SEO Factors Archives - Page 16 of 21 by Mark Murnahan

Will Exposure to Thousands More People Help Your Business?

The answer to this question is not always yes. Here is an even better question for you to consider. Will presenting an appealing message to thousands more of the right people who are interested in your products or services be beneficial to your business? Maybe your answer is “no”, but I really doubt that.

There are a lot of questions to be answered about reaching a targeted audience that is important to your business. There is a lot of fear of failure and loss. Sometimes I think the people who doubt potential for increasing business using the Internet the most are often convinced that it only happens for the lucky ones. I have good news for you. You have the luck of the Irish on your side today, and they don’t call me “Murnahan” for being French.

Tough Marketing Questions for Many People

Marketing is a scary thing to a lot of people. I mean, it all seems so speculative, right? Maybe you think it seems like a bunch of guesswork, and some people just get lucky.

Marketing is not so speculative at all. This is not like rolling dice on a craps table and gambling with your company’s money, except for the newcomers to the marketing industry who are trying to earn as they learn. There is a lot of math and science at work. Doing it right sometimes just means making proper calculations. On the other hand, the message you deliver requires marketing creativity, but even creativity is not as speculative as you may imagine. There really are a lot of safeguards in proper marketing, and it does not need to be risky.

The truth is that there are a lot of people who just don’t hit the mark. They don’t get the marketing right the first time, and that opens a floodgate of fears and apprehension. It begs some tough marketing questions for many people. Some of the hardest questions running through people’s minds are as follows:

“Is it really likely that I can reach thousands more people interested in what I offer”
“How much will it really help my business?”
“How much it will cost?”

These are troubling questions that hold a lot of people back from the much more important considerations of what happens if you do nothing, or keep doing the things that do not work. I will offer you some answers to each of these. Please pay attention.

Now Seriously, Would Exposure to Thousands More People Help Your Business?

When you hear something like this it is really easy to assume that it is just hype, or that it will not be worth the expense, right? Often, it truly is just hype, but it is true that there really are thousands of potential customers out there. If you have the right message, at the right time, and deliver it properly, those can be your customers. This is not a myth, and it is not a unicorn hunting expedition. It takes some well crafted effort to achieve, but it really is not all that hard to gain huge amounts of new business with proper Internet marketing.

Is it really likely that I can reach thousands more people interested in what I offer?

Are there really thousands more people out there on the Internet who are interested in what you have to offer? Yes, people have actually even been successful selling dog poop online! Is it likely to reach the right audience with a proper marketing plan? Yes, but a weak plan with little effort will just disappoint you, again.

You can rest assured that there are not very many of the tens of thousands of readers that come to my blog each month who are seeking tips for knitting pajamas. They come because they want ideas, and they want to know what I know about SEO, social media, and other Internet marketing topics. Now what percentage of Internet users do you think are really interested in marketing? Seriously, this isn’t the most fun you ever had. Most people try to ignore marketing until the competition destroys their business. Don’t you think some people will be interested in what you have to offer, too?

How much will it really help my business?

Here is one of those easy questions to answer with math. You know how much each customer is worth to your business, right? You know how much you spend to acquire each customer, right? With this information and other vital data, it is pretty easy to calculate the actual gain to your business. If you do not have solid numbers, you really need marketing help more than you realize.

I understand that you hear all of the talk about the Internet being like the big California Gold Rush of 1848. You are surely hit by hundreds of Internet marketers trying to sell you SEO snake oil or proposing that you will make millions of dollars using nothing but Twitter or Facebook. Yes, most of these offers are crap, and easy to see through.

Now let’s stop being silly and answer this serious question. If it is true that you can realistically reach a targeted audience of thousands more people with an interest in what you offer, wouldn’t it be absolutely absurd to ignore it? Here is the answer: Yes, it would be absolutely absurd, and the scary cost is that your competitor will probably reach the people you missed. Question answered? Yes, I think so.

How much will it cost?

If you see marketing as a net loss, you are really not getting the point of it at all. Perhaps you have just tried all the wrong things and you are tired of trying.

If you think of Internet marketing as an investment in your business, you are on the right track. Like an investment, you must consider how much you want to gain. The consideration of a well thought out and effective marketing plan should be more along the lines of how much money you can get your hands on to do the one thing that will grow your business more than anything else. When people ask me the question of cost before any considerations of the objectives and directives involved, I tell them “You had better bring your lunch money.” This is for two reasons. First, because the more you put into marketing, the more you get out of it. Second, because I have a whole lot to teach this person about how marketing really works.

