Small business owners want to know how to hire the right marketing people, but where to start?
A real conversation I’ve had with many business owners:
Them: “How can I teach myself technical SEO / Facebook ads/ brand positioning? What’s the best place to find how to set up email automations?
Me: 
While learning for its own sake is never a bad thing, owners should focus on the minimum that they need to understand for their business:
- What is required in a basic marketing strategy?
- How to think about and approach marketing overall?
Then, you can hire the right experts who can apply their knowledge of the intricacies of marketing faster (and better) than you ever will.
Hiring Information Overload
Post-Marketing Stress Disorder
Small business owners wear 10,000 hats, all at the same time. They need to be an entire C-suite of executives, as well as an HR team: do long-term planning while managing short-term fire; manage facilities and inventory; all while still serving the customer.
On top of that, there’s an entire layer of managing pitches from (I’ll say it) predatory “experts” and “gurus” online, who swear that if you follow their secret formula, the riches will roll in.
And there’s contracting with agencies that promise the moon, then slowly start neglecting their clients as they focus on winning new business.
And there’s simply the everyday wear and tear of feeling like they’ve tried everything – from one-off tactics like boosted posts on Facebook or spending money on Google AdWords to months of beating the movement and networking around time – with nothing really driving toward an overall strategy or goal.
There’s a nagging, underlying feeling that what they’re doing and who they’re doing it with isn’t quite right – but they don’t know how to truly evaluate that.
Learn the Basics
A small business owner teaching themselves to do everything is like expecting the chef at a restaurant to make the perfect duck confit and also be able to repair the dishwasher and delivery pizzas.
People develop specialized knowledge for a reason – so we can all share our knowledge and rely on each other.
So what does a small business owner need to know when it comes to hiring the right marketing people with the right specialized knowledge?
My typical recommendation to business owners is get a basic enough understanding so that they know how to manage someone who actually knows what they’re doing.
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Think about it. What is your time worth vs. how long it takes to become even passably good at digital marketing?
No, really…what is your time worth?
There’s no need to learn all the intricacies – start with knowing what channels you want to be present on and why (with specific goals in mind), and that’s enough to use an expert when the time is right.
After asking a small group what content they wanted to learn about, I then created and gave a series of 4 workshops about:
- Marketing Strategy
- Social Media – Paid & Organic
- SEO & Content Marketing
- Website Copy & Conversion Optimization
Now, You’re Ready to Hire the Right Marketing People
Right? Although my advice is simple, understanding the foundations and concepts behind what drives good marketing is one thing- learning what it looks like in practice is something else altogether!
Still have questions? That’s okay. My team and I are here to help. Let’s talk today.
© 2021 Arnold Marketing Consultants
