Everybody's Baby, Nobody's Child?
by Rene Pe Benito, Extreme Graphics

Okay, so you've decided that you want to put up a brochure! Your sales are up but your market share is still off the target. You want to drum up interest in an existing, yet overlooked benefit of your product or service to get that additional market share.

You meet your Marketing staff tell them to carry out your plan, printed and ready for distribution in three months. Everybody nods and so you went ahead on your planned business trip.

On your arrival a week later, you checked with Peter, your Marketing Manager to see how the brochure project is getting along. The copy is still being written and it's with Dave who've just started doing it a day before. You checked again after a week. The written copy is with John for technical review. After another week, the copy is with the Product Manager Sarah for her inputs who had to give it back to Peter for approval.

Then a week after, the copy landed in your desk. You approved and gave the copy to the designer.

After another week, the design and the copy were with Peter for one more week who made revisions to the copy and the layout, then to Dave with revisions, then to John and to Sarah all with their own comments and revisions. This time the design went to the Sales Manager Carey who came from a two months' round of the branches, for her comments.

The revised copy and some comments on the design were sent to the designer who made the required changes. It is now a month overdue.

By this time the writer is irritated due to mounting projects on his desk and the designer sent you revised charges for additional time spent.

Your concern now is the budget. It is also now more than a month past due the deadline. You rushed the job to the printer after you've decided not to allow any more revisions.

After receiving the proof, there were more revisions and more, and more. And the revision cycle happens again before it was finally printed. A depressing three months off the target date of distribution.

Sure, you want to make the brochure flawless. But as is often the case "the cure is worse than the malady". Everybody wanted to take turns baby sitting but no one was the parent. After all it was you who gave birth to the idea.

In your desire to make it a masterpiece, your brochure can end up in a gallery of the masters but fails to fulfill your objective of improving sales at the right time.

How do you trim the "red tape" and avoid chopping the message into tiny bits, some of which maybe off tangent? Assign only one person in charge. He will stay fixed on the project, control the time and revisions and integrate the whole. Not that the project does not merit other people's contribution but that they should not take their own sweet time.

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