Running a business, the most hated question I had from any marketing company was "What's your budget". Often these were one of the first words they ever said to me when they learned that my business was just starting, which for me was like being washed down with a bucket of dirty water, putting out any possible flame of engagement, and tainting the relationship immediately. Focused on what’s in it for them, the naïve business owner has no clue whatsoever in how to answer that question. To them, it’s like saying how much money have you got to the marketing company to gamble with, and potentially lose, with not even a hint of taking any ownership or responsibility for success from the marketing company. Put onto the back foot as somehow being financially accountable to this company, often implying to have the success of my company in their hands alone, I looked or life's certainties, and soon realised that most of marketing is far simpler, and much of what was being talked about to me was little more than smoke and mirrors. It also became clear to me that marketing appears to be the only business, other than perhaps a casino or other gambling establishment, where the expectation by marketing companies to be given potentially large sums of money is matched without the promise of any return. The challenge for any small business is to be known, and to create desire for their products. It is true that the 'art' of being seen is called marketing, yet I could not believe that there was not a 'science' too in how to turn a marketing investment into a tangible return.   So What Really is Marketing: Marketing is a combination of a wide variety of skills, consolidated into a selected range of effective strategies, implemented using a wide variety of technologies. It became clear that much of this can be done as a ‘formula’. What started as an investigation, soon evolved, creating a formula for short, medium and long term exposure and growth, for any company with a valued product or service, with the basis for tangible results.   Everyone Does Marketing: It's true. You can't go to a single networking event without a fair number of the attendees being 'in marketing'. With so many to choose from, how is a small business supposed to know the good ones? Do they pick on the most expensive, and hope that cost is a reflection of quality? Do they choose the cheapest one, hoping to reduce the marketing spend? Do they focus on someone who appears to understand their product, and maybe has past experience of something similar? What about selecting a business simply because you like the person. With my own long consulting track record, it is clear that anyone can brand themselves as expensive with no correlation whatsoever to their quality or results. The cheapest one could be a reflection of their level of desperation, which could mean eagerness to please and do a great job, or it could be a reflection of their lack of experience. Someone with past experience is unlikely to tell the full story of at what point they engaged with that company, and how successful it already was at that time, with a success years ago not necessarily having any connection to the probability of success today. Reputation seemed like a good reference point, yet it also occurred to me that any testimonials are going to be from companies who have attributed some of their success to the work of that marketing business. They may be friends. They may have taken over from one of the many 'bad' marketing companies that yielded no results and came it at the right time. They may have been a lucky 'right time-right place' situation. There had to be a better way to tell. It occurred to me that the answer of what was the best indicator to select was based on probability of success. But how could this be reasonably attained. 

You are busy, and it's all too easy to make the big mistake of choosing a person from convenience, without them being the right person for the job. I know. I did it. Carried away by enthusiasm and potential, we can see what someone might be capable of, but not what they necessarily what they are able to. Sometimes, we may be at fault for trying to do the impossible, by not having the right pieces in place, but this is irrelevant if we still have the wrong person. What is this article about? Firstly, and most importantly, this post is about recognising which companies to reject, and is categorically not about recommending any marketing company. There are so many considerations when choosing anyone to work with your business, and perhaps the most easy to make a mistake with, is in choosing who will have the huge responsibility to define how, where, and when to market your products and services, often making the differene between success and failure of an organisation.   Marketing Companies are mostly a reflection of their success to date Many marketing companies tend to be very good at marketing themselves face to face, with a lot of experience refining their pitch, with lots of competitors to learn tricks from, but their expertise may not extend well at market anyone elses industry. Sometimes the best marketeers may not spend any effort on marketing themselves, as their reputation may keep them so busy that creating a self-presence is far from priority. Reputation and proven experience is often the only confident way to judge capability, and it goes far above and beyond simply which brands they have interacted with.   What is Marketing The term marketing has gained an increasingly broader meaning. It is now used for anything related to promotion. Historically, it referred to a way to get a product in the mind of consumers, through various ways to expose a product, but now it means so much more. Blanket-wide advertising used to be affordable. Now, businesses have to carefully choose their battles. Marketing covers identifying a niche where the product can demonstrate a clear unwavering benefit. It covers capturing feedback from the niche audience to refine the product, and creating engagement. It covers getting a product correctly designed and packaged to attract the right audience, and perhaps most importantly, it covers how to get the product to be noticed by those of us not looking to change or habits, or not expecting to find an answer to a question we haven't even asked ourselves. It means painting a picture to the buyer for how it can help make some remarkable difference to that person, worthy of the person parting with money, and perhaps time, in order to jump onboard your customer train. As marketing needs grew, so did the number of people within marketing. Sadly, for businesses, this hasn't really been a good thing.