#69: How to Make a Marketing Hire in Your 6+7 Figure Business
For so many of you, hiring in the marketing and sales function of your company is so painful.
And you've probably been wondering, why is this so difficult? Why do I have such a hard time finding the right person to be able to fill this spot? I just need somebody who's going to take it over and make it happen and bring in the revenue. Why can't I just find that person?
I hear that a lot. And in this podcast episode, I want to share how I have approached this same challenge with my own company while scaling The Advance Women's Expert Network, as well as how I advise my clients who are exclusively seven figure business owners on how to make that necessary marketing hire in their business.
Interested in working with me? Check out my website here: https://laurameyer.consulting.
Check out my free training on www.yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
For so many of you hiring in the marketing and sales function of your company is so, so painful. And you've been probably wondering like, why is this so difficult? Why do I have such a hard time finding the right person to be able to fill this spot? And I just need somebody who's going to take it over and make it happen and bring in the revenue when I need it to be brought in and know how to do it. And why can't I just find that person? And I hear that a lot. And in this podcast episode, I want to share how I have approached this same challenge with my own company while scaling The Advance Expert Women's Network, as well as how I advise my clients who are exclusively seven figure business owners on how to make a marketing hire and your six or seven figure business, stay tuned.
(00:45):
So many entrepreneurs, dream of living a life of massive impact by creating a mega successful company, but only a tiny percentage of businesses actually scale to that point. And when they do it is so often lacking the very joy and freedom that got them into entrepreneurship in the first place. So on this podcast, we speak authentically on what it actually takes to scale your business in a way that creates freedom and joy that works for you, your team, and the incredible impact that you are meant to make in the world as a visionary entrepreneur. My name is Laura Meyer and I'm your host. I'm a serial entrepreneur wife, mom, to three. And I love talking all things business, especially digging into what it actually takes to scale joyfully to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond let's get started.
(01:35):
Once you've gotten to that seven figure mark or high six figures, even mid six figures, you've really accomplished so much that you should be incredibly proud of. You figured out a product market fit for your offer. You've determined the right message, the right mechanism, and at least have one offer. If not two, that's working really, really well. Chances are you still might have some offers and some products and services that you're hanging on to that isn't working as well. And a lot of what it's going to take for you to scale from six to seven and seven to eight figures has to do with systemizing, your revenue, eliminating what isn't working and putting team members into place that you can trust to implement the systems that you've established. Even if those systems just live in your brain at this point, you're also where you are because you're very, very good at what you do. You are an expert, this is a huge component of your business.
(02:26):
You're not necessarily a marketer, or even if you have a marketing background or you're an expert marketer, it may not be on the strategy side of things. It may not be on the big picture side of things. You might be really incredible at creating a massive social media following or growing your email list, or it's possible that you're awesome at running a certain type of funnel, but it's not necessarily that you know how to create a big picture, comprehensive plan about what to do next. And a lot of seven figure entrepreneurs who I work exclusively with sometimes feel this shame around it, especially really women like you. And I want to share why you shouldn't feel any shame and of all, and why, what you're going through is totally and absolutely normal. This is also why hiring what I call a marketing unicorn at the stage is often tempting, but a futile effort.
(03:16):
So when it comes to actually hiring on the marketing and sales side of things for your seven, eight figure business, even six figure business, a lot of people automatically think I need somebody who's just going to tell me what to do. I need a chief marketing officer or a high level marketing director, or a vice president of marketing and sales. And I need this person to come in, who's going to know more than I do about marketing and sales and about revenue generation and tell me what I need to do next. And I actually think this is a huge mistake. And the reason why I think this is a huge mistake as ultimately, I think that deep down, you do know, you know, what feels aligned, what doesn't feel aligned when you're not looking at what everyone else is doing and getting distracted by that in your knower as my client, Jennifer Allwood likes to say deep down in your knower, you know, so what you really need is somebody that you can respect as a strategic advisor and really as a peer to challenge your thinking and help you see things from a new perspective.
(04:17):
And here's the kicker. This is not the job of an employee. An employee's job is to follow your process on what you've established as the right direction. An employee's job is also to help you brainstorm solutions to a well framed problem, not to add structure to an obscure growth goal, or provide strategic oversight on what it is that is your big picture vision for your company. If you hire someone to tell you what to do in your business, it often backfires. And not only that, but if you try to hire somebody that's too senior and has enough experience and expertise, to be able to determine what that big picture plan should be, they're not going to want to roll up their sleeves and do the dirty work. And this is understandable because they've earned a place in their career where they've established enough credibility, and they've worked hard enough to get to a place where they're probably a little out of touch on how all the apps and zaps and landing page connections work.
