Founders Don't Know Everything--They Just Think They Do
You may think you're really good at
marketing--and sales, and ops and HR. But smart bosses concentrate on what they
do best and outsource what someone else does better.
BY HOWARD
TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH
INVESTORS@TULLMAN
It’s probably a given that, in most startups and early-stage
businesses, the founding CEO - if he or she had the time, inclination, and
patience - could do any other team member’s job as well or better than they
could. Of course, no one has the time to mind everyone else’s business and no
CEO I know would have the patience or concentration that it takes to do many of
the tasks that are important parts of making any organization run. But plenty
of them would have the inclination because that comes with the territory.
Every CEO is a master - in their own mind - of sales, marketing,
advertising, design and just itching for the opportunity to show their stuff.
But that’s a bad bet and a waste of time and energy and, most
importantly, it’s demonstrably not the highest and best use of the boss’s time
even apart from the chaos it can cause, and how demoralizing it can be for the
other members of the team. It’s bad enough when other staffers try to “lend a helping hand” to their peers and make things
worse. But it’s a total debacle when bosses try to bigfoot
their way into the process, and no one really wants to tell them not to.
I’m sure that no specific area of any business is totally exempt
from this problem although I do think that most CEOs understand that they
aren’t great artists or graphic designers. But every one of them thinks that
they can write rings around anyone else when it comes to describing the
features, functions and economic benefits of their products and services. In
most cases, largely because they love the sound of their own words, they’re too
verbose, far too zealous, and not especially credible.
Even though it’s hard for them to imagine (and harder still to
convince them to believe it), creating concise and consistent content
marketing, as well as the strategy to get the “word” out to the right channels
is a complicated task. So complicated in fact that it should almost always be
left to outside experts who can be objective and who are willing to withstand
the slings and arrows from the C suite as they do their work. Losing a client
or a project is certainly scary for any contractor but losing your job because
you tell the boss the truth about something is a lot worse. As Samuel Goldwyn
used to say: “I want everyone to tell me the truth, even if it costs him his
job.”
The good news about using an outside firm - I call this a
“managed marketing solution” -- to help your team design, develop, deliver, and
measure the results from content marketing initiatives is that the proof is
absolutely in the pudding. There’s no fudging the facts; there’s no one
unwilling to tell the Emperor that his deeds are duds; and no one is stuck
beyond the basic engagement with non-performers. In addition, outside experts
focus on the full story and are less likely to fall in love with the fluff.
In fact, one of the biggest mistakes that young firms make is
spending the vast majority of their bucks on fancy booklets, brochures,
banners, and other pretty things to brag about - like a big expensive booth at
the annual industry conclave - and fail to focus on documenting and dissecting
the results of their marketing efforts. The entire analytical process - start
to finish - is essential to success. Am I reaching the right people? Is my
message getting thru to them? And, most importantly, are they
reacting/responding in the desired manner? Reach, resonance, and response.
Interestingly enough, these questions and concerns became even
more urgent during the last two years of the pandemic because firms that had
traditionally relied primarily or exclusively on offline marketing campaigns
discovered quite quickly that their traditional lead flow and new prospect
numbers fell off radically. They weren’t reaching their usual suspects and
prospects and their sales were suffering accordingly. They needed to move to
new online solutions, but they didn’t really have the in-house talent or
expertise to get the job done. This presented a typical and time-sensitive
“build or buy” dilemma.
A number of them turned to firms like Tempesta
Media, which had basically become a one-stop shop for
businesses that figured out that it makes a lot more sense for them to farm out
these new online marketing tasks to an experienced firm with all the latest
tools and technology so that: (a) they could pay more attention to running
their basic business; (b) they could keep their CEO from thinking that he’d
turned into Leo Burnett or David Ogilvy overnight and could do it all himself,
and (c) they could avoid wasting their people’s time and their company’s money trying
to learn to create effective content that they’d never do well and shouldn’t be
doing in the first place. Not everyone’s cut out to be Mad Men.
The results in a couple of cases that the company shared with me
were impressive. The managed content solutions which Tempesta developed were
not huge, not overly complicated, and not particularly expensive, but they were
very effective for the clients in a relatively short period of time and the
bottom-line numbers spoke for themselves.
One company used a performance-based, digital marketing program
that Tempesta developed --- after thoroughly analyzing the business and
confirming its primary needs and objectives -- to drive a 50% plus jump in
leads in the first 90 days along with huge gains in referrals and awareness
measures. In looking back at the initial phase of the project, what was clear
and what drove the immediate success wasn’t really any magical approach or
secret sauce (although Tempesta’s proprietary analytical tools are pretty
impressive); it was basically that the necessary work and the ultimate job got
done. There wasn’t a lot of conversation, disruption, false starts, diversions,
or disagreements - Tempesta took the bit, ran with it, and delivered the goods.
There are many other competent firms around which can help you
in better telling your story - although what struck me about Tempesta was how
fully integrated their system was with critical measurement and outside metrics
- but the real message isn’t who you choose, it’s why it’s important to do your
homework and find a good firm willing and able to help you in the process.
The moral of the story to me is that the old cliche about “if
you want something done right and quickly, give it to someone who’s busy” is
way off the mark. The truth is pretty much the exact opposite. If you don’t
have the time or talent in your firm to do what needs to be done, find someone
outside who’s good, quick, fairly priced, and results-oriented and let them run
with the ball.
I realize that marketing is a sensitive and strategic part of
any business and that it’s hard for owners and operators - who believe that
they absolutely know their businesses better than anyone else - to let go, but
in cases like this, it’s the smartest thing to do.
Do your due diligence, prepare, and deliver careful and clear
directions, delegate the supervision to someone other than yourself, and then
stand back and get out of the way so the experts can get to work. Knowledge is
being aware of what you can do; wisdom is knowing when not to do it.