Who’s the best person to take a long, hard look at the strategy that underpins your business? Highland Marketing founder, Mark Venables, thinks that sometimes you need outside research to challenge your preconceptions and prejudices.

Isn’t strategy the leadership team’s superpower?

It’s a rookie error to think that the CEO or the leadership team have all the answers. The really smart businesspeople I know are more than happy to take advice and ideas from people they trust. I’d say their superpower is asking great research questions, analysing the answers, and identifying the way forward.

Business school basics

Amazon will sell you any number of books about setting a strategy for business success. Consistently, I see two narratives – the “entrepreneur is the hero” story, and the “just follow my complicated methodology” story.

Much of this is interesting and some of it is useful. However, at its core, the process is pretty straightforward. At Highland Marketing, we start from the basis that research is the bedrock of any strategy, and from there focus on four areas:

  • Market opportunity scanning – How do you fit against market needs and aspirations?
  • Product proposition and value proposition development – How are you going to convince people you’ve got what they need?
  • Competitive analysis – Who else is out there and how do you stack up?
  • Market segmentation and selection – Who wants what you’ve got, and is in a position to buy?

If you’re thinking that this is obvious, well good. It’s not rocket science, it’s not even science.

However, it is important to actually do the research and, crucially, you need to be diligent, analytical and objective. Many business ideas fail because someone falls in love with an idea and pursues it to destruction. You need to look at all the angles and be willing to pivot.

A good way of achieving this objective is to work with someone who knows the market and its drivers, has seen what works and what doesn’t, and can look at the opportunity both qualitatively and quantitatively. If you want someone like that, we’d love to talk to you.

Making it happen

Of course, having a great strategy will only be the beginning of your success, which brings us to another superpower: relentless execution.

One of our associates tells a story about when he was a junior marketing leader working on a new product proposition. He’d been working with an external agency and together they’d come up with a plan. He’d presented it to the Board, and after that meeting the CEO had come to have a chat. His steering? It’s great idea, now all you’ve got to do is make it happen.

And that’s what the best business leaders do – recognise the opportunity and work tirelessly to bring it to fruition. They do things, enjoy the successes, take the knocks, improve their approach, and go round again.

Get in touch if you want to know more about how Highland Marketing can help you set your strategy.

Mark Venables

Mark is a specialist in sales and business development. After a long and successful career in IT sales he has excellent connections in the technology and healthcare sectors. Clients value the fact that he understands business from an insider’s point of view, having built and run his own technology company. Mark is now focused on growing Highland Marketing, winning new business and developing its future strategy. Mark has a vast network of contacts within the technology and healthcare industry and he works hard to grow that network on a daily basis. Renowned for his tenacity and his positive outlook, he never gives up, something that clients really value. And it is here, in his second role at Highland Marketing, that he can assist clients with their business development and sales efforts. “What I offer clients is an extensive network of contacts, and a detailed understanding of the realities of running and developing a business. It’s in my nature to communicate whether it’s with board members, key decision makers and stakeholders or individual staff. My goal is to understand their needs and offer a solution. And through this I can help build new relationships for our clients, either with potential partners, prospective customers or influential organisations and individuals.” A little about Mark: Sailing boats – He developed an early love of sailing – a skill he learnt aboard a 58ft captured German World War II yacht called Overlord. In 1982 he attempted to sail the world, but his vessel was nearly sunk in the same storm which prevented TV presenter John Noakes from making a similar voyage. Selling antiques – Mark learned the gentle art of sales from his dad who had a specialist antiques business in Farnham, Surrey. He remembers his first ever sale, made as a lad in the 1980s, when he got £900 for an 18th century, veneered tilt top hexagonal table. Mark has a knack of finding ways to make business entertaining as well as profitable, whether it’s with client trips to Grand Prix races or deep sea fishing expeditions. If you want a chat about what Highland Marketing can do for you then he’ll happily join you for a meeting at your office, or even a round of golf – at which you’ll almost certainly win!

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