I had a strange experience recently …
A prospect wanted to hire me to write sales copy, but when I asked about his business, it made no sense.
He’d done some keyword research, found two B2B services that had high demand, and combined them into one website.
To respect his privacy, I won’t say which two services, but they seemed completely incongruous.
It’s like if I said, “I can write your sales copy … and I can also clean your office…”
You’d be
like, “What??”
So I suggested he do some market research, pick one – one where he could compete effectively – and focus on that.
Good advice, right?
Well, he wasn’t having it. He told me he wasn’t looking for advice, he was looking for copy.
I wished him well in his business and moved on.
So who was wrong?
Ryan Deiss – founder of Digital Marketer – and a number of other very successful sites – uses this analogy:
“Let’s say you have a headache and you go to the doctor. You wouldn’t walk into the room, grab a random fluid-filled syringe, and tell the doctor this is what you want.
And you definitely don’t want a doctor who agrees to give you the injection. Because that’s not a doctor, that’s a quack.
But that’s how so many businesses hire marketers.
The two advantages to hiring the right marketer
There are two advantages to hiring a marketer to help your business.
The first one is implementation. If he’s good, he should be able to get a better result than you’d get yourself. And, because of his experience, he should be able to do it sooner and, because he’s more efficient, cheaper.
All of those are good things. But there’s an even bigger advantage …
Because they’ve seen hundreds of businesses, they can use that experience to suggest strategies you haven’t even thought of.
Or … in this case, get you to reconsider a plan that has a very low percentage chance of success …
All the best,
Steve Gibson