I have written many articles on the topic of Internet marketing and development cost. Here are a couple of them that you may find interesting:

One More Question!

Oh yes, I already asked you this one, but now it is time for your answer. Will presenting an appealing message to thousands more of the right people who are interested in your products or services be beneficial to your business? I ask this, because it is what makes my telephones ring. It is what I do for my clients. This is not a rhetorical question. Find me here if you want more answers.

There is a lot of math and science in marketing, but just how important is creativity in marketing? Regardless what you may believe, creativity still holds much emphasis in successful marketing. If you look around the huge marketing arena of the Internet, you can see what I mean, illustrated in a squillion different ways.

You will see companies who believe that simply being listed at the top of a search engine result is all that matters. It matters, a lot, but without giving people something to rave about once they find you, and converting them into customers, fans, or something other than a ten second click, it is worthless.

If you doubt me, just question why you have heard of Nike, and not that other shoe and athletic apparel company who tried so hard to make you a customer. If you think it just comes down to massive amounts of money to spend, you surely forgot that Microsoft started in a garage. The founders knew what it meant to be creative, and they made that creativity clear in their market outreach. This can mean consumer marketing as well as marketing to investors, so make no mistake on that.

Marketing creativity is what makes things popular, and takes ideas to the next level. An example is the way Roche Applied Science, a company dealing in genome sequencing made something so geeky and scientific as apoptosis a fun topic. They knew who their market was, and reached them with their massively successful “Cell Death Tour” marketing campaign.

Marketing creativity is also what Matt Harding did for Stride Gum when he produced a video with 27,267,455 views and counting. It was creative enough that millions of people passed it along to their friends.

The list of examples is long, but I will try to keep this short by explaining that creative marketing often makes the difference between a ten second click and a massively successful market reach.

Creative Marketing Drags You by the Nose

You can try to ignore it, but what drags you by the nose to embrace a brand is the work of the creative marketer. Some may say that their market is more logic-based and that people are just looking at the numbers. Even if that is the case, they should really be looking at the explosion of numbers that happens with creative marketing that is perfectly crafted to reach the target.

Sure, marketing is a numbers game, and with enough numbers, anything can be a success. While many Internet marketers fight to be more visible, and with high-traffic to Websites being rewarded with unrealistic hopes, creative marketing is often neglected. I sometimes think that this is one of the top reasons so many people are getting the shaft from Internet marketers who make big promises about traffic, while having little idea what actually motivates a market.

Creative Marketing Does Not Just Mean Cute

When I say creative marketing, I do not just mean delivering a creative message, but also how to reach the right audience, and not just any audience. Reaching a lot of people is great. It allows the opportunity for people to share the message with the audience you seek. However, it also leaves a lot of chances that your marketing wheels are left spinning and stuck in the mud.

A Creative Marketing Proposal

As I was preparing a marketing proposal just yesterday, I was thinking about how to provide the best reach into the client’s target market. I had discussed the client’s marketing objectives enough to create a nine page well considered proposal. It dealt with many areas of math, geography, and demographics, but there was something more. While I was proofreading the proposal, I got to thinking about what makes marketers different. What is that key element that sets the great apart from the good in marketing? When I reached the portion of my marketing proposal dealing with cost where it explained that we do not breed elves, it struck me. Creative thinking is one area that truly sets marketers apart more than any other. I already knew this, but the tricky part is in expressing it.

Here is a portion of the marketing proposal, but I offer you this preface: Call me crazy if you like, but I am not a salesman. I give the facts, and I try to deliver it in a unique way. I will also add, as you may find here, that I do not seek everybody willing to drop a few dollars and dip their toe into the marketing pool to test the water. There are sharks in there, and I never want to see a client’s leg bit off by dipping their toe in. I want that diamond client that I was able to carefully carve out of the rough and polish with care. I want the one who is not afraid to be successful. I want the one who understands marketing creativity and the huge value it offers. When the client “gets it” I am ready to get to work. When they just want to follow the flock of sheep off the edge of the cliff, they call somebody else.

INVESTMENT IN YOUR BUSINESS

We see it all too often that price is the concern rather than wise investment in a company’s success. Our job is to increase the bottom line of your company. We don’t chase unicorns or offer elf breeding. Our work is based on real data, using real science that really works. This is not myth, and the return you receive will reflect the investment you make. In order to create massive success, you simply cannot do it with minimal investment, or with marginal marketing providers, as you have already witnessed.

