In Winnipeg, every Father’s Day is marked with the running of the Manitoba Marathon.  This year, I am participating in my 3rd running of the half marathon.  I don’t really enjoy running but participating in the marathon is fun and what it forces me to do for at least 3 months of the year is focus on an activity that requires a strategic commitment to achieve a goal.  In many ways, this is a lot like marketing and sales.

In order to complete a half marathon or a full marathon you need to train your body to run these distances.  Failure to do this can result in severe injury.  Case in point, I ran my first half marathon without training…what a mistake.  Running at a decent pace to finish within 2 hours I was hobbled with excruciating pain down the side of my left leg…this occurred around the 6 mile mark.  Having never felt this type of pain before I decided to ease up on the pace.  I ended up finishing the race in 2 hours and 14 minutes.  My quest to finish the race resulted in me limping around for the next 3 weeks with IT band syndrome which could have been avoided with proper training.

The following year I decided to run the half again with a goal of breaking 2 hours.  To do this, I developed a race strategy to help me finish within my desired time.  Starting in March, every week I would run 3-4 times a week with each run averaging to around 3-5 miles.  My long runs would get a mile longer with each passing week.  My last long run would be a 10 mile run the weekend before the race.  This strategy resulted in a pain free race that I finished within 1 hour and 54 minutes…mission accomplished.

This year my goal is to finish the race within 1 hour and 45 minutes…hopefully my running strategy works.  If it doesn’t I’ll have to develop another plan for next year.

So how does running a marathon compare to marketing?  The end goal of marketing in my opinion is to have a positive effect on sales…I don’t really care about marketing to brand a company unless it ultimately increases sales.  Increasing sales is like finishing the marathon in a certain time frame.  And just like finishing a marathon you should have a strategy on how you are going to achieve higher sales.  Can you achieve higher sales without a marketing strategy? Yes, you can.  But just as I did with my first run…marketing without a strategy can result in a lot of pains.  These pains typically are ones of inefficiency, frustration of not knowing which tactics are best and sometimes a negative impact on profitability.

Just like a training plan for a marathon, a marketing plan for increasing sales gives you the chance to make proper educated decisions to change course along the way.  Focusing, on strategy before execution and being committed to your marketing will result in a less painful path to achieving your sales goal.  So what’s your plan?