With refreshed yearly budgets and objectives planned, now is a great time to establish new priorities and explore the possibility of thinking differently in your daily work. I recently read a Fast Company blog post that discusses the notion of embracing the importance of accurate “small stuff”. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to value attention to detail in some instances more than creativity, time or budget? In all honesty, attention to tasks at the granular level can make a difference in lowering overall costs and increase the thought process behind the reasoning for creative concepts. Time should be taken to exceed specific milestone expectations, even if they are the “small stuff”. After all, how often is a big budget mistake blamed on a deliverable that may have been thought to be an insignificant detail? Nothing should ever be considered “good enough” or “not noticeable”, no matter how small. Obviously attention to detail isn’t a new priority, but perhaps if it’s actually brought to the surface as a positive goal rather than as a negative burden, this trait will not be overlooked. Often great accomplishments are credited to the exceptional attention to the “small stuff”, especially in our focused B2B space.

The B2B marketing space is rapidly expanding their online resources and social media exposure, which only supports the importance of detail now more than ever. Here are a few tips to help you prioritize from a marketing point of view:

1. Value and review customer/sales/marketing insight before beginning a project
2. Do not stop cultivating and examining the insight after instituting large overarching objectives during busy times
3. Establish analytics to measure the success or failure of campaigns
4. Upon completion of a project explore the results, regroup with teams and make educated adjustments for future work

"Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected," Steve Jobs once famously said. This year take the time to not only push yourself to not compromise on perfection in the minutiae, but promote a changed team mindset as well. Do not allow compromise on anything that affects the established outcome goals. The “small stuff” is not contained to B2B marketing efforts, but also can and should be addressed in customer service or product quality details. Even if it delays the result, attempt to be an advocate for perfection.