🚧 An Unusual Relationship

How marketing is the secret baseline to your business.

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We arrange for lots of lending for companies and over time the Panels send us Business Plans for overdraft applications when they want a second opinion. Do you know what Division it goes to? You would think Accountancy or Business Development wouldn’t you?

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It surprisingly goes to Marketing.

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Marketing is able to unravel the best-laid business plans. You see while the Financial Forecast look fantastic and they even seem to improve month on month as the year goes on in the ever-confident document applying for a huge overdraft, when Marketing tug at the thread of the Marketing strategy of the business plan the applicant sometimes just show a small modest flat budget for advertising or one that is without convincing evidence to support the financials and the massive rate of growth detailed. The Lenders can then feel a bit misled and annoyed as the expensive package starts to unravel. They then ask funny questions like what magic beans did the Author of the application have that could create and maintain such sales out of thin air that they will be able to pay back said overdraft.

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The applicant then starts to get some very uncomfortable questions for a much-needed overdraft who usually bats it to the accountant or who did the business plan and it all goes mad but the buck has to stop with one person only, the owner.

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My point is, if you are thinking of growing your business and are lucky enough not to need an overdraft or facility, surely as a Director you would want to know if it was a good plan anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to have bought into the concept of good Marketing and if asked by the Bank any questions to then be able to answer them with confidence in an honest way and had given it serious consideration?

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Marketing is such an important pillar - It supports the whole business really.

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Can you imagine if your business had more depots and a Manager miles away requested a large sum of money from the internal finance system, should this not still go through the same failsafes, checks and balances as if it did come from a bank?

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Or do we just wing it as we may have been? Just throw money at it like a bet. You can try and I see it all the time. The only thing is nothing is learnt, nothing is really put down as a good measure year on year in small increments as a spend or housekeeping which would mean good things are done internally to make sure they serve us but also help guide us as we see what works well, what does not work and why over time.

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In short, if you're busy with a great client and it ends in three years' time and you have made no effort to start talking to Marketing about your business, you could suffer from having all your eggs in one basket - you would almost be a treated as a start up again but with immediate or massive outgoings that are stripping the cash reserves of the company and Directors while they search for the next great client. We need more outlets and means of income streams for cashflow and balance. Why put yourself through days of this turmoil and pain when you can set it against your tax liability?

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There's a lot more to marketing than most agencies present and this is where Saint Global is helping construction businesses like yours across the industry. Talk to Saint today to gain more insight into your business.

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