In order to achieve both short-term and long-term results for your brand, we seek an initial budget of $25,000 with ongoing services to be recommended only following 30 day, 60 day, and 90 day benchmarking. We will not come back and ask for more money without a very good reason, and if we do, it is best that you spend it.

This initial budget will allow us to focus on the quality and quantity of your reach, and the creativity to achieve high conversion of your prospects into active customers and money in your pocket. It also provides the opportunity for proper benchmarking in order to make determinations of a performance-based opportunity between our companies.

The question of high quality and sustainable marketing should not include any questions of whether it is worth it. We will be pleased to provide enough quantitative data to show the value. The only question we allow room for is whether our clients care about their business enough to make a wise investment in its future.

Polarizing an audience does not mean that you are telling them to go away or that you do not appreciate them. When you polarize your audience, you set yourself apart from the crowd and you often gain respect. If somebody does not respect you for who you are, you probably did not need that respect anyway.

I am first going to explain what I mean by polarizing an audience, and then give you my recent example that happened with an article I wrote titled “Era of The Social Media Dubeshag”.

Stop Trying to Make Everybody Happy!

Sure, you are in business, and you want to be certain that anybody and everybody will want to buy your products or service. You want everybody to love you, I get it. Have you ever considered the downsides? Yes, the downsides can be that your biggest fans are indifferent. They are not the kind who will drag their friends, family, and complete strangers kicking and screaming to buy your brand.

Looking around the business world, you can see many very successful instances of polarizing an audience. A good example may be in Apple Computer’s decision to not support Adobe Flash Player in their iPhone and iPad products. Other examples are available in the soft drink market with Coke and Pepsi, and extreme examples occur in politics. Who wants a wishy-washy politician, anyway?

Do Facebook and Google Polarize Their Audience?

Once you know your brand, stand strong to it. I don’t mean going around and intentionally making people mad at you, but don’t be a chicken either. Just look to Facebook for an example. Facebook is not at all afraid to polarize their audience. They are in the news for it every time they make a big change, but you don’t hear them apologize for how they run their business, or the culture of their brand. Does it work for Facebook? Consider this: If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world with over 500,000,000 (yes, five hundred million) users.

Google battles against whole countries, like China and recently Italy. I don’t think I need to go into a lengthy argument of how Google polarizes their audience. They are famously polarizing, just as most massively successful brands are.

Sure, you can say that Facebook and Google do not have any real competition, but they do, and in huge order. Many people just don’t look at them as having competition because they are so extremely large and tower over their competitors. In any case, consider who you hear more polarizing stories from … Google or Dogpile?

Today’s Murnahanism: Being famous often requires the guts to be infamous. If you just want to please everybody, give up now, before you get hurt!

Pleasing Everybody Satisfies Nobody

I have said it many times that “I do not try to please everybody, and that pleases some people very much.” I strongly believe in this statement and it is with me at all times. What it means to me is that I will not waiver from who I am just to make people like me. It seems that if they do not like me, they dislike me with emphasis. Conversely, if they like me, they like me very much and they are brand-loyal. I try to leave very little room for indifference.

So What About This Dubeshag Article?

I created a new word for our chubby or less-than-Clark-Gable friends in the social media world. I called them “dubeshags”. The genesis of the word was in good humor, and there is what some would call a very funny back-story. You can read the article and judge for yourself.

It polarized an audience in a pretty big way. I was accused of all kinds of crimes of social media for writing it, such as using popular names to build popularity. I explained my reason for writing it in an addendum to the article and it included the statement as follows:

If you think I wrote it for attention, I would have left it as a draft if I didn’t want people to read it. Sure, I want it to be read. Maybe you just blog for the entertainment of your cats, but I do it for public consumption.

The moral of the story is this: Whether people loved it or hated it, the word “dubeshag” is no longer a secret. In roughly 36 hours, dubeshag went from zero listings in Google and no recognition at all to over 500 listings in Google (and later over 25,000); over 120 Digg.com diggs; a handful of votes on Mixx.com, Reddit.com, and StumbleUpon.com; was re-blogged on many blogs; has been tweeted to hundreds of thousands of Twitter users; created an interview on Social Blade; and has flattered a few of the dubeshags who were mentioned.

Who cares if it made a few people pout? Certainly not this author.

