I went to a client appreciation event this week fully in “eat some snacks, say hi, and Irish goodbye by 7pm” mode.
I’m the client in this scenario, so my only job was to show up, be grateful, and receive a free apple pie. But I ended up chit-chatting with the guy who hosted the event, and we started shooting the shit about business.
A few minutes in, he asks what I do.
I give him the quick version, and he goes, “Oh damn, okay. I need a marketing person.”
Now, this is the part where a lot of people would jump straight into pitch mode.
“Funny you say that, I actually help businesses just like yours…”
“Here’s my card, let’s book a call…”
Instead, I just asked questions (because, duh - hi, hello...it's me!)
Five minutes later, it’s painfully clear: he doesn’t need “a marketing person.”
He needs an entire marketing department.
He’s talking about someone in-house who can handle brand messaging, content creation, social management, email marketing, community partnerships, blog development, website maintenance, podcast promotion, being at events…the list kept growing.
And look, having someone in-house can be great. But you need to be realistic about what they're going to be capable of (especially if you're going the 'entry level marketing position' route).
If you hire one person and expect them to build a campaign, create all the assets, post everywhere, analyze performance, do backflips, and essentially be your entire brand and marketing department in a single human body? You’re essentially hiring an illusion of productivity. (OPE I SAID IT!)
Because truthfully, they’ll be half-doing everything, constantly putting out fires, touching twenty things a day, and actually moving none of them forward in a meaningful way. (Keyword here is MEANINGFUL)
But anyways, as he’s talking, I’m having this very familiar realization...this is literally every business owner who says, “We need better marketing."
What they usually mean is:
- “We want to be on all the platforms because we think that’s what serious businesses do.”
- “We want to feel like things are happening.”
- “We want visibility, but we haven’t thought about what we’ll do with it.”
You want to be on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, email, maybe a podcast, maybe events, maybe PR. But do you need to be in all those places?
And if you are, are you actually showing up well… or just kind of flailing everywhere at once?
Because there’s a big difference between...
Strategic content that pre-qualifies people, educates them, and warms them up so they’re basically half-sold by the time they ever reach out to you
VS.
Content for content’s sake that looks busy, fills a calendar, and does absolutely nothing for your pipeline.
And here’s the annoying truth no one wants to hear:
What you want is activity.
You want the posts going up. You want to see someone “working on marketing.”
You want to feel like the engine is running.
What you actually need is strategy.
Picking a lane, committing to a direction, deciding what actually matters, and letting go of the rest? That feels restrictive. It feels boring. It forces you to confront the fact that if you’re going to measure something, you might not like the results at first.
But without that level of intention, you’re just throwing content at the internet and hoping it turns into revenue.
So when someone says, “We need a marketing person,” my brain doesn’t go to: “Cool, let’s hire someone to post more for you.”
It goes to:
- What’s the actual outcome you’re trying to create?
- What are the few channels that genuinely make sense for that goal, with your resources?
- What needs to be true in your brand and your message so the work you do anywhere actually has a shot at converting?
Because if you don’t answer those questions first, I don’t care if you hire an in-house unicorn, three agencies, and a part-time intern named Brad who's got 50K followers on social... you’re still going to feel like you’re shouting into the void.
Strategy is the part that gets you where you say you want to go.
The “doing” is only powerful when it’s pointed in the right direction.
Just something to think about while you're three slices deep into that pumpkin pie this week. 😉
Love ya and enjoy your Thanksgiving!
Catch ya next week,
Marissa
