Frequently Asked Questions

Your organization should outline a clear vision about how you want to use the data. This information should then be communicated to the entire group for ultimate transparency. This provides clarity for organizational members to understand their roles as well. This way your team members can also watch for gaps to fill in where they may be oversights. There is a variety of data that you can consider collecting – within certain parameters. Data such as this will help to clarify why certain cohorts are drawn to and engaged with your organization, and ultimately your values, your mission and your vision.

A marketing consultant is a highly skilled professional. They not only understand what motivates consumers; they know how to put strategies in place to improve a business. Some business leaders assume that marketing consultants are merely ad reps who work independently from an agency. Although these two perform complementary functions, what they do is vastly different. Advertising is a part of marketing, thus advertising often falls under the umbrella of marketing.

Marketing consultants can help you further develop your business through effective strategies beyond an ad cycle.  This will help you to prepare your product or service for a competitive marketplace to reach a targeted audience.

Not sure if you need a Consultant or a Leadership Coach? We discuss this topic in our blog post; A Consultant or a Leadership Coach?.

Contact Woodland Strategies for a consultation.

A marketing consultant can provide organizations with a number of benefits as they assist business leaders in updating their messaging for today’s audience as well as for future opportunities.

Consultants help team members decide the best strategy for optimal client engagement and expansion in current markets. Consultants collaborate with leadership to develop new strategies to achieve both short-term and long-term goals, while ensuring that all approaches are consistent with the company’s mission and measures of sustainable success.

Learn more about services Woodland Strategies can provide your business.

No one knows what the future holds, however having a strategic plan can increase an organization’s chances for successful outcomes. Start-ups, non-profits and for-profit organizations can all benefit from the services of a Strategic Planning Consultant.

Strategic Planning is the process of assessing the direction of an organization by evaluating both the current market position, and where the organization is headed. The strategic plan provides an opportunity to create the mission, vision, and values, as well as long-term goals and the action plan needed to implement in order to achieve these goals within the resources of a current annual budget. A skilled Strategic Planning Consultant collaborates with organizational leadership and their teams to work towards common goals to create intended outcomes in an ever-changing environment to address the needs of the organizational stakeholders. This type of collaboration provides a clear path for organizational direction, as well as insights and tools to measure successful outcomes.

Learn more about consulting on our blog.

Contact Woodland Strategies to begin planning your business strategy.

Your stakeholders are the individuals who are connected to your organization. They influence and impact your nonprofit to varying degrees. There are internal and external stakeholders. They may be primary or secondary stakeholders.

Examples may include your board of directors, employees, donors, volunteers, clients, community, the media, governmental agencies and so forth.

The stakeholder is essential to your organization.

A stakeholder analysis will help you classify the stakeholder, and can assist you as you identify different types of stakeholders for your nonprofit. The better you understand your stakeholders, the more success you will have in maintaining your strategic focus, and efficiently and effectively keeping in alignment with your mission.

Ultimately, the board’s job is to guide and support the nonprofit for governance and financial success to support the mission. Generally, the most successful nonprofit organizations have a very close relationship between their boards, their executive director and other leadership, and their fundraising staff. Boards can have a significant influence on the success of any fundraising efforts. There are a variety of ways for members to be involved. An organization’s job description will indicate whether or not Board members may be required to be involved in this development role. Training programs are available to assist leaders with this. There are also so many different roles for members to take, thereby tailoring the operationalization of this to each member’s comfort level and skills set.

Fundraising can be thought of as a collective responsibility of any nonprofit organization. The Fundraising team can support the Board and vice versa. Any fundraising efforts should also be supported by the data.

Organizations are expected to deliver results. This includes the non-profit sector, which looks very different than it did just a short time ago.

There are many important needs in our world, and competition for dollars is fierce. A consultant can assist leadership in achieving financial success, and promoting organizational strategy through informed decision making within a process, while staying true to the organizational values, long-term vision and mission. A skilled consultant will be able to assist organizational leadership and teams as they assess challenges, and create customized solutions to achieve sustainable short term and long-term goals, while building internal consensus and commitment.

Ultimately, a consultant can facilitate the learning process amongst organizational members in achieving their own on-going viability in a changing world.

Contact Woodland Strategies to learn how we can help.

The competition for the nonprofit dollar is fierce and it’s not going to go away.

It is imperative that you understand your stakeholders, and this includes your donors.