Author’s Addendum: This was a strange example, but it does show a few key things pretty clearly. It shows that original content can spread fast. It shows that with a little know-how, you can build a lot of incoming links. It shows that even if you step on a couple toes, you can still be very well branded and have an audience like the kind I mentioned … the ones who will tell a lot of people.

It is funny that since I wrote this and was away for an event at my son’s school for a couple hours, the number of listings for dubeshag on Google keeps going up. In a short time it increased to tens of thousands of pages talking about dubeshag, and linking to the article. So it should kind of make a person wonder what happens when you do that several times per day? What happens if you do it for six months, a year, or longer?

It amazes me how some people still wonder if this whole SEO and social media thing is really worth looking into or not. To those in doubt, I hope I have given you some food for thought, and I hope you will investigate further. Stick around and read some more. You may find that there is a lot more to it than you think.

11 Common SEO Questions Answered by SEO

Here are answers to some of the most pressing questions about SEO that are asked of SEO professionals. I am not ranking these questions in the order of urgency or frequency, but these are some of the most common things I hear when people call me, search the Internet and find me, or meet me and ask what I do.

SEO Question One: What is SEO?

Answer: I suppose I should start with answering the big question of “What is SEO?”

SEO is both a noun and a verb, kind of like Google. It can mean search engine optimization or search engine optimizer. You can usually tell the difference based on the usage.

It involves many aspects of improving a website’s ranking in search engines, and thus increasing website exposure. However, it goes a lot deeper than that. Being listed at the top of search results does not always mean a visitor to your website, especially if you are not listed for the right search terms. Finding the right search terms (keyword phrases) is very important, and often involves many lateral keywords.

SEO has a lot to do with converting more searches into clicks, but clicks alone do not always mean profit. So it also has a whole lot to do with converting those clicks into an action, such as a purchase or a new business lead.

SEO Question Two: How Much Does SEO Cost, and Why?

Answer: I get this question more than perhaps any other, and it comes in many variations. I get it in person, on the phone, and I get it in searches for “SEO hourly rates“. If you Google that term or a number of others like it, you will understand why I know this is a common question. You will find an article I wrote a while back titled “SEO and Web Development Hourly Rates” The funny part is that really great SEO is not done based on an hourly rate, and simply asking “how much does SEO cost“ is not a well-qualified question.

I know it is a scary thing to imagine waving goodbye to money. If a person can look at this without the hair on the back of their neck standing up and consider it for a moment, the better question is actually “how much will a lack of SEO cost?“ Sure, that just sounds like a guy trying to sell you stuff, but I am serious. What happens when you do it wrong? Doing SEO wrong or not doing it at all is what becomes really costly.

I realize that the real question people want to know about SEO is how much they will have to invest in order to get the results they want. The problem is that at the same time, they often do not really have a finger on what results they are after. “More business” is not a good enough answer to the question. The best answer for your individual case requires planning, and planning means developing better questions with better answers.

If you just want three more sales, it will probably not require a large upfront investment. On the other hand, if you are selling custom purple pajamas for botfly larvae, all the SEO in the world may not help you much. Neither of these represent a good plan, and if you start without a plan, you will end without a plan. Here is an article to help you consider your planning, and why you don’t just want to be along for the ride: “Business Evolution and Crash Test Dummies“.

What is needed and how much you should spend will be different for each individual business case. The answer that will provide the best results will usually be uncomfortable. My short answer is usually “bring your lunch money” because if the SEO is done well, every additional dollar you invest will produce a greater return.

Does it cost, really? I thought it was supposed to pay money, not cost money. I wonder what the cost is if you don’t do it? My really super smart-ass answer to the number one most important factor in your business success (your marketing) would be “how well do you want the job done?”

In answer to the last part of the cost question (why), I would like to refer you to an article I wrote only yesterday titled “Where Does Marketing Talent Come From?”

SEO Question Three: Can You Reduce the Upfront Cost?

Answer: Yes, there are ways to minimize the upfront cost of SEO, and the best one is with a contingency SEOcontract which allows the provider to earn money based on performance. Be mindful that there is generally still an upfront cost involved. After all, there is often a lot of risk mitigation for the SEO in making sure your company and your products are market-ready and something they want to partner with.

When you contact a good SEO, you should be ready to afford the cost. Again, this is an investment in your business and you are seeking a professional service to build your business. If you ever wonder why a good SEO’s phone keeps breaking up and the call drops, consider this: If you are asking them to deliver you the moon but to do it “cheap”, this could very well be the reason.

