Don’t Let Future Planning Interfere With Current Messaging

Mixed Messages Confuse Both Internal and External Audiences
It’s a fact of life that every business must evolve to remain competitive. Shifting economic and industry-specific conditions make this more of a priority for some businesses than others. Regardless of where your business finds itself in this continuum, long-term planning is critical to any business's success. A 5- or 10-year plan can serve to guide product development and, in today’s climate, shape the direction of a business model toward one that is ultimately more viable and profitable.

While planning is essential, it’s important not to lose focus of what’s hitting the bottom line today: the products and services that you’re currently selling. Problems can occur when the excitement and anticipation of planned products and services interfere with the process of developing messaging and branding. Your sales team needs talking points to clearly articulate what they can sell today, not lead with “5 years from now we’ll be able to provide you with a solution for…”.

Messaging that addresses the current state of your business is essential to making sure your internal stakeholders (sales, product development and leadership) are pushing the right message out to your customers. With messaging that clearly articulates your business's current strengths, communication becomes effortless. Supporting sales tools can be developed. Company employees are reading from the same sheet of music. And most importantly, customers are being delivered the products they were promised.

Planning is critical to your future success, but it shouldn’t be done at the expense of your current messaging efforts. Done properly, your messaging can build a bridge between your current and future states. With a solid messaging foundation in place, nuance changes can be applied to it while you progress toward your future goal. But it all starts with figuring out who you are now.