’Twas the night before planning, and all through the place,
Not a marketer stirred, after Q4’s mad race.
The dashboards were hung on the monitors with care,
In hopes that some useful insight soon would appear.
The sales team was nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of qualified leads danced in their heads.
The CEO dreamed of explosive new growth,
With half of the budget, while somehow doing both.
And I with my forecast, my pipeline and plan,
Was trying to figure out where to begin.
We had seventeen priorities, all marked number one,
And somehow by March they all needed done.
When out in the hallway there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a sleigh full of strategy and eight marketeers.
Santa came in with a sack on his back.
He opened it up and began to unpack.
First came priorities, simple and clear,
The kind that might last more than twice in one year.
Not twelve strategic pillars competing for air,
But three that the company would share.
Then out came a budget connected to goals,
With money assigned to appropriate roles.
No magical thinking. No “figure it out.”
No enterprise growth on a lemonade-stall amount.
Next came ownership, clearly defined,
So projects stopped dying because no one had time.
Each program had someone responsible there,
Not “Marketing and Sales” floating off in thin air.
Then Santa grew quiet and reached in once more.
What he pulled from the sack nearly knocked me to the floor.
A CRM clean from beginning to end.
No duplicate contacts. No mystery trends.
No leads sitting untouched for half of the year.
I whispered, “It’s beautiful.”
Santa shed a tear.
Then much to my wonder, Sales and Marketing agreed
On what qualified as a lead.
No finger-pointing when pipeline ran thin.
They looked at the funnel and solved it as friends.
Finally, Santa pulled out a plan.
It wasn’t enormous. It fit in one hand.
Who are we targeting? Why should they care?
What will we do, and who owns their share?
Then suddenly somewhere a smartphone did ring.
The CEO had discovered a new shiny thing.
“AI! We need this! And TikTok as well!
Our competitor’s doing it. We cannot fall behind!”
Santa looked at the message.
Then looked back at me.
He sighed the long sigh of a CMO who’d seen
A perfectly reasonable strategy blown
By one executive scrolling LinkedIn on his phone.
“New ideas are fine. Priorities change.
But adding them all is a dangerous game.
Before you say yes to whatever comes next,
Ask what it replaces. Then look at the rest.”
He gathered his sack and walked toward the door,
Then turned back and offered one lesson more:
“There always is something you could choose to do.
Another campaign. Another idea that’s new.
But strategy means choosing. That’s part of the deal.
If everything matters, then nothing is real.”
Then up in his sleigh old Saint Nicholas flew,
Leaving three clear priorities and a clean CRM too.
But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight:
“Keep your priorities straight, and your pipeline bright!