SEO Question Four: Can SEO Help a Small Local Company?

Answer: Yes, it can also help a small local company stop being small and local if they choose. Can it help a small and broke company? Well, I like to remember a term I learned in grammar school: survival of the fittest. If your company is already too broke to sustain the basic essentials of marketing, it may be too late. I said it may be too late. I think it is still better to go down fighting than to just roll over. SEO is likely the best chance you have.

SEO Question Five: How Long Does SEO Take?

Answer: This is another one of those sticky questions with a whole lot of answers. I generally expect to see results the moment I click “publish”. Once you have a site that is worthwhile to users, a squillion good incoming links, and a good reputation with Google, things can happen very quickly. A better answer may be how long it will take you to make the decision to take action. It is like planting a tree. If you want shade, it is best that you did it a long time ago. In lieu of that, I will let you answer the best time to plant it.

SEO Question Six: How Long Does SEO Last?

Answer: I have written articles for competitive keyword phrases that are still at the top of searches since nearly a decade ago. Things change, but the search listing aspects of SEO are generally designed to last. Other areas of SEO work are also designed with longevity, such as an emphasized call to action and other matters of Website usability. If you really want an understanding of how long SEO can last, I invite you to read “Can You Value Each Blog Post at $10,000?” where I explain it more clearly.

A pay-per-click campaign will last until you stop paying for it.

SEO Question Seven: How Can I Measure SEO Success?

Answer: The short and sweet answer should be “in your wallet” but it is a bit more than that. You can measure success of specific traffic results and user actions very easily with statistics from tools like Google Analyticss and Clicky Web Analytics. If you can get beyond the big task of planting the seedling of good SEO, the results can mean a whole lot more than just how much more money you have. It can mean that your business is on a path to a sustainable marketing platform where every time you have something to say, your content will rank much more easily in search engines. So your measurement should extend beyond today alone, but also include a longer term look at where your business will be down the road.

SEO Question Eight: Isn’t SEO Mostly Just Title Tags, H1 Tags, and Meta Tags?

Answer: I want to be nice about this one, because I know that the SEO industry has talked a lot about these things and it may seem there is a lot of emphasis on these items. I will touch on each item individually, but just for a moment. Then I will explain how little they do in the big picture.

Title tags are important to SEO, because they are the top-level on-page item to tell a search engine what the page is about. If the content matches the title, and all other things are perfect, you may have a win. There are clearly a lot of other factors. Otherwise, some of those pages titled “Home” (and sadly there are millions titled just “Home”, because somebody got lazy) would show up somewhere. Instead, when you search for “Home”, you find “The Home Depot”, and “Lowe’s Home Improvement”.

H1 tags hold importance due to the proper structure of a page. They are like a headline on a newspaper and they are the starting point of an article. The H1 tag tells the overall subject of the page, and ideally the rest of the page matches the subject. There are a lot of SEO who will argue until they are blue in the face about the subject of H1, and sometimes rightfully so, but if you want to know more just Google it. You will find an article I wrote years ago right on top. Here is my article titled “H1 Tags Improve Search Engine Placement” and here is the Google Search for H1 tags. You be the judge, but please do not assume it is there just because I used the H1 tag.

Meta tags? Don’t even get me started about meta tags. This is like a joke that spread widely back in the 1990’s to make SEO sound smart. Kidding! Actually, they once had some bearing on SEO, but many search engines do not look at meta tags as a factor any more than the haircut of your pet chihuahua.

The Big Picture: If these simple items of title tags, H1 tags and meta tags did the trick, don’t you think the Internet would get pretty messed up with totally irrelevant things in the way every time you search for something? It takes a whole lot more. I mean, wouldn’t you rank yourself a lot higher for “2010 Olympics” or “Brittany Spears” if that was the case?

SEO Question Nine: Are There Any Guarantees to SEO?

Answer: Yes, there are a few guarantees with SEO, and they are not all lies, either. First, I can guarantee you that if you do nothing, you will get nothing. Some SEO will provide outrageous guarantees, and I hope you do not fall for it. One type of reasonable guarantee is based on additional work until a set objective is met. The most reasonable SEO guarantee is one that the professional you hired will work hard and work smart to meet your objectives. If you ask for guarantees, you will usually pay for guarantees. In many cases the customers pay for them the hard way … by believing something that is not true.

SEO Question Ten: Can’t I Just Do My Own Google Adwords?

