Challenge: What is your biggest marketing constraint (and what are you gonna do about it)?

I highly recommend reading (or re-reading) the book The Goal by Eli Goldratt if either you haven’t checked it out or if it’s been awhile.

The core idea behind the book is that there’s usually something specific in your business that’s the key blocker to growth/success, which when identified allows you to come up with an explicit plan to address/resolve/mitigate/eliminate it.

If you think about your own business, or even your marketing organization, it’s likely you feel numerous constraints to success.  But I’m guessing there’s one that tops them all, one that could open the floodgates of productivity within those other constraints simultaneously.

It’s worth thinking carefully about this as we approach the last quarter of the year.  Some questions to think about:

• What are your biggest constraints currently?  List a handful of them and try to stack-rank them based on importance, urgency and impact.
• What’s your #1 biggest constraint to success right now?  Either based on the factors listed above or its impact on other constraints as well.
• What will you do about it?  Specifically, what steps will you commit to in October and Q4 to alleviate that constraint?

A rule of thumb from some of the Theory of Constraints thinking is that your #1 constraint should be something you’re willing to spend 3-4 hours a day working on until it’s resolved.  That’s a high bar of time, with plenty of opportunity cost but huge upside.

I’ve identified this for my business.  What’s it for yours?