Just as this is the time of year for making New Year's resolution, so also it is the time for the annual marketing and sales plan redo.
Unlike the personal New Year's Resolution there is a way to assure annual business plans are kept.
Secret: Make the marketing and selling plan simple enough to live by every day yet comprehensive enough to move you towards your vision based around one simple rule. Now your annual plan becomes a dynamic tool for success.
Rule: It all starts with strategy before tactics. During the day, before you start working on a tactic (blogs, email, sales calls, social media, etc.) ask yourself, "Will what I am about to do help accomplishing a strategy." Strategies lead to accomplishing a goal which leads to achieving your visions.
The answer to running a successful marketing campaign is using your unique features, advantages and benefits - your differentiators - better than anyone else calling in your market. More importantly, the benefit must match your prospect's values. 
A properly designed sales presentation used in the buy step, gives you control of the information presented, reduces the time to close, sets the stage for installation. 
This is not a down economy - your ability to increase sales should be like business as usual the way it was before the bubble and bust decades of the 80's, 90's, and the first 8 years of this millennium. These are the times that every organization is measuring spending against productivity - investment against profitability - features against value.