Answer: Yes, absolutely! You can do it all yourself. Just be aware that you have another job to do … running your business. If you think you can do the job as well as the professional who makes it their career, I just hope you don’t make the same kind of decision about professional football or dentistry. You are likely to get hurt.

SEO Question Eleven: Can’t I Just Read Your Blog and Do It Myself?

Answer: Sure. Subscribe here. If you need more help, don’t be too proud to ask.

Where Does Marketing Talent Come From?

Is there such a thing as natural ability in marketing? Some talents seem to come from birth, but like developing any talent, it takes time and hard work. Talent comes with a cost.

Marketing Talent Comes With a Cost

There is a hidden cost to marketing talent that is often difficult to realize. Whether you are hiring it out or trying to develop marketing talent for yourself, it has a cost … often a huge cost. So, where does marketing talent really come from, what is the cost to get it, and why are marketing talents not all equal? Allow me to explain.

Talent is Better with Practice

I have been fascinated recently with the 2010 Winter Olympics. The athletes are amazing, and their talent often seems humanly impossible. What makes it possible is a whole lot of passion, determination, and practice. Passion leads to determination and determination leads to practice. Passion and determination do nothing without the follow through of relentless practice. Apolo Ohno even crashed a few times before he went on to become the most decorated USA medalist in Winter Olympic history, but he kept practicing.

Maybe you have a talent that you are passionate about. Think about that talent you developed through passion. Maybe you went to school a long time for it, and maybe you practiced it long enough to get really good at it … best of all is practice. Can somebody else do it as well as you? If they can, they probably practiced more.

Marketing Talent Takes Risk

It was when I heard Bob Costas and the other announcers talking about Olympic athletes having similar DNA to race car drivers and other risk-takers that my ears perked up. I started thinking about the risks people take, how they calculate risks, and really how little most people are willing to risk. With minimal risk, there is minimal reward. Come on, we all know this, and it is true of everything from leaning in for the first kiss to becoming a huge success at something.

Here is a way I can relate to risk. I race cars. In fact, I race cars very well. Driving is something I am passionate about. It is a talent that I have worked on for years, spent thousands of hours practicing, and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to master. I also teach drivers what they need to know about driving. Imagine that. I get in a car with another driver and teach him or her how to go faster … fast enough to kill us both in an instant! Yes, I’ve got balls courage. I have courage the size of an aircraft carrier, but I have something else. I’ve got talent. The kind of talent that only comes from a whole lot of practice. That practice makes me just a little more immune to risk with each lap.

A common saying at a race track is that there is no such thing as natural ability. Oh, there may be some natural propensity (like good eyes and good reflexes), but the talent comes with practice. Really amazing talent comes with thousands of hours of practice. This goes for Olympic athletes, race car drivers, and yes, even marketers.

Good Marketing Talent Minimizes Your Risk

While knowing that each practice increases immunity to risk, I think about how much risk most people are willing to take in their business. Most businesses try to reduce their exposure to risk at every opportunity. They mop up the Vaseline spill in the doorway, they remove the balloon filled with broken glass hanging high above the atrium, and they buy insurance in case it all goes wrong. Doesn’t it beg the question of how they could logically reduce the risk of failure in their marketing efforts? Yes, I think that makes sense, too.

When you look for marketing talent and you wonder what you are paying for, remember this: Good Marketers Already Took the Risks. That means they already know what does not work, and they have the experience to know how to help you avoid doing the same. Not only that, really good marketing talent comes from the people who not only had a strong propensity to good marketing and passion for the work, but they have put in the countless hours of hard work, research, and practice … like the Olympic athlete or the race car driver.

Expensive Marketing Choices

When you consider developing marketing talent, consider your passion, time, and willingness to take risks. If you are passionate about your marketing but lack the time it takes to learn to skate like Apolo Ohno, drive like Emerson Fittipaldi, or market creatively like Pablo Picasso. Stop and consider the risks you could mitigate by sitting in the stands while the real marketing talent rounds the track for you. Be aware that you are paying them for the talent they developed with passion, determination and practice. You pay them for the risks they took that were a bit too ballsy courageous for your liking or your budget.

Do you want to go fast? You must decide carefully which risks to take, and it can be a lot less risky to hire somebody with marketing talent than to develop your own. After all, are you more likely to hop in a race car to create the show for everybody else or stay home and watch it from the safety of your sofa? Either will have a cost, but one takes a whole lot of time.

P.S. Here is what it looks like when I drive. I will leave out the failures it took to get there.