... And the Clients Went Wild!: How Savvy Professionals Win All the Business They Want

Chapter 6. Fifth Principle The Critical Importance of Execution in Your Game Plan

Good Execution Is Better than Good Strategy

The best marketing strategy is the one you can pull off completely.

As a marketing consultant, I have found that business owners always want to find out which marketing strategies are producing results right now. This book is filled with information about strategies that have dramatic success, but there is an underlying factor that is often overlooked and rarely blamed for lack of success: execution.

Entrepreneurs have long attributed any success they experience to having a better product or service. But in today's fast-moving, completely networked world, superior execution is the clear force behind these accomplishments. Although small business owners are great at adopting many new marketing ideas, they're not always so good at finishing. Therefore, the best marketing strategy—whatever your company or industry—is the one you can pull off completely.

If a business chooses one particular approach—for instance, setting up a referral campaign—and carries out that one strategy until it's executed fully and with precision, it is implementing the best marketing strategy. It is not the strategy as much as its execution that achieves desirable results.

What Are You Doing in Your Red Zone?

Poor execution is as significant an obstacle to business success as it is in just about everything in life, including military campaigns, transportation, manufacturing, and sports.

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