The famous one page memo at P & G
I used to have classmates and friends who worked before with P & G who were trained hard on these one page memo. The classmate happened to be brand assistants, the core of brilliant hard working marketers who plan the launch, revival, or turn around of brands. They are also called category assistants/officers/managers now. The discipline is still the same the channels have changed into variouus platforms.
In that one page, the assistant will summarize the situation - market, competition, the brand SW,
and recommend action to the President regarding the brand with summary of PNL, new sales, new %, and budget to carry out the task. How could these fit into one page.
That is the way it should be. Business deals are closed on napkin or paper placemats of resto or fast food, and they are closed on a handshake.
If it is too long and complicated, it cant be done. You should be able to explain what to do to your kid. If they cant get it, it cant be done. Simplify, simplify. That is the task of a manager, knowledge worker.
This post believe in one page memos
This post remembers an ex P n G, the last time I heard he is the head of a household cleaning products, who riled vs the one page memo and he was on the nth draft (he graduated with Latin honors and cant be poor in his grammar) and was ready to resign. It was lucky that his nth draft got accepted. Perhaps the rewrites gave him a diP n G one page memoscipline to think clearly.
I remember doing financial analysis on several pages of worksheet (and this was before excel) just to get a one page finance recommendation., deep into the night. This enabled me to cut through financial mumbo jumbo.
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