You’re a busy business owner, you’re up to your ears in scheduling, bookkeeping, and managing people. Do you really have to handle every aspect of marketing, too? Here’s the blunt truth: No one you hire will ever care as much about your business as you do. Period. You can’t clone yourself, but you can put your time and energy where it counts. Here’s why, and how, to delegate your marketing:
Yes, You Do Have to Take the Lead in Marketing
- It’s your company. You care the most about it.
- You know it best.
- You are the most motivated to sell.
- You got into your business because you are good at marketing and selling your offering.
- Customers want to connect with you, the owner.
No, You Don’t Have to Be a Marketing Martyr
- It gets to the point where it’s too much for you to handle—plus do customer work.
- Doing all the marketing tasks is not the best use of your time.
- You may not be the best sales person in your company.
- Parts of the marketing are easy to hand off to others.
- You don’t have the expertise to handle all the parts.
There Are Some Things Only You Can Do:
- Set the mission, vision, strategies, goals
- Build strategic relationships.
- Choose good people to help you market and sell.
- Make sure they do what you want.
- Approve your marketing and promotions.
- Insist on results, not just effort.
- Tweak your direction and offering; develop new things.
You Should Never Do Things That . . .
- You are not good at. You can find better people to do them
- You can easily hire and delegate to other people.
- Get in the way of you doing what brings the greatest value to your company
Do this . . .
- Make a list of the Marketing tasks you’re good at, and that bring the most value.
- Then make a list of the tasks you’re eager to get off your plate.
- As you hire people – contractors and in-house, be clear about the tasks you want them to take over, and what you will continue to do.
Your Marketing Job
- Define your pathway—your overall strategy to reach your vision.
- Build your marketing team of skilled people who can help you execute your strategy.
- Orchestrate your team; oversee team performance.
- Review results, tweak, refine, and change direction when needed.
As the owner, it’s up to you to set the overall vision and define what success looks like. From there on, empower people to make it happen.
Does All This Pertain to a One-Person Business?
As a solopreneur, unless work just falls into your lap, you have to spend a good portion of your time drumming up new business. Plus doing the work. Plus all the admin stuff. How many hours a day do you want to work? (Clue: the max is 24!)
If you have a viable business, you soon discover that it’s worthwhile to hand off pieces to others: website design and maintenance, social media, copywriting, maintaining your marketing database. You notice that you depend on all these others, even though they aren’t your employees. You’re no longer a one-person business.
The option is to stay tiny and run yourself ragged.
