I wanted to post this article on my site here straight from Susan’s site at Beyond the Chaos. Susan wrote an article about the value I provide to my clients with the Marketing Consulting services we offer here at Shine Consulting. I enjoyed the way she positioned the message, about me, in her own voice. As Strategic Partners, Susan and I meet monthly to collaborate, brainstorm and educate. We both share a passion for learning and we enjoy opportunities to continue to discover synergy. I decided to keep all of Susan’s words, and her ‘voice’, intact here because I think she did a terrific job of describing, with simplicity, what value these services add.

The Benefits of Marketing Consulting

As a small business owner, you are usually tackling sales and marketing with a vengeance. Often, you want to hire someone to take over that role, but did you know they require very different skills? It is rare the same employee can effectively do both. The skill sets just aren’t the same.

Inc. wrote an article on the qualities to look for in salespeople. They are hunters, with discipline. Salespeople are confident, charming, intelligent, and resilient. They have amazing people skills and usually aren’t all that organized or structured. They go hunt for new business, chase leads, and love, love, love to close a deal.

Marketing professionals, on the other hand, get the leads to the salespeople. Marketing consists of advertising, public relations, social media, relationship marketing, brand marketing, viral marketing and direct mail. All of those areas need to be developed with strategies.

Marketing Consulting Can Improve Your Productivity

Considering that Marketing Directors make an average of $150,000 a year, and Social Media Managers make an average of $45,000. And a salesperson makes salary plus commission, how on earth can you afford that?

I recommend that you hire people with the right knowledge and skill set to handle a particular task. But, it can get very expensive. Even though they can do it faster and better than you can on your own, it still can be cost prohibitive, especially for a growing company.

We can put together a great operational process for your business, but if you don’t have the right skill sets to execute against it, no amount of structure and project management can solve it.

Consultants, like yours truly, can help you get the benefits of these people with special skill sets and talents at a much lower cost than a direct hire. Now, I don’t know the ins and outs of sales and marketing like I do operations and process, but Marketing Consulting Expert Crystal Smith of Shine Consulting does.

Here’s what she suggests:

• First, consider less experienced hires and provide training to increase their productivity to boost your ROI. While you still might not be able to turn a salesman into a Marketing Director, you can get the benefits of a Marketing Director. If you hire a lower level marketing coordinator, you can spend an average of $5,000 a year on marketing consulting and training services. Customized training for social media is around $2,500.
• Second, by ensuring your website has content directed to your target market, you are 13X more likely to achieve a positive ROI (as reported by Forbes & Entrepreneur, among others).
• And, lastly, branding and rebranding have an average minimum cost of $10,000 for small business. Consider working with a branding consultant to get more bang for your buck and strategize your branding in ‘stages’ to accommodate your budget.

Stop trying to do it all yourself. Hiring a Marketing Consulting expert can help you shine. Meanwhile, you can work on something that requires more of your expertise and attention.

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Thank you, Susan, for writing an article on my services!

Susan helps companies gain control of their businesses through process development, organization, and structure of their business operations & projects. From developing processes to coaching project managers. From setting up work-from-home environments to eliminating paper. No matter where your needs lie for organizational success, she can help. You will feel less overwhelmed, be more effective, and see better productivity at the end of the day. All thanks to Susan!

Susan Fennema is the Chief Eradication Officer of Beyond the Chaos.