alone segmenting it. When organizations first map out the process, they look at connections where people come from being all over the map such as the diagram to the right. They look at a simple chain as an oversimplification of reality. Not everybody goes through each step of the cycle. Some will skip from step one to step three. Someone may enter the cycle in step three. These interconnections are not trivial, it is what makes your process work and it also may be stopping it from working.
So what is the purpose?
Different opportunities, normal variation and changing workforce make it just about impossible to balance everything. There is a weakest link; there is one element in your system more limiting than another. Why is it so important to find that? Without working on your greatest constraint much of your work will be wasted and non-productive. Take a look at the diagram above and see how proper segmentation may alter your perception of the marketing hourglass. As you can see, not all steps may be needed for each and every channel. An excellent example is someone that has been referred to you. With the proper referral program in place, you will know exactly what step in the process that person should enter.
Keep segmenting your list, till you gain a linear flow. Yes, there may be a few exceptions. However, I think it might be interesting to scrutinize those exceptions. Are these exceptions really your target market or ideal client? I think you might find out that they are something less than ideal clients. Whatever you do, don’t ignore the exceptions; they may prove valuable insights to your marketing process. That thought may lead to another discussion.
Related Posts:
Using the Theory of Constraints in Marketing
Identifying your Marketing Constraint
Elevating and Repairing Marketing Constraints
Posted by: | CommentsA continuation of my blog posts of Using the Theory of Constraints. We are concentrating optimizing the Throughput of your Marketing utilizing the Five Steps of Continuous Improvement: Steps 4 and 5.
Step 4. Elevate the system’s constraint.
You may have found significant improvement in the preceding steps and another constraint may have actually developed at this time. This is the step that we have to add capacity to the constraint. It may be additional events, sales people or increased advertising.
Reviewing your Marketing you may have found significant shortcomings in one of the phases. You may have never instituted a formal referral program, for example. You may not have a presence in Social Media.
Jumping into this step early in the process is very common. The newest and/or the latest technology may seem an easy fix. Looking to vendors for your fix is an easy alternative, but you may not find the core problems associated with the constraint if you did. There is a reason this is the fourth step, and you should make every effort to improve the constraint through the fist three steps before adding equipment, software, increased advertising, etc.
This may also be the area that “Tribal Knowledge” may limit your thinking. We defend what we have always done. Look at new and different ways to accomplish the constraint.
Step 5. If a constraint is broken, go back to Step 1. However, don’t allow inertia to become a constraint.
You will always have a constraint. A fundamental concept of continuous improvement. As you correct one another will develop. As in Lean this is a fundamental concept of TOC.
Mot organizations have an unlimited number of things to improve. However, most of the time only a relative few will make a significant difference in your company’s bottom line. If you are going to improve something , IMPROVE IT.
Why waste everyone’s time? Changing the process without the data is cause for failure. You have heard it time and time again, JUST DO IT! We have been trained that way, action is accomplishment. However, the wrong action may accomplish little or drive you deeper into a hole. Without the data from the previous steps, you will not be able to make as effective and dramatic improvements that you desire. Seek 200% process improvements and cost reductions of half!
One of the sayings I have read about in TOC time and time again. Don’t leave inertia become the constraint. Change should help your performance, not hinder it.
Related Posts:
Using the Theory of Constraints in Marketing
Exploiting and Subordinating your Marketing Constraint
Posted by: | CommentsA continuation of my blog posts of Using the Theory of Constraints with your Marketing. We are concentrating optimizing the Throughput of your marketing utilizing the Five Steps of Continuous Improvement, Steps 2 and 3.
Step 2. Exploit the system’s constraint
This simply means; Getting the most out of the weakest link or phase. This is a great time to use the Lean tool of Kaizen. Getting rid of all waste associated with the systems constraint is the first step I would take. One of the things that TOC and Lean both encourage is to observe the process with people very familiar with it. They may tell you that this always happens or maybe an obvious statements such as we don’t have enough people. Looking at the waste you will readily identify some crucial changes.
Put a cost to the constraint. If this is your weakest link, improvement in this area will maximize the entire process. Understanding the cost of the constraint is imperative in moving forward. Once you have a cost assigned to the constraint, you start looking at improvement slightly differently. Observe how things move through a constraint. Hiring that one extra person, holding additional events, dedicating a phone line or a live operator could make significant differences. Using an tip from Rapid Product Development, you may want to parallel this process. This allows simultaneous actions versus many of the different types of time constraints detailed in or list of definitions.
Step 3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision.
Increase output through the constraint(phase) increase output for the entire system. I sometime use the analogy when a salesman senses an order. He puts everything else on hold and dedicates all his resources to getting that order. It is also very similar to the Lean method of Kanban. Kanban is a method of only releasing parts as needed through the process. A card must be given to the preceding event before that phase can start.
Interesting thought may be as you manage marketing campaigns or events that you only release calls, direct mail based on responses from your prospects. A proactive drip management program may solicit certain key actions before additional material is released automatically.
In manufacturing, I have seen a quality station placed in front of the constraint before allowing parts to move through the process. In marketing, you may add a qualifying step so the constraint or process only receives a more qualified prospect.
The next post will be steps 3 and 4.
Related Blog Posts:
Using the Theory of Constraints in Marketing
Identifying your Marketing Constraint
