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This question has been closed, and points have been awarded.
How To Expand My Business
Posted By: kevinbhuynh* on 8/21/2006 12:02 AM (CST) 500 Points
Here is dilemma:

I've owned a national distributor of professional nail care products with 8 employees for 10 years now.

I have been a one man show. You know what I mean.

Now that I want to take this company to the next level, I cannot do it myself.

I want to hire several key management positions. My dream team would be a Marketing manager, Sale manager, Purchase manager, Warehouse manager and several supporting staffs.

I know I am taking a big jump. I really thought it out. I cannot move my company aggressively forward without these people. They are all interlinked.

My question is: do I want to hire a full time Marketing manager or using a marketing agency.

I can see the advantages of to have an in-house marketing manager are the continuity, instantaneous actions, consistent....vs an agency who will not be 100% dedicate to your objective and goals in a timely manner.

I know my question is kind of vague but give me your best advice.

Thanks

Kevin

Posted by: john_hicks Accepted Answer
8/21/2006 12:56 AM (CST)
Hi Kevin

Benn there - done that! So, I know the dilemma you are working through.

In the end, I took on a small local marketing agency on a monthly retainer who worked really hard and developed with our business. As we built up, so they built up their capacity with us - and their range of contacts in our industry.

They also became an extension of our business.

I hope this experience is helpful.

John
 
Posted by: nmuqbel Member Response
8/21/2006 1:36 AM (CST)
Hey Kevin,

What do you expect from your marketing manager or marketing agency? do you want a marketing manager that puts strategies, estimates your sales, and handles all sorts of advertising and promotion? or do you want him just for handling advertising??

 
Posted by: W.M.M.A. Member Response
8/21/2006 7:01 AM (CST)
Your thoughts about an agency may be what you have experienced in the past, but believe it or not, there are many agencies, especially on this forum, who I know put their clients first. If you mean by immediately they will jump up, say yes sir and run to it...then, you're right.

But if you mean they will get to it today or tomorrow, you're right. Most aspects in marketing are planned...or, should be. So there is not much need to move by the moment. If there is a PR emergency, that too takes a bit of time.

We pride ourselves on customer service, and have not lost a client because of any delays. Not reaching your goals in a timely manner means that we haven't done our job.

When you are ready, please visit our Post a Project area of the forum. Allow for some of the best in the business to provide you with many opportunities to set your mind at ease about marketing 'agencies'. I believe you will be pleasantly surprised at the level of service you will be able to secure.

Randall
WMMA
 
Posted by: Frank Hurtte Accepted Answer
8/21/2006 9:06 AM (CST)
Marketing is such a wide ranging topic... It is very hard to get a single person with all the skills you need.

Plus, there are a number of people out there ready to sell you on their skills as a marketing manager who really lack some of the important skills you will need... ie webdesign, publishing work, etc.

Invest your money in a salesmanager.. let him coordinate with a marketing firm..

And, a purchasing manager... should be able to provide some leadership in the warehouse.
 
Posted by: D4Demand Member Response
8/21/2006 9:24 AM (CST)
Kevin

I love Randall, but I have to disagree. Keep you money out of the hands of advertising agencies who masquerade as marketing firms. It will take them 3 years and triple your marketing budget to learn your business.

Retain control as the CMO, hire out all the technical stuff. The performance of a sales manager, Purchase manager, Warehouse manager can be measured every day. Need an agency? Hire a sales agency.

You cannot afford to delegate the responsibility you have to your customers. Customers are to hard to replace.
 
Posted by: MANSING Accepted Answer
8/21/2006 10:16 AM (CST)
Hi Kevin,

You have very high motivation for your dream career. Congratulation for that!! I would like to suggest you to do SWOT – strength, weaknesses, opportunity and treats analysis for your business. We need to allocate the right man for right position and for right time!!

You need to consider about your Budget and the future business plan. I will say if your budget is good and future is demanding then hire some for permanent basis another wise get some for short term basis.

I hope this will help!

Regards,

M Bhor
 
Posted by: rbauman* Member Response
8/21/2006 11:09 AM (CST)
YOu need to define what you expect from marketing and then, based on that definition, decide whether you can hire one person with all the required skills and experience or if you would be better off hiring an agency that has a combination of people with the right mix of skills and experience (and a background in and understanding of your type of business).

You will likely have a learning curve with both a newly hired employee and a contracted agency, so I wouldn't use that as a decision factor. I'd focus on what you want to accomplish and, if you use an agency, is it for the short term or do you expect to develop an ongoing, long term relationship.
 
Posted by: kevinbhuynh* Author Response
8/21/2006 11:21 AM (CST)
Thanks for all your responses.

I am sorry, I am new to this forum and not sure how awarding Expert points works. Because there are few answers which still has open question. And I don't know how to reply to each response. Anyway it will take me some time to learn this forum.

These are my answers to some of your question:

1. John_Hicks: I agree with John Hicks of hiring an agency who has experience in the same industry.

2. mnuqbel: Yes, I want the Marketing manager to do exactly just that ".. marketing manager that puts strategies, estimates your sales, and handles all sorts of advertising and promotion.." and many more.

3. WMMA: I don't mean to have a manager, jump in and out of my office every second. I agree that marketing is a long term strategy but having a manager in house would speed up my plan. Because it requires coordination of everyone in the company.

4. Frank: very interesting thought, I definitely keep my mind open to this idea: "....Invest your money in a salesmanager.. let him coordinate with a marketing firm..

