My Simple Framework for Improving Anything

Here's how I decide what needs to be changed without losing my mind.

I’ve spent most of my career solving frustrating marketing problems.

And here’s the issue with marketing problems: there’s never a perfectly correct answer. There’s good, better, bad, and every combination in between.

(Note to college kids: Don’t get into marketing if you like working in absolutes).

Marketing campaigns have a ton of variables. Some known, some unknown. There’s conflicting data everywhere. The longer I spend doing it the more I see it as an art, not a science.

This makes problem-solving (like improving a campaign) pretty damn difficult. There’s a sh*t ton of guesswork involved.

So in to make more sound decisions, I’ve come up with an easy way to look at problems and decide what needs to be fixed.

I call it “identifying the levers.”

Let me explain.

It was my first week at my new job (day 3 to be exact). I was finishing up onboarding and getting a feeling of the lay of the land.

I had taken a new role in demand generation (fancy word for marketing), and was expected to get started quickly. I was thrown right into the first almost immediately.

At about 2 PM on this day, my boss called. We had a major problem.

There was a huge tradeshow coming up. It was our “Super Bowl” because in past years it would get us about 20% of all leads and revenue for the year.

The sales and marketing team was expected to book 30 in-person meetings with potential customers at the event.

But with only 3 weeks to go until the event, we didn’t have a single meeting booked.

Yikes.

The SDR team was heads down, calling and emailing everyone in the country who might attend. The sales team was working hard at it too.

But nothing was working.

Marketing was slacking as well. Before I joined, they sent two marketing emails to a random list of potential show attendees. It was a shot in the dark and did nothing.

So I had to do something to get us meetings. We needed 10 meetings sourced by marketing alone.

Going back to what I said earlier – in marketing there’s never a perfectly correct answer. There’s good, better, bad, and every combination in between.

There were a dozen things that I could have tried – more emails, LinkedIn ads, emails from partners, direct mail, you name it.

But instead of going down multiple rabbit holes, I stopped for a second to think.

*summons inner marketing wisdom*

I then leaned on a problem-solving framework that I use to find solutions to problems with multiple variables.

I call it “identifying the levers.”

Instead of thinking of all the potential possibilities, ideas, and endless choices we could make, I closely inspected what variables (or levers, as I call them) I could realistically change.

To book meetings at a tradeshow, we must:

1. Contact people who will attend the event → The audience

2. Get them to read our message → The copy & content

3. Get them to book a meeting → The offer & call-to-action

The only way we could possibly change the number of meetings we book is to change one of these three levers (variables). So I began inspecting and changing the levers we could change.

First, I looked at the audience.

Our first two emails were sent to a random group of contacts who we did not know for sure were attending the show. We were shooting bird-shot into the sky, hoping birds would fly by at the perfect time.

We needed to identify folks who were likely to attend and send it to a larger number of them. So, I sourced a list of people who attended the show last year who I thought were likely to attend again and added them to our email list.

Bam — a bigger, more relevant audience.

Next, I looked at the content. It was boring and bland. I didn’t write it, so it was easy to be objective (not always so easy).

So I fixed the simple things — I rewrote the subject line and copy within the email. I created a new banner that was eye-catching. I made sure people actually opened the email.

Lastly, I had to take an honest look at the offer.

All we did in the first email was announce that we were attending the show and beg people to meet with us. That had to change.

Now… I need to be honest. I forgot to mention something to you earlier.

Our partner marketing team had two networking events planned for each night after the show ended. One of these events was at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Yes, the big ball in the center of Vegas that you’ve seen everywhere since U2 held a concert there for baby boomers past their prime.

Prospects could join us at a world-renowned venue or dinner, with food and alcohol included, alongside other professionals for FREE.

Why would we not promote that?

So, instead of going straight for the kill and asking people to book a meeting at our booth, I made the Sphere event the primary focus of the email. Email banner, subject line, everything.

Here are the results from our new and improved email:

• 10 Sphere event registrations

• 4 sales meetings

From there, SDR’s reached out to the Sphere event and dinner registrants and booked over 15 more sales meetings.

Marketing hit their goal for the event. The sales and SDR team went on a tear for the next two weeks and surpassed our goal of 30 meetings.

This is how you win by identifying and changing the proper levers.

I could have spent hours or days off in the weeds, trying to change things out of my control. But instead, I chose to identify the levers and fix them.

So next time you're faced with a problem that consists of many variables, stop and ask yourself, “what levers can I pull?

Then pull them really hard.