Before the Blueprint: Building an Inbound Marketing Consulting Firm
Note: After the most recent Inbound Marketing Week in Review, which was wildly popular and I thank you for that, I noticed a major issue with my Studiopress Theme. There was no comment box on the page! Whoops! Well, I scurried off to the Studiopress forum and quickly rectified that. So, if you read The Inbound Marketing Week in Review and would like to comment? Please, do so! At the very least, I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback below and for this point forward. Additionally, please share this with friends and connections online…it will be greatly appreciated. Now, on with the show!
We read, see, and hear a lot about the nuts and bolts, the A to Z of creating an inbound marketing consulting firm. I am always interested in articles, videos, and audios that attempt to provide us with a blueprint, a template we can follow as we build a sales and consulting business. While much of this information is helpful, it is the kind of thing you get out of books and in university classrooms around the world and not particularly original or insightful. Of course, that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful, it just isn’t everything you need to begin an inbound marketing consultancy…or be successful at inbound marketing consulting.
Interestingly, almost every article, video, podcast, audio, or blog post begins with the same, canned list of ingredients, a kind of soup to nuts of business planning:
- Business Plan
- Who
- What
- When
- Where
- Why
- How
- How Much
- Mission Statement
- Branding
- Persona or Like-able Characters
- Infrastructure
- Support Personel
- Office Space
- Hardware
- Software
- Focus or Emphasis
- Area or Areas of Specialization
- Demographics
- Psychographics
- Location: Geographic Considerations and Constraints
- Know Thy Market (got a little Biblical there for a moment)
- See Above
- Target Audience
- Competitive Analysis
- See Above
- The Sales Process
- Inbound Marketing
- Outbound Marketing
- Advertising
- Prospecting
- Marketing Budget – Huge (just as we tell our clients)
- Incremental Growth
- Start Up Plan with a Quick Start Focus
- 30 Day Challenge
- 180 Day Plan
- 1 Year Plan
- 18 Month Plan
- 3 Year Plan
- 5 Year Plan
- 10 Year Plan
- 20 Year Plan
- Employee Education
- Formal Education
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Certification
- Association Memberships
- Testing
- In House or Outsourced (the latter is usually a good idea as it will tend to offset built in bias)
- Test! And test! And test again!
- Metrics or Statistical Analysis (for the older generation) – Also an aspect of Testing
- What to Measure
- Increments
- Anything and Everything
- Quick Start
- Start Date
- Daily Goals
- Budget
- Advertising
- Inbound Marketing
- Internet presence
- Social Media Profile
- Social Media Presence
- Website Development
- Blog (as main site or as a compenent of a conventional, static website)
- And on and on and on!
Most of the above is, once again, straight out of every MBA program around the world, with variations for the region of the world, the emphasis of the particular school, and the era taught. Ultimately, much of the information is the same, it will all work (more or less), and it is all flawed; or, at least, incomplete.
Flawed?
Incomplete?
Almost every one!
We are talking about inbound marketing consultancies, so we will stick with that. But the flaw is universal and it generally leads to the eventual failure of the enterprise.
I will explain.
You see, there is a crucial component missing in every plan, every step by step program I have reviewed lately. Interestingly, the flaw, the gap, the void, the hole, or whatever you want to call it is so big and so obvious, you could drive an inbound or outbound marketing truck through it…a big truck!
It is a single word. It is an obvious issue, a single question; and, you must be able to ask yourself the question and answer it well. And, you must be happy with your answer.
Here it is:
Why?
Yup!
That’s it!
Why?
If you don’t ask yourself “Why?” right up front?
The first time things get tough…you will be! Asking yourself “Why?”, that is.
If you can’t answer “Why?” right off the bat? Intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually?
You will never be able to, particularly when times get tough…and they will.
While I don’t agree with everything Michael Gerber proposes in his The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, I do believe there are 3 segments to most business personalities:
- Entrepreneur
- Technician
- Manager
Consequently, if you cannot deal with, and make adjustments for, the requirements of all three, and so so effectively, and also deal with the transitional periods:
- Infancy
- Adolescence
- Adulthood
You will fail, as well.
Note: Interestingly, you will commonly receive the call of inbound marketing assistance at that point when businesses are attempting to make the transition from infancy to adolescence. Interestingly, it is at this transitional phase that most business owners realize that in order to make it? They must ask for help. This isn’t always the case but it happens often enough to be noted. You will have your work cut out for you!
Back to “Why?”
Significantly, this is also the case with your own business and, if you cannot answer, ”Why?” , you will never make it through the adjustments and transitions yourself.
You simply will not have it in you.
Interestingly, you will not only have to assist your inbound marketing clients through the various transitions, at least as you are able, but you will also have to face the same transitions and many of the same growth issues yourself.
But that’s a topic for another post. Lots of ideas!
I don’t know where Michael Gerber got his statistics (or have I’ve forgotten) but taken at face value, he suggests that not only will 80% of businesses fail in the first five years? That’s any type of business, including inbound marketing firms.
Incredibly, in the next five years?
80% of the businesses that made it through the first five years will also fail.
It is interesting how many people believe the five year mark is the watershed. Meaning, if you can get through five years, you are home free.
This is simply not the case.
I suggest the following:
The key compenent, the linchpin if you will, the question 100% of the failures never asked themselves, and answered, was Why?