(05:19):
And I fit in that category. I have no idea how that stuff works, but my team does. And these people aren't setting up tracking sheets for ads, personally, messaging leads who are new to your Facebook group or scripting Instagram stories. They're used to overseeing those people. And then what happens is that you're just paying a six figure salary or multi six figure salary to hire someone, to hire somebody, right? And that's why it backfires. So what's an expert to do? So when you get to that seven figure, mark, you know that you're missing that marketing talent, and you're not sure where to start. Here are some key tips. The first is that you need a strategic advisor, whether it's a mastermind or a coach, and you need somebody who's going to challenge you and help you think differently. And again, whether you're in a mastermind or working with somebody like me, who's an experienced marketing and sales consultant, or you hire a consultant for a VIP day to help with that strategy.
(06:14):
These are all great options, but I would encourage you not to do is expect the person who's going to do all the marketing things and provide big picture oversight to be in the same human. And if you want to try to go about this, you may find yourself very discouraged. And not only that, but you've set that marketing hire up for failure because it is not a realistic expectation of somebody who is a doer. So what I find best is to have two primary leaders in a company when scaling from seven to eight figures, the first hire is, and they're both doers. The first is somebody who is a project manager with a marketing background. I cannot emphasize this enough. You are looking for somebody with project management experience, with a marketing background. Somebody who loves digital marketing has tinkered around with it. Maybe they have an awesome following on their personal Instagram, just because they love social media or they have a personal blog.
(07:08):
So it's not completely out of the realm of understanding when you start teaching them about digital marketing and the online space that jargon, they learn really fast and they get it quick. And they're also still learning. They're open to having new ideas and they like their ideas, but they're also well aware of what they don't know and the opportunity to grow and an incredible organization like yours is very motivating. And they can learn a lot in a short period of time with the right person lean on their past marketing experience. Maybe if it was in the offline space or it was an online or digital, but not necessarily in the world that we live in, the digital online marketing space. And then they can be trusted to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks as an owner, that is what you need from your marketing hire more than anything you need to know that social media posts are going up regularly, that the inbox is being responded to in a reasonable timeframe.
(08:04):
And that when you go to launch all the pieces are in place. They're being well managed and nothing major is going wrong. You need to know that your vendors are being overseen well, ads are performing according to your benchmarks. And if they are not either know what to do about it, or they're flagging for help, your marketing hire should give you peace of mind. They manage all the platforms, social selling challenges, launch management, messaging, reviewing copy, and holding down the fort with vendors, ads, organic web, and any other people in the mix. You need this type of help more than you need somebody with another big picture idea, or to plan out your ascension when they've never done it before. So if you're selling primarily off of landing pages and funnels or challenges to landing pages, webinars, this would be a marketing hire. If you're selling with a sales team, even if you only have a few people right now, this would be a marketing/sale manager hire.
(09:00):
Then you need a back of the house operations manager. The back of the house person will co-own launch management with the marketing hire and likely has more of an operations or online business manager OBM background. They're in charge of fulfillment, retention delivery, and any sales related to ascension. The dividing line between these two roles is similar to the front of the house and the back of the house in a restaurant. It's the line before somebody becomes a customer and after somebody becomes a customer, these two people are peers, but they have totally different levels of accountability and responsibility. The roles are equal in seniority and similar in pay, and they need to work together really nicely as a team. They need to have complete and absolute open communication with the founder and with each other. And over time, what you might find is you need a third manager in the sales role, particularly in that three to $5 million mark.
(09:51):
And most importantly, if you have an in-person sales team, this is somebody who may rise up from that team. And is typically again, if you have a higher ticket offer and you're leaning more on a traditional sales team or social selling team, this person is responsible for that sales team, training them oversight and accountability for results. And then as you get closer to the 10 million mark, typically, that's when you want to start thinking about a C-suite of executives, people who are on a six-figure pay scale, and that can become that layer underneath you as the founder, to ensure that all of your departments are operating functionally and optimally. The titles for these roles would be VP or director, whereas in the seven figure range, or even the high six figure range, they would be coordinator or manager. You will need additional hires in the stage in finance, operations, technology.
