The Key Team-Player Plan of Action

“People before actions, actions before results.”

What is a Team Player Plan of action?

When creating and defining your marketing plan for your business or the company you work for, it is key to consider who is going to be involved in the execution of the plan. You should think about who will be taking part of this plan and start thinking about what specifically will they take care of and what actions specifically should be done by whom.

Defining this before anything starts happening will save you a lot of trouble and grant your success. People is what makes things happen, without a team, no plan is good enough.

How to define who are going to be the key team players?

This is probably going to be the hardest part of the planning. Who is good at what and who can you rely on complying on his/her responsibilities, on getting the message through clearly, on communicating with the team effectively, on following the communication path, on giving the expected results.

When defining who will be part of your team, consider the following aspects:

• ‍Does he/she get along with the team well (no conflicts between the other team players)?
• Does he/she is usually good at communicating with you and the team players?
• Is he/she usually responsible for his/her corresponding tasks?
• Will he/she ask if there is something he/she is not clear about before acting?
• Does he/she know how to do it?

Important Note on This: Notice that most of these points are not hard-skilled issues, they are mostly communication skills and other soft skills. It is more important to have someone who is willing to do the job than someone who is an “expert” or that already “knows how to do the job” because, no matter how expert he/she might be in the subject, every project is different and he/she MUST be willing to change their way and adapt it accordingly.

Defining responsibilities, periodicity and communication medium.

When defining responsibilities you should definitely consider what is the team player’s knowledge and area of expertise and connections between the team. It is best not to change their common dynamics and forms drastically; the more you change it, the less feasible for it to happen. Imagine that usually, your Communications Director reports to you, the CEO, directly. If in the Marketing Plan you decide that he/she is going to report results to the Marketing Director instead of you and that the Marketing Director will then report to the CFO, and THEN he will report results to you, there is going to be some unnecessary friction from the Communications Director, he’s suddenly sent into a third row. The last thing you want to do before starting any projects is to start it with unconformity from key members of your team. Try to show as best as you can your respect for their work and your trust in them, this will generate a stronger team, KEY TO GOOD RESULTS.

What results should you expect?

After defining your team, you should state clearly the expected results so they can have a clear picture of where their actions should be taking them. Always consider modifying these expectations along the way but only do it if it is completely necessary. That is: if it is causing unnecessary stress to team players, if it is clearly unachievable, if it is detouring other company goals, or if they have been easily obtained and new goals should be set.

Things to be stated to the team previously.

When creating your Team Player Plan, you should create a document where you state the following points clearly and make it available for them, preferably make it a physical document that they can easily access and be reminded of constantly. This is the path which they will follow each day so it should be as clear as possible.

A few ideas:

1. ‍Make it a vinyl and place it in your meeting room.
2. Make a laminated document and give it to each team player.
3. If you make it digital, send it every Monday along with the weekly goals.

What should be set in your Team Player Plan:

• ‍Clear Goals - Set clear numbers (i.e.: expected followers, expected likes, expected views, expected traffic, expected sales, expected number of posts, etc.)
• Clear Messages and Tone of Voice - What is the kind of content they should be posting, talking about, sharing, commenting, writing on, etc. Set the exact percentage of each kind of content and the feel it should be reflecting (i.e.: 50% positive thoughts, 30% fashion news, 20% inspirational content). Set examples for each and set the tone of voice (i.e.: formal, informal, street language, academic, etc.)
• Clear Actions - Who should each team player report to, with what periodicity, who is in charge of what.

Following is an example of how this plan should look like, remember to make it as graphic as possible (if necessary, hire a graphic designer, it should be easy to scan and it should create an unforgettable picture).