Of course, once in business, with its ups and downs, good days and bad, one thing is certain.
They asked another question…a lot!
Why?
Glad you asked!
Because:
- Inbound marketing is about working with people.
- Inbound marketing is about sales.
- Inbound marketing is about running the mundane, day-to-day end of the business (the management).
- Inbound marketing is about developing a thick hide.
- Inbound marketing is about disappointment. Things don’t always go as predicted by your mind maps and flow chart.
- Inbound marketing is about rejection. Prospects say no and clients will leave you…not matter how on your game you are.
- Inbound marketing is also about triumph. Making a presentation that results in a sale is like a fix! Although I have never personally inhaled.
- Inbound marketing is rewarding. The rewards of running a successful campaign, much less a successful inbound marketing consultancy, are myriad. Interestingly, the greatest rewards have nothing to do with the money. It’s the intangibles!
- Inbound marketing is about service. It’s like Zig Ziglar has said, and so many have parroted: You can get everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want. While we are on Zig Ziglar quotes, the first time I saw him speak live was in the mid-70s (before more than a few inbound marketing consultants were born), this is one of my favorites along the same lines: If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all your want in life if you help nenough other peolple get what they want.
- And inbound marketing is a scared trust. Believe it and say Amen! I will explain below. Hold onto your hats because if you ever doubted that statement when I have made it in the past, you won’t any more.
- Inbound marketing is all of this and more. And so is almost any other kind of business you can go into. It takes determination, desire, and a very thick skin to succed in any business…and in life.
But inbound marketing is something different, something special, something unique.
Inbound marketing is, as I have said before, a scared trust!
Why?
There’s that question again!
Because if you fail, your client may fail too. You see, wou are responsible for generating business, you are responsible for whether a business makes it our not.
You are responsible for the personal and financial well-being of:
- The owner of the company who put his or her faith in you.
- The owner’s family because as the owner goes, so goes his or her family.
- The employees are inextricably linked to the success of the enterprise, and thus, are directly affected by the results you deliver or fail to deliver as an inbound marketing consultant.
- The employees families is a logical extension of employees’ well being.
- The community’s health will take a hit, particularly if the business has a big enough financial footprint in the community (i.e., employees, taxes, wages, etc.).
You are also responsible for:
- Your well-being because as your fortunes, health, focus, and attitude swing? So goes your company, family, etc.
- Your family’s well-being is directly tied to how effectively you service your clients and the results you achieve.
- Your employees’ well-being is tied to the success of your inbound marketing efforts, not only the efforts for clients’s sake but the results you achieve building your inbound marketing business…as you continue to build the businesses of others. If you fail, everyone takes the hit.
- Your employees’ families well-being is tied to their jobs and to you, how you serve your clients, and how ell you build your business.
- Your suppliers, merchants, etc…..
- I could go on forever…or almost!
The ripple effect through the lives of countless others is affected and impacted by you and your ability or inability to answer that one question and answer it well:
Why?
Responsible!
Think about it.
This isn’t something we go into after buying a $997 ecourse…or a $9997 ecourse for that matter. There is too much at stake and far too many peoples’ lives depend on how you perform as an inbound marketing consultant.
You must know business, not only the inbound marketing business, but Business with a capital B.
Ultimately, you would be amazed how many people go into business every day, all sorts of businesses, without ever asking themselves “Why?”
Ultimately, things will get tough, very tough. You will enter Seth Godin’s Dip.
If you failed to ask yourself “Why?” starting out? You will most certainly be asking yourself “Why?” then.
If you know “Why?” going in, it will make it possible for you to weather the many storms you will be faced with while building your inbound marketing consultancy. Things will get tough. Prospects will say no. Clients will leave you. Others may not pay.
“Stuff” happens!
“Stuff” you have very little control over.
So, if you didn’t have a very good reason for starting down this path?
If you couldn’t answer, “Why?”
Or, never thought to ask yourself “Why?”
When “stuff” happens, and believe it, it will, you will be asking yourself a question almost as short, almost as succinct, and just as meaningful at that point. And you won’t have an answer!
The question:
“Why me?”
So, ask yourself “Why?” before your start and, if you can’t come up with a very good answer?
In fact, if you can’t come up with several?
You might want to think about another question, almost as short, and just as meaningful:
“Why not?”
I can tell you my answers…but they are irrelevant. The answers must come from you, they must be heartfelt, and they must be genuine.
If they are?
Your inbound marketing consultancy has a shot.
Otherwise?
You might want to take up basket weaving. Or traveling to India and chanting on a mountain top. Or exploring the rain forests (everyone whould actually do that one, it’s amazing).
My point being?
You need to take a hard look before you leap into inbound marketing, or anything else for that matter, because you are:
Responsible!
Good luck to you whether you are just starting out or have been developing your own inbound marketing consultancy for a while. It is one of the most exciting things I have ever done in my life, at least in the business world. It is an amazing ride and there is never a dull moment.
But I know “Why?” I am doing it.
Now?
It’s your turn!
But you must know “Why!”
Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. I do appreciate each and every one of you for that. Please leave a comment below. You feedback will be an immense help to me as I shape upcoming posts, videos, and audios.
Contact me anytime!
John Zajaros
Recent Comments