(10:40):
And ideally your sales and marketing managers would grow with you into director and VP level roles as they grow their teams. This is where you might outgrow somebody like me as a consultant, because it is your company. At this point is big enough to have somebody like me in house and have a vice president of marketing or a vice-president of sales in house, because they're overseeing so many people in so many things that it makes sense to have a full-time strategist on staff. The mistake that many entrepreneurs make is that they stop focusing on sales and marketing when they get stuck. And they're not sure exactly who they should have and what seat to only work on backend fulfillment. But if you make the right marketing manager hire and the right OBM hire, you can actually do both at the same time. You can make sure that your fulfillment is fully operationalized while also ensuring that you have no pauses in the revenue coming in, because you have somebody accountable for marketing.
(11:40):
This is again, because you have those two people, different people that are ultimately accountable for two different results. They work together as peers, but the idea is that they have their own areas of accountability and responsibility, and they do not. This is a critical component to ensuring that you have a high level of integrity in your backend fulfillment while also keeping the machine running so that you can afford the hires. The next question I often get asked is like, where do you find these people? And what I would recommend is that you be very open, particularly when hiring them from a traditional background. A lot of times in this online marketing space, we struggle with the idea of hiring what I call civilians or people without an online digital marketing background, but civilians can be great. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they can't learn our strange and odd internet marketing world.
(12:31):
And while many of us who live and breathe in this crazy online world may have a difficult time believing this it's actually true that traditional companies have robust digital marketing systems. So I want you to be really open about where that person came from and be aware of the pace of environment that they originate from. So for example, if they came from a larger traditional organization where you had to get lots of approvals, things might be slower. Whereas if they came from a smaller company that was maybe family owned or startup with an extensive digital marketing department or an agency, and even traditional agency, this can be a great place to find this marketing person. I've found a lot of luck on LinkedIn and advertising for these kinds of positions, both on the marketing and sales side of things. So no matter what, just be prepared to train, just like with any other type of function in your company, if you bring them into a program, similar to what my program offers, where I train both the entrepreneur and their teams, then they have that training, that sounding board, that person to get advice from, even if they don't have the experience of developing a big picture plan.
(13:39):
So it's not all on you to answer all their questions about marketing implementation, but ultimately it is your company. It needs to be your plan and it needs to feel aligned because if you outsource that too early, or you leave it up to an employee, you'll probably a month later feel very out of sync of what's happening. And if something feels misaligned with you, there is nothing that they will be able to do to make that work. That's why it's so important to have a trusted strategic advisor when creating your revenue plan. So you can use that as a sounding board, and then that plan can provide your mid-level marketing hire with direction on the fulfillment and operations side. And in the online space, there's so many resources, there's certified operations managers, and there are many different types of programs that teach smart, ambitious service providers, how to operate in the operations function at a high level.
(14:34):
And what I find is that on the marketing side, there are fewer programs actually like the one that I offer and that's why it works so well and I have so many happy clients and consistently full. So I would love to hear from you, did this help you? How did your last marketing hire go? I'm curious, because I've seen these job descriptions that are forwarded to me from time to time for what I called the unicorn hire. And I've yet to meet these magical creatures. I've yet to meet that person who can make all the apps work and project manage the launch and ensure that the Instagram is on brand and provide a big picture plan on what the next leap in revenue is going to look like, because ultimately it is really up to you and having somebody like me, or a strategic advisor, or a coach or a mastermind who can challenge limiting beliefs, give the founder choices on the pros and cons on different options.
(15:28):
And co-create that big picture vision that sets the direction for the rest of the team. If my private group sounds like something that you would like to be part of, and you are at that seven figure point, I would love to meet with you. You can just go ahead and reach out to me via DM and Instagram’s, or follow the show notes for an application into the private client group, because this is a really unique offer. And I created it because I saw the need for having somebody like me to help the marketing and sales team of a seven figure female owned company, understand what, how to implement on the strategy and alleviate the founder from all the questions and all of the training that is required to really bring that person up to speed. So you can go ahead and just reach out to me, just DM in the Instagram’s slide into my DMS, or you can fill out the private client application that is attached to these show notes, and I'll look forward to hearing from you soon.
(16:28):
Hey there: before you head out, I want to let you know about a free new training I have right on a brand new website called yournextmillion.me. It's yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses, to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond. And I have to tell you, it is not what you think. So check it out at yournextmillion.me. And if you loved this show, will you subscribe to it and share it with a friend or just say something nice about it to someone, you know? I’d really appreciate it so much. Thanks so much for being here and I'll see you next time.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.