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| Subject: Reducing Randomness With A Promotion/Method Planning Template | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 00:31:41 08/30/14 Sat In reply to: Dennis S. Vogel 's message, "Randomness Or Random Mess" on 23:09:52 11/30/13 Sat Since we can't predict everything, we can't prevent some things. We're unlikely to ever have enough resources to control everything we can predict. We can spend money to prevent some customer frustration - A) Spend more on payroll to increase customer service on days when we expect a lot of traffic. B) Invest more of our inventory budget to avoid being out-of-stock when customers want products. But randomness will still happen in business methods & advertising results. If we use mass media advertising, an offer may be received by people who aren't in our niche. As a result, some buyers may buy only the advertised product, though we figured only niche members would want the product. Niche members, who respond to offers like ours, would realize other products would enhance the value of the advertised product. Niche members could afford & would buy these other products. We expected that much needed sales revenue would've covered our expenses & generated some profits. But now, we have more inventory, more unpaid bills & less money than we planned. Now there isn't enough money to buy that 3 Stooges DVD set you want. That DVD set that features all 6 of the 3 Stooges! Plus, what's worse is, I don't have the money I planned to use ... Oh, never mind! Too many people think because a promotion or method didn't bring their desired results, that promotion or method doesn't work & never will work. I won't advise anybody to persist just to be persistent because it's possible to persist at the wrong things. I don't have the space here or time now to explain how to evaluate results for every possible promotion or method. What I wrote below is a general template to determine if persisting may be wise or foolish. No matter how well anything is planned & implemented, randomness can cause a random MISS even for a potential popular HIT. Rejecting a random miss means losing the effort & other resources you've invested. But if you do your best to learn from the results, some of your previous planning & other efforts will still be useful. Maybe you think it isn't worthwhile to try to recoup the little bit of planning you did. If so, it may indicate you didn't do enough planning. But I'm not reproaching you personally. Just saying ... What Just Happened Here? We can learn what to do & what to avoid if we review & document what we observed. When we expected something that didn't happen, we should document that. We can discuss differences in our expectations & observations to get a more complete report. OK, now what did you & I expect to happen? Yes, I also wanted to watch the 3 Stooges, but let's not document that. Let's focus on what we did to achieve our promotional goals & results of the methods we've developed. While we test & use methods, we should evaluate our results often enough to determine if we should make adjustments. (paradox) Though if we adjust too much too often, i.e. before we have enough information to evaluate, we could skew our results. Time For You To Step Up To Template Depending how long your promotion is, you could adapt this template [below] to evaluate your results soon after you start receiving enough. You may be able to adjust your efforts & improve your results. [Note: You can copy this template & paste it into a word processor/text editor document because I've already done some work for you. It's great working with a consultant!] These templates are 'interactive'. Some are fill-in-the-blanks statements. Blanks are indicated by putting (parentheses) what I figure you should write. Promotion/Method Planning Template We want to (write our main action), because we hope to (write our main expected result) We expect (sales revenue amount) as our goal, we plan to (fulfill a purpose) with some of the money. To do it, we need to sell (number of) units. What are we basing our expectations on? (Examples - our experience/what we did before, our observations of what others did/are doing, case study we read/heard) What's different about our current situation & our experiences? What's different about our current situation compared to what we observed? What's different about our current situation compared to what happened in the case study we read/heard? Why do we think this concept will work for us? What were our mistakes during similar situations? What did we correct when we realized a mistake? How well did that remedy work? What/How can we plan to avoid that kind of mistake? Which results were good, but yet not what we expected? (Example - We got the expected level of customer traffic since people responded to our offers. Customers bought a lot of older inventory, though it hadn't been promoted lately.) Did the display or its location seem to make the most difference? Did customers buy older inventory instead of the promoted inventory? Is the promoted inventory different than what they believe we offered? How can we be more successful with our next promotion of our new inventory? What are the most significant mistakes we've made before? What are possible mistakes we might make this time? What/How can we plan to avoid those kinds of mistakes? In the future when one of us notices a mistake, should s/he take corrective action immediately or should we discuss it before taking action? Evaluating Current Or Past Promotions/Methods You can start with this template (below) during or after your current efforts. This is for determining what went well & what didn't. Though you won't ever determine each cause & effect, hopefully you'll find reasons for the most important good & bad results. These evaluations should NOT be used for blaming & shaming. The purpose should be learning what to do more of or less of (or to totally stop doing). You can learn what to improve & how to improve it more easily when people aren't feeling defensive. When people try to defend their reputations/egos, they're less apt to think how to improve results. They may think mostly about how to avoid embarrassment. It's possible to make good faith mistakes. People can do some good things in the wrong ways or do the wrong (moral, yet mistaken decisions) things for the right reasons. People may misunderstand because of how words are pronounced or used. (Examples - Did you see that book? When you're in the store, be sure to look & go by/buy it. Don't refuse to dispose of the refuse.) Especially in English, there are a lot definitions/denotations for some words in addition there are many connotations & slang meanings. This template is similar to the template above, but oriented to the past. Promotion/Method Evaluation Template We did (write our main action), because we hoped to (write our main expected result) We expected (sales revenue amount) as our goal, we planned to (fulfill a purpose) with some of the money. To do it, we needed to sell (number of) units. What did we base our expectations on? (our experience/what we did before, our observations of what others did/are doing, case study we read/heard) What's different about our current situation compared with our experiences? What's different about our current situation compared with what we observed? What's different about our current situation compared with what happened in the case study we read/heard? Why did we think this concept would work for us? Of all of the results, which results are the most puzzling? Which results were good, but yet not what we expected? (Example - We got the expected level of customer traffic since people responded to our offers. Customers bought a lot of older inventory, though it hadn't been promoted lately.) Did the display or its location seem to make the most difference? Did customers buy older inventory instead of the promoted inventory? Is the promoted inventory different than what they believe we offered? How can we be more successful with our next promotion of our new inventory? What were our mistakes during this period? How did we correct our mistakes? How well did those remedies work? What/How can we plan to avoid that kind of mistake? Do we owe anybody an apology? If so, to whom should we apologize? How should we apologize? Who among us should apologize to them? Goal? Objective? What's The Difference? This next section is for reviewing goals & motivations. I'm defining a goal as the beginning of a plan/journey. I'm defining an objective as what we want/need. It's the reason for setting a goal & making plans. An objective is the object (benefit) we get from achieving our goal/reaching our destination. When we get to our destination we'll fulfill our ambition & we'll get our intended objective - the prize we desire so much, we're willing to work for it. If a goal still seems achievable & worthwhile, is our motivation the same & just as strong or is it stronger now? Based on what went right & wrong, what are the opportunity costs? Though we hoped we could (implement a previously planned activity), we can't because we don't have (which necessary resources) & because we have (unresolved obligation). Of course that's what it means. Yes, you won't get that 3 Stooges DVD set yet because you ... Oh, never mind! ... Let's just focus on business. What can we do now &/or in the future to be sure we set good goals & objectives? [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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