Take a bow. Not just for sticking with me through my previous two blogs, ‘Good systems make business sense’ and 'I love it when a plan comes together' but for looking at ways to establish or improve good systems and processes within your organization. If you’ve come this far, you deserve a medal. However, the journey isn't over just yet. As you move further along the process and see what progress you’ve made, it’s easy to think that the job is done, but please don’t give up!

Whilst reminiscing over my beloved 1980’s memories – did Indiana Jones ever give up on his quest to find the Holy Grail whilst dodging bullets or did He-Man throw in the towel when it got too tough defending Eternia from Skeletor? The answer is no and it is no different or less monumental to what you are doing right now.

When I was growing up, one of my favourite TV shows was The A-Team. Each week, the group of mercenaries would get into a crazy situation but Hannibal, the leader, always formulated a brilliant escape plan. It helped that he had Mr. T’s mechanical skills, Face’s charm and Murdock's pilot skills but the important thing for us all to remember, is that like MacGyver (who came much later), he analysed the situation and put together a solution based on the resources he had.

But what happens after you formulate the plan? In my first blog, ‘Good systems make business sense’, I explored how to establish a successful lead management process. In this installment, I want to focus on the implementation of the system itself. How do you ensure that it works, is it accepted and is it progressing in the right direction? The next bit is the hard bit, implementing your best laid plans to ensure success.

Systems and processes — we all know we need them. Every marketing textbook, industry expert, blogger, university lecturer, just about anyone you can think of in the marketing world, will tell you they are essential. They tie everything together, allowing marketing teams to measure activity and increase efficiency. Reading this blog you are probably thinking, yes we have them and yes we have a system in place that works.

However, have you ever wanted more? Is it easy to measure what you do and the contribution that you and your team make to the bottom line? Do you want to align more closely with sales to fully realize activity contribution to the pipeline? And have you ever wanted to re-jig your processes or even formalize the one you already have to make it better, faster and more robust?

If so, this blog is for you.

This is the next in a series of guest blog posts by IntraLinks’ collaborators, partners, and vendors. David Meerman Scott's book The New Rules of Marketing & PR opened people's eyes to the new realities of marketing and public relations on the Web. Six months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list and published in 26 languages from Bulgarian to Vietnamese, New Rules is now a modern business classic. Scott's popular blog and hundreds of speaking engagements around the world give him a singular perspective on how businesses are implementing new strategies to reach buyers. His new book, Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now, will be published on November 1, 2010. Download a free chapter here.

I'm thrilled to contribute this post to the IntraLinks community. Like me, IntraLinks straddles the real-time sales and marketing fields in the financial markets. When I first got out of school, I worked on a Wall Street bond trading desk and then moved into the real-time financial information business. While I spent most of my career in B2B marketing, for four years I was in B2B sales. So I've seen both sides.

In my February 2010 blog on leadership, I spoke about creating direction, a true north, for the people you lead. This is the first rule of leadership.

The second rule of leadership is to be the emotional guide for the journey. As the emotional guide, the leader helps followers process and emotionally handle what happens on the journey. It is being empathetic at the same time portraying a perspective that assists the followers into moving forward positively.