What You Should Look for in Your Marketing Consultant (…or really any consultant)
So you’re business is finally taking off now. You’re really starting to see the fruits of your labor. Everything’s going great!
Except you could use more clients, more customers…and you’re having trouble getting people interested in your business.
You’ve already realized that you might need some marketing and branding help.
And that’s fine! It’s always a good thing to outsource a skill that you don’t have. And its much more time efficient than learning it from scratch yourself.
However. Now that you’re business is taking off you’re getting scammy marketing consultants, SEO consultants, PPC consultants, you name it, sending you random unsolicited emails and cold calls trying to get you to fork over your hard earned cash so they can tell YOU how to run your business.
Now doesn’t that just sound infuriating as hell? Some random person across the internet telling you how to run your own business?
Now, don’t get me wrong, those random cold calls and emails can get annoying. But you’re still stuck with the original problems of not having enough clients or customers. Or maybe you’re spending too much money to acquire new customers.
So how do you know that you’ve found the right marketing consultant or SEO consultant or PPC consultant?
Well, I’m glad you asked because I’ll show you exactly what you need to look for.
Requirement #1
Requirement #1 is that you trust the consultant. Changing the branding, the message, the public face of your company is a very personal matter to you. After all, this business is your baby.
So it is a top priority that when you get this consultant on the phone that you need to have a good vibe. A good gut-feeling. Because if you don’t trust this person then after you hire them you’re just going to fight them tooth-and-nail on every change they suggest you make.
And that isn’t going to help anyone at all. They could be the best damn consultant or marketer in the world but if you don’t believe what they’re saying then they’re help is gonna get you nowhere fast.
Requirement #2
Requirement #2 is that your consultant has a love of learning and a love of testing. Marketing is not an exact science. It’s not like hiring an accountant where you know that they’re dealing with solid numbers and there’s almost no room for interpreteation.
No, marketing is all about testing. You test your branding, you test your web copy and your advertising copy and your email copy. You test to see what resonates with your market and to see what message gets people to BUY.
This isn’t to say that you should change your company to the ever-changing whims of the public (because sometimes the public doesn’t know what they want) but you DO need to craft your message in such a way that gets them interested, and excited, in your business and the solutions you offer.
What’s more, this isn’t to say that your marketing consultant shouldn’t get you results at all. Far from it! But you need to realize that marketing is a field of learning.
If a consultant doesn’t love to learn new things about marketing then he isn’t going to have the drive to find new corners of hte market or new techniques which will bring more customers in.
Also, he might be a stubborn ass and never change his marketing style or message even though it clearly isn’t getting any results.
To be sure, marketing is all about testing. However, what that means is that after testing the message the consultant should be able to get you results.
And that brings us to our next requirement.
Requirement #3
Requirement #3 is that your consultant be ruthlessly results-oriented. I know you’ve seen the ones out there who tell you stories about how all the marketing dollars you’re spending will “eventually” pay off. But they can’t show you any results at that moment in time.
That is pure bullshit.
Don’t get me wrong here, marketing changes don’t just happen overnight. Like I said before, they require time to work and be effective.
However, with the proper metrics and analytics setup, you should be able to see results. How soon will you see results? it depends on your market, what you’re selling and how good your marketing consultant is.
But to be sure, you’re consultant should be able to provide you direct proof that his work is making you more sales and more profit and more views on your website or more clicks on your advertisements.
If he cant, then dump him ASAP. Stop throwing away good money after bad.
Requirement #4
Location, location, location, as the real estate agents would say.
I highly suggest that you find a consultant or freelancer that lives near you. It will be easier for you to build a good working relationship and to fullfill requirement #1 (trust) because you get to see this man in person and get a feel for how he does his work.
For example, I like to specialize in the Denver Metro area. Denver is a booming city with tons of new businesses popping up seemingly overnight (much like Silicon Valley) and with that comes tons of skillfull and successful consultants and freelancers ready to help skyrocket your business to success.
Now, I’m sure this is not an exhaustive list. But it’s early morning on a Saturday as I write this and I have other work to get to. At this point in time these are the 3 biggest requirements that I can think of.
So if you are in need of a marketing consultant who can bring you in more clients and more customers then go ahead and click here to fill out the Marketing Strategy Request form because I’d be happy to show you how I meet all of these requirements.
Best regards,
Zach Perrego
