These past few weeks I have been caught in a whirlwind of marketing plans preparation for next year, including the very critical numbers game. This is when the CFO challenges our assumptions for sales and growth, fieldforce and marketing expenses. Usually we would project a growth that is in line with the market trend and expenses would increase less than the sales growth.
I guess I must count myself lucky. The CFO has a lot of faith in my brands. Although my brands command brand equity, they are very old and have a lot of competitors. Yet the top guns challenged me to grow 4 times above market rate by pumping in more resources for next year.
Sometimes I think, even the big player-competitors which are pumping in money now has very little growth, yet I am expected to deliver a huge growth because it is believed that my brands have been neglected when the sales were outsourced to another company.
I need to rejuvenate my brands. Not only that, I need to rejuvenate my own mindset. Only with that then I am able to rejuvenate the imagination of my team. Otherwise everyone would think the same way as I am thinking now, that it is almost impossible.
I will be positive. I will think "can do", and try my best. My CEO says there is a difference between a stupid target and a stretch target. I just need to know which is which ;-)
I guess I must count myself lucky. The CFO has a lot of faith in my brands. Although my brands command brand equity, they are very old and have a lot of competitors. Yet the top guns challenged me to grow 4 times above market rate by pumping in more resources for next year.
Sometimes I think, even the big player-competitors which are pumping in money now has very little growth, yet I am expected to deliver a huge growth because it is believed that my brands have been neglected when the sales were outsourced to another company.
I need to rejuvenate my brands. Not only that, I need to rejuvenate my own mindset. Only with that then I am able to rejuvenate the imagination of my team. Otherwise everyone would think the same way as I am thinking now, that it is almost impossible.
I will be positive. I will think "can do", and try my best. My CEO says there is a difference between a stupid target and a stretch target. I just need to know which is which ;-)
Photo courtesy of Stuart Seeger, http://www.flickr.com/people/stuseeger/
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