If you’ve done your due diligence as a marketing planner, you’ve no doubt uncovered a lot of minutiae-level work that must be done to effectively deliver. Whether it be resources to: conduct research; consolidate and chart data; actively manage a blog or other content; investigate a new idea; customize the CRM; version content across different audiences, personas or delivery channels; draft process flows or procedures; or support the sales force in getting people to an event.

Bottom line — the devil is in the details and once a plan begins to take shape, you may realize you need more resources than you anticipated.

If that’s the case, sometimes it’s just a matter of thinking proactively about the reality of the workload and outside the box about who could actually help. For example:

• Many admins or young workers are highly skilled in a plethora of tools/programs and can lend a hand to help do things like: a) aggregate, mine and organize data; b) create charts or slide presentations for company meetings and webinars; c) aggregate and organize social media or CRM data; d) conduct keyword and online competitive research; or e) help the sales team get ready for a trade show.
• Interns or temps could be brought in to: a) create reports & dashboards and customize the CRM; b) draft the company’s communication policies and content calendar for blog posts and social media; c) research and organize data for a white paper or blog post; or d) develop a detailed project plan to help the team stay organized.
• Maybe someone in another department wants exposure to the “world of marketing” and has the skills for some of the critical tasks. Maybe employees in other functional areas can offer subject matter expertise to help develop content, manage blog comments or replies in online forums, or research relevant articles to tweet and post.  And remember, what many don’t know they can learn or figure out – it’s just a matter of putting the task in front of them.

The point is: Think through the work that must be done and make sure you assess and address how it will actually go down. This type of leadership can help ensure completion of critical deliverables, and possibly open up opportunities for other employees whose talents align with various tasks.