How do you look for marketing consultants? Everybody knows that the best way to get business is through personal contacts. Isn’t that why you joined the local chamber of commerce, go to networking events, have a profile on LinkedIn, and play golf at the country club? Business is hard, and building close personal relationships is the best way to find clients. Once they get to know you they’ll start to trust you, once they trust you, they’ll give you lots of money (hey, it worked for Bernard Madoff)
But what always makes me laugh is when I hear of marketing consultants that look for clients through referrals. Logic would dictate that if you’re good at what you do, you wouldn’t need to look for clients… they would come to you. This is even more apparent when you consider internet marketing and website marketing consulting companies. As easy as it is to blog, set up PPC ads, write in industry journals, create authoritative sites, distribute free widgets, answer discussion forum questions, upload YouTube videos, build email lists, and send Tweets, you’d think marketing pro’s would never need to hire outbound sales people or ask for referrals. Let me be clear, if they get business because their clients rave about how good they are to their peers, this is FANTASTIC. There’s nothing wrong with a marketing company asking for referrals per se, but if they get most of their business that way, I’d be a little skeptical. When a marketing consultant actively asks for referrals, and relies on new business using sales people, cold calls, asking for referrals, I wonder why they don’t just market themselves with the same tactics they advocate to their clients. Think about it, if I want to get clients for my marketing company, I could cold call petstore owners and dazzle them with words like SEO, PPC, and internet marketing. Or, I could brand myself as a pet store marketing authority and have pet store owners find me naturally. I want to do a blend of both, but I’d lean towards the latter. Here’s why…
Wil Schroter wrote a post last year called “If You’re So Smart…” where he said:
Recently I sat down with a financial manager who wanted to pitch me on using his firm to manage my finances. He gave me a laundry list of reasons why his firm should be the group that makes the key financial decisions for my money. I waited quietly for his pitch to finish so that I could ask the one question I’ve never gotten a good answer to.
I simply asked him “If you’re so smart with capital, why would you have time to manage mine?”
Or read this story from Perry Marshall (get on his email list, they are the most inspirational, insightful, and thought provoking business articles I’ve ever read) where he talks about an experience with an accountant:
So let’s understand how I got a bad accountant and a bad financial planner: I originally got referrals from people who were mediocre at best. NON experts. I am not a finance expert by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever; things like accounting and taxes bore me to tears. Thus I have limited ability to judge such people.
The point is this:
If you do not have expertise in something it is extremely hard to identify an expert. You can easily be taken in by someone who talks a great game but really doesn’t know what he’s doing.It’s true in finance and it’s DOUBLY true in marketing.
You can outsource financial stuff – maybe even most of it. (So long as you don’t ABDICATE responsibility to the pencil pushers – you have to sleep with one eye open. And you never EVER let anyone else sign the checks.)
I do not believe you can outsource marketing. You can only outsource pieces of it.
On Friday one of my close colleagues told me he spent 15 years trying to avoid this reality. Wasn’t interested in marketing, wasn’t his strong suit, didn’t really understand it. Got his but kicked time after time after time until he got the lesson.
He finally accepted this and now he’s not getting his butt kicked anymore.
You CANNOT hire someone else to be the face and voice of your business. Only you can do that.
You can’t hire someone else to understand your customers. Only you can do that.
Amen Perry.
Yes, we are marketing consultants, and yes, we practice what we preach. Paradoxically, we also realize that it is sometimes more profitable to pursue our own projects instead of taking on client projects. That’s exactly why we’re so picky with who we choose to do business with.
If you’re looking for a web marketing consultant, you need to understand the #1 rule of website marketing, your customers, and your competitors. They’ll help you with the tactics (viral marketing campaigns, SEO, etc.) and shake out your marketing strategy, but YOU have to be the one that finds them first.
I mean, what’s the point of hiring a marketer if they can’t market themselves?
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Topics: marketing consultant, marketing consultants, online marketing, web marketing, website marketing