Wise business people shop around for marketing services before they buy. If you think such Marketing Wisdom is part of our DNA and therefore is so basic that it doesn’t deserve mentioning, you’re mistaken. I can relate countless first-hand stories of frustrated and disappointed businesses that have approached me, hat in hand, after fruitlessly squandering their marketing funds with a college friend, relative, acquaintance from Rotary or a member of their tip club.

“Can you help us?” They ask. Our previous firm… (fill in any sad story you like) …and now we have little money left and the deadline is nearly here.” If they’re really honest, they might add something along the lines of, “Of course we should have hired a professional like you in the first place, but we thought we could help out our (friend, relative, acquaintance from Rotary, or fellow tip club member) and get a deal in the process.”

Now that they have no choice but hire a professional, they often feel that said professional can whip up a serviceable solution with a wave of a mouse. Unfortunately, there is no Santa Claus, Virginia. The longer I work in this field the more I understand that competent, effective marketing requires time and resources. Fortunately for the hat-in-hand business, I’ve been in marketing long enough that I can always create something that suffices within the remaining time.

Sadly, such last-minute solutions are never anything near what I could have accomplished had I the time and the money available when the client first began the effort. Perhaps you’re thinking that these circumstances are really an opportunity in disguise, and that the business person who I’ve saved from disaster finally understands that one gets what one pays for and becomes a loyal client of mine.

As if… Generally, the business folk whose bacon I’ve just yanked from the fire are so embarrassed to have such a naïve blunder exposed that they never return. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

The wisdom here is that smart businesses who want good marketing do their homework, create a short list of comparable firms that meet their marketing needs and budget and – if they’re really smart – make their choice after paying each candidate to do a small, sample project.

Of course, lots of businesses will compile a list of candidate firms and review resumes and portfolios. Then way too many of them will next request that each candidate submit a speculative (“spec”) solution to the proposed assignment. “After all,” one such firm told me. “You don’t buy the cow without sampling the milk.”

Such is the ambient level of business savvy. The problem with this kind of…ignorance…is that marketing doesn’t come from a cow.

The marketing firms that are so hungry or so foolish that they will agree do spec work for these “tire kickers” rarely do their best work for spec and – frankly – they’d be even more foolish to do so. A good business relationship is based on mutual respect, and few business people will respect you for betting your business on their whim, or agreeing to be treated like a cow.

If you want good marketing help, do shop around, but shop smartly and with respect for your potential marketing partner.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Managing Creativity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.