There are four general kinds of donors for the nonprofit. These include Individual, Major Gifts, Corporate and Foundation donors. Each cohort has its own different categories to help focus on giving potential. Each donor should be considered differently according to the donor’s own goals and the organizational mission. Collecting data is an excellent way for the entire organization to understand why donors are involved. This kind of information will greatly inform your fundraising plan. And remember, there is nothing like one-to-one facetime to both gather information, and to sustain these relationships in an authentic and meaningful way.

Leaders need to be able to communicate strategy, negotiate with skill, build teams, and ultimately—deliver results. Executives and managers at all levels can benefit from leadership coaching. Leadership coaching is designed to help individuals accomplish their current responsibilities as well as to advance their professional development over time. Leadership coaching can be a key factor in building high performing and healthy teams. Coaching helps individuals discover their own way forward by providing time and the tools to shape goals as they advance as authentic leaders.

Not sure if you need a Consultant or a Leadership Coach? We discuss this topic in our blog post; A Consultant or a Leadership Coach?.

Contact Woodland Strategies for a consultation.

Woodland Strategies provides a process designed to empower teams to achieve their goals. We dedicate time to embrace team dynamics, and to be aware of the stages of team development – including conflict – in order to best utilize resources, and to achieve optimal outcomes. We welcome different and diverse perspectives! We work to incorporate participation by the entire group in a variety of ways to ultimately both support the team and the organization to encourage open communication channels, and ongoing success. Establishing this framework is an important step before moving into other areas such as addressing a Strategic Plan or Marketing Strategy.

Contact us for more information!

Understand Your Customer—Be Ready to Present and Close the Deal

Chances are, you have experienced significant changes in your industry landscape within the past year. These have most likely affected you and your customers. The sales department is a key component to any organization’s vitality. How do you empower your sales department throughout your organization? Is there alignment between marketing and sales?

Whether B2B or B2C, your customer is key to your success. (This goes for non-profits, too). This is a time to be sharp and ready. Having a thorough understanding of your individual customers and their needs is essential to customer loyalty. Be prepared. Woodland Strategies can assist you as you create your strategic narrative framework to help you connect with your customers. Be set for that first meeting so that you can move easily into the transaction, and then close the deal. This will foster ongoing positive relationships with your customer base and create ambassadors for your brand.

Contact us to learn more about empowering your Sales Team!

The sales role plays a key and essential role within any organization. The sales process can be a key way for your customers to solve a problem. Your sales and marketing teams should work in collaboration with each other to both reinforce this meaningful relationship, and to optimize your organization’s end results. A strategic sales and marketing plan will assist you in providing a structured framework your business can follow for your sales and marketing campaign. This plan should also offer you with a type of roadmap that your organization may use to reach key clients. This plan and resulting framework may include advertising, brand building and management and promotions or specials. Align activities across teams as you work within your budget to implement this plan. Track your progress and outcomes. This will assist you as you identify and solve issues as they may arise.

Contact Woodland Strategies to learn how we can help you to facilitate optimal outcomes to connect with your customers!

You cannot effectively plant a garden without a plan. You cannot build a home or a building without a blueprint. Organizations are no different. Whether for-profit or non-profit, you need a strategic plan and a marketing plan. Non-profits are organizations that are mission driven, rather than profit driven. Non-profits compete with other not-profits for a finite number of resources. Every penny counts. An effective and professional consultant can assist you in your efforts, particularly if your internal infrastructure doesn’t’ have the time or the expertise to address these areas. If you do have the luxury of this internal support, then it can still be worthwhile to seek outside consultation from time to time.

Decisions made as a result of these services lay the foundation for sound operations and forecasting, both for the short-term and the long-term. This is an investment in the future of your organization. Your strategic plan provides you with tools such as your mission and vision, and the ability to assess your position within the marketplace—amongst other things. Your marketing plan will help you decipher your messaging, your brand strategy and your identity, all of which you communicate to your stakeholders. Things change, as we all well know! Keep things agile. Be ready to respond to the changing marketplace. Ultimately, this will help you in many ways as you engage donors, drive brand awareness, and increase your pool of volunteers and supports—thereby adding stakeholders who believe in your mission.

All organizations need a budget, including non-profits. These kinds of expenditures should be covered in your budget. Laying the groundwork in the form of a strategic plan and marketing plan are key to organizational stability and growth. This allows you to be true to your mission to provide your stakeholders with the positive outcomes that you are working so hard to achieve.

Make an investment in the future. Plan to get ahead.

Woodland Strategies is proud to work with all budgets to help organizations achieve their goals. We also provide different pricing options to best meet your financial situation. Contact us today to learn more.