Giraffe Communications, LLC: Do You Own the Company AND Do the Marketing?

I am just curious about how many business owners/entrepreneuers are handling their own marketing inititives. Of those answering yes, how many have any formal experience and/or education in marketing?

It has been my experience that small businesses that are led by the "visionary" who insists on micro-managing marketing inititives and/or performing them him/herself end up behind the game instead of on top of it or even in it. Has anyone else noticed this trend? I think businesses owners that do not have significant marketing knowledge (and sometimes even when they do) should allow room for their designated employee/company to exercise their expertise - that's why they were hired!

Although I have been personally affected by this trend, the issue has a lot to do with wasting valuable time and even more valuable...money. If it is not your forte, you are liking wasting your time doing it poorly. Time that you are spending doing these things could be and should be better spent strategizing the direction of the company as well as planning for growth and expansion. Although it seems like overhead, you actually will save more time and money hiring a skilled employee or an outsource company to effectively and efficiently perform these tasks.

Two areas that business owners are known to attempt themselves are marketing and human resources. These may seem like incidental departments, but they are actually very crucial to the viability of a company.

For instance, I know a company that wasted approximatly 6-figures by trying to run "his/her" own pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) tasks. Let me clarify wasted. They did see a return and that certainly made them happy and therefore they didn't understand just how much they were loosing. When I referred them to www.buyequityads.com, the expert strategythat was implemented produced a 300% increase in businesses within 30-60 days. Had they just outsourced to someone that knows the platform inside and out in the first place, they would have produced much better results, much faster and been a lot further ahead in profits.

I also know a company who tried to get away with having a close family member do their HR task because "anybody can be a secretary." Let me just say, Human Resources is not rocket science, but it is certainly NOT a secretary. Needless to say, they were audited and received some pretty hefty penalties for several mismanaged items. There was also at least one (usually more) every pay period that had an incorrect paycheck. Once again, if you want to minimize overhead for HR, look into a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) like Premier HR that delivers a team of skilled HR pros for the price of one manager.

There are ways to minimize cost and get the top of the line talent. Most of time it can be found via a Google search, but you can always check back here too.

Your Thoughts are Welcome!

Amy

Comments

When starting up a new business, I would imagine trying to cut costs would be the first reason to do your own marketing. However, speaking as one who has formal education in marketing and advertising--nothing benefits a project more than having multiple sets of eyes---and certainly at least one set of eyes should be cold (not emotionally attached to the project.)

Love this blog idea, by the way!!

Posted by: julee | February 28, 2008 at 07:57 AM