
I can almost see it. There you are, Moses-like, standing heroically on the summit, looking out at the fertile valley of inbound marketing, waiting to descend to the shop floor to set your company free to tackle unprecedented business growth.
You've done your due diligence, read white papers until your eyes bled, decided that this was the right direction strategically, figured out how you're going to support the new capabilities required, made decisions on the technology needed, carved out a budget to outsource the things you can't handle internally, and now you're finally ready to pull the trigger and get things started!
There's just one more thing to think about to insure your inbound strategy achieves the kind of energy required to guarantee success: create an Inbound Marketing Workshop event!
I know right now some people are rolling their eyes and saying "Typical agency guy, wants to have an event every time there's a new initiative or strategy!" Well, first of all, there's nothing typical about me, but that's a different story.
A few weeks ago I wrote about how important commitment is as a predictor of inbound success. This kickoff event is all about gaining commitment across the ranks of an organization. Because most of us have, at one time or another in our careers, witnessed the incredible things that can happen when an organization gets committed behind one galvanizing vision or direction.
Just in case anyone doubts the importance of using an event to trigger commitment that can create energy and momentum, here are my top 5 ingredients to gain a team's commitment:
Based on these ingredients to drive commitment, here are the elements we would always want to include in an IM kickoff workshop:
A company's culture, and the demands on the workforce, will always have an impact on how far you can take a kickoff workshop. We're planning one for a client right now that might start pre-dawn, and be repeated back-to-back so only half of the team is offline at one time. So while we're going to be watching the clock closely, we're still going to cover the five elements described above, because we know they all matter in delivering a committed team.
Because in the end, there's nothing a committed team can't accomplish once they're all pointed firmly in the right direction.
Topics: Inbound Marketing