Small Business People Need is a Strategist, Not a Marketer and That Person is You.

About five years ago, a partner and I were interviewing a tech guy for a position in our business intelligence software firm.  The prospect was pretty low key, and was not really very personable. At the fifteen minute point, he asked, “So, what role do you see me playing in the company?” I glanced to my partner, who allowed me to take the lead.  Scooting up in my chair, I peered into his eyes.  “Jim,” I said, “I think you would be a good fit dressed as a giant taco, twirling an arrow on Lincoln Blvd.”

Jim’s mouth dropped open as silence saturated the walls.  Then, my partner couldn’t hold it back any longer and burst into laughter.  The prospect had no sense of humor, we certainly couldn’t work together. We couldn’t afford a marketer, but  we needed our employees to fill  that gap with some positive communication skills.

Ivana Taylor touches on communication from a quantitative, as opposed to a qualitative point of view in 6 Reasons You Don’t Need a Full Time Marketing Person in AMEX’s Open Forum .  She pushes the concept of hiring an outside marketing person, (obviously promoting her skill set).

However, resist chastising her for self-promotion, and try to pull some pearls of wisdom from the article.

You see, I agree with her, but only to a point.  Frankly, there are so many resources on the web, that you can (as a small business owner on a budget) do your own marketing.  You don’t need an inside or outside marketer, you just need to hire an outside consultant to teach you for a limited time.

This consultant should be well-versed in SEO and social networking.  Once you understand these concepts, you should adjust your web page to leverage them.  Such things as blog articles and news releases are just two of the tools that should mastered.

But every one is doing that, right?  No.  The field is wide open.  Your marketing strategy should be to bring prospects to you.  How are you doing that now?  Word of mouth?  Well, you better hope people are doing a lot  of yacking.

This is not to say that you can carry it alone.  There will be a day where you will grow so fast, and so big, that you may have to re-evaluate whether to bring in your outside web marketer back in.  In fact, an annual meeting would be a nice “tune-up” once you bring your marketing plan.

In any event, as a small business owner, your strategy must always evolve with tactics that can be measured by some sort of metrics.  Don’t throw money at your SEO/ SE education without determining what you want to accomplish.  Then build the tactics to get there.