Career Series No 2 - "Look Forward"

This month The S.H.E. Suite's experts on finance and marketing are joined by amazing ecommerce experts from Saltbox Denver. Our discussion: the ins and outs of implementing plans for your business at scale.

Read on for the nitty gritty of how to identify successful tactics and programs, how to know how much to invest (and where to get it), and strategies & solutions for the logistics of scaling operations. 

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5 Rules for Building Scalable Marketing Operations

1. Wear "Stretchy Pants"
You wouldn't head out to a huge meal wearing a tightly boned corset that wouldn't let you eat what you wanted. Neither should you think about scaling your marketing operations without first ensuring that your strategy and processes are "stretchy" and able to move and grow as your business grows.

Bigger isn't always better. Scaling your marketing efforts can create needless complexity, hinder collaboration, and slow your team down. 

Before you are ready to scale, you must be able to answer these questions:

1. ​What distinguishes my brand from my competitors?
2. Can I clearly articulate the difference?

2. Equipment Check
Evaluate your team and your systems. You should ask questions like:

• Can you ramp up without neglecting current customers?
• Do you use measurable KPI’s?
• Are the components of your systems ready to scale?

Above all, ensure that your plans to scale are based on real data

​3. Love A Little Help from Your Friends​
Those who fail to delegate, fail to scale. Because many marketing tasks are recurring, like setting up campaigns, planning and publishing content, or promoting events, so are many of the decisions your team has to make around these initiatives. For instance, which segments or channels should a new campaign target? Which metrics will you use to track success? Make sure you have the tools and the team (or marketing agency) in place to set yourself up to save your attention for the most important decisions.

4. Mind Over Motivation
Create a toolkit to help expand & pivot as you scale. Leveraging marketing automation tools allows you to send highly targeted messages to leads and shorten the marketing cycle. Automated lead nurturing helps you build relationships with customers through helpful emails, follow-ups, social media engagement, etc., to determine when they’re truly sales-ready. And by automating your creative workflows, you streamline repetitive tasks, cut down on errors, and execute faster.  

5. Scales are for Metrics
What can't be measured can't be improved. If there are any weaknesses in your strategy or your systems, they will only be amplified as you scale. The only way to identify what's working and what is a roadblock is to track KPIs that give you actionable data. Don't base decisions on what you think you know, base decisions on what you know to be true about your unique business. 

Finally, don’t just measure campaign results; measure the effort that goes into them as well. Evaluate campaign performance based on two factors: did your efforts produce the desired outcomes? And did the outcome justify the resources required?

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Steps to Level Up Your Finances

1. Set S.M.A.R.T. financial goals. 
Develop a plan to reach short- and long-term financial goals such as:

• setting a household budget.
• creating an emergency fund.
• paying off credit card debt or student loans.
• saving for a vacation, home, retirement or college.

Prioritize your goals. Make sure each one is S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.)

2. Maximize pre-tax and tax-advantaged contributions. 
Each year the employee contribution limit for 401(k) and similar employer sponsored retirement plans increases for inflation. The catch-up contribution limit for participants 50 and over increases as well. Those limits are $19,500 and $6,500, respectively, in 2020.

Check IRS guidelines to see if you are eligible for a tax-advantaged savings vehicle like a Roth, SEP or 529 account. Also, confirm your eligibility for child and dependent care credits.

3. Protect your most valuable asset. 
Human capital is unrealized salary, bonuses, and other forms of compensation that you will earn throughout your lifetime. It is likely a wage earner's most valuable financial asset. Yet most people fail to protect it. You insure your home, automobile, and other valuables against damage, loss or theft. Similarly, you should consider protecting your human capital (or future earnings) with life insurance. A financial professional can help calculate your human capital and implement a life insurance strategy that helps to protect your income (and your family) against the unexpected.

4. Develop a savvy investment strategy. 
Finding the right mix of investments is key to managing risk and volatility. Before you begin investing, it is important to assess your: 

• Available assets 
• Liquidity needs 
• Investment goals 
• Time horizon 
• Risk tolerance

5. Know your credit score.
Credit scores usually range between 300 and 850. They are one of several benchmarks used to determine creditworthiness. Credit card issuers, mortgage companies, and other lenders rely on credit scores to decide the amount, interest rate (borrower’s fee), and other terms of a consumer loan. Credit scores are calculated based on: 

• Payment history 40% 
• Credit history 21%
• Credit utilization 20% 
• Recent balances 11% 
• New credit accounts 5% 
• Available credit 3%

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Want to hear the full panel on scaling up? Attend our Women's Networking Night on 2.16.22 for all of this and more!!

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