And, a purchasing manager... should be able to provide some leadership in the warehouse...."

5. D4demand: As with everything else, of course I have to be careful with everyone that I deal with.

6. Mansing: thanks for your encouragement. I cannot agree with you more. Now that big money involves, many things at stake especially with 2 little kids at home, I need to be vilgilance at what I am doing. I have part of my business plan done. So far I am confident with my thoughts that if everything goes accordingly I will have a very good chance of success.

Thank you very much for your contributions.

Please keep posting.

Kevin
 
Posted by: Nayip* Member Response
8/21/2006 11:55 AM (CST)
Kevin,

That is what everyone would do to expand their business. But the simplest mistake that everyone would make is to expand too fast & too furious.
Before you start to engage an agency you got to put your company correctly first.
Firstly- who is in charge internally?(purchasing, delivery,
production, finance..etc)
Secondly - who is in charge of the external office work?( Marketing, Sales, Customer service, Collection ...etc)

Both this person has to be someone you can trust and ready to take the challenge that you have put down in your dream plan. You can only take either one of it only or you will end up being a one man show. Promote as many people internally as possible as they know your product very well. They may not have the mentality but they are loyal to you if they have put up with you for 8 years.
Start from this first carefully delegate 50% of your responsibility to whichever department you cannot be involved (100%) and slowly employ the professional to come in one by one just to make sure they don't let you down at the same time.(if they do). To transform from a company that has an ultimate decision maker to many decision maker is a tough transition but if you want to do it big you will have to take some chances.

Good Luck.
 
Posted by: Azmico Accepted Answer
8/21/2006 12:28 PM (CST)
I see some very interesting posts on this subject.
I would recommend the following:

AA) SALES & MARKETING MANAGER (1 position)

What you mentioned about marketing firm is quite true. In my personal experience, hiring a marketing/PR firm does not always work (though it also depends on the kind of business), simply for 2 main reasons, i.e
no matter how good the ad firm is, you are the visioneer of your business and there will be lot of time wasted in coordination and explaining your vision/strategies to an outside firm and expect them to act accordingly.
Therefore, it would be best to have a qualified Sales & Marketing manager (1 position) who can use best mix of his marketing expertise and your vision to get the job done.

BB)OPERATIONS MANAGER(1 Position)

A 'Jack of all trade' kinda guy who has, or can learn the warehouse/purchasing functions, understanding of sales/marketing concepts will definitely help you to implement the strategy across the organization.

Hope this helps.
Good luck!
 
Posted by: kevinbhuynh* Author Response
8/21/2006 2:49 PM (CST)
I thank you for each of your response. I can feel your heart "pumping" when giving me these words.

Nayip: I love each and every employee who is working for me. I have some who has been with me for 5-8 years. I am proud of this record. I would love to promote from within as you suggested but unfortunately their level of knowledge, experience, education, motivation....stop at a certain level. I tried. I cannot have this problem holding my feet down. This is one of the reason I want to look for professional people with lot more experience and knowledge to help me taking the company to the next level. And of course I would never abandon my current employees unless they want to stay in the same course.

Azmico: It would be nice to buy 1 get 1 free. I thought about this posibility too. On the plus side is of course saving some money, on the minus side is I have been through in every of these positions at some points in the last 10 years . I know the amount of works involve. At this point in time, I decided I cannot be in all. My goal is to have my plan fully implemented in the next 3 years. And I know when I have my dream team in place, my company will take off in no time. I believe it is possible.

Thank you
 
Posted by: Papadoc (Steve)* Accepted Answer
8/21/2006 9:51 PM (CST)
Kevin -

I've been down this road several times and guided others through it as well. It's a tricky time and mistakes can be costly, so don't make radical moves. There is one caveat that few recall during this time and that is there are few if any people that value your business, success, and money the same way you do. It's great to trust, better to trust and verify and build in checks and balances.

Ultimately, this means retaining control over critical areas and honing your skills and procedures for supervision. You wouldn't dream of hiring a marketing company, writing them a check and then leaving them to do whatever and hope for the best. Yet so many business owners do this when they hire an inside marketing manager.

Those who have not supervised decision makers often find they are lacking in the skills and procedures to be able to monitor these effectively. It's not the same as supervising production employees and their mistakes are far more devastating. If you are so busy doing task A in corner A that you have no idea what someone is doing over in corner B, you might have a problem. If that person in corner B is making wrong decisions and you don't see it, you can have a catastrophe.

I have always found that if I sit down and list and categorize all my tasks, there are many that I can pass along to a subordinate. In many cases, this means not bringing on a full time person to head up an entire department yet, but a well-developed administrative assistant that can and will perform duties that you can oversee rather than do yourself. You will pay well for such an assistant, but it's well worth it.

You will find that when these duties are eliminated from your schedule, you not only have time to supervise, you have time to reach out and perform far more of the tasks that only you can do. You retain critical controls, yet by passing along all but these, you more or less "bank" functionality that can then eventually be turned over to a person who will be performing the entire job.

When you have reached the point where even these have become too cumbersome, this is the time to bring on a full time person in your least functional area.

Let's say that your least functional area, or the one that requires you the least is purchasing. If your assistant can perform all the tasks of purchasing (along with all the other non-critical tasks), only giving you a report or purchase orders to sign off on, this function is then "banked". As the functional requirement of this position grows (could be months or a year), you can then bring in a full time purchasing agent with adequate duties to fill their time. This then of course relieves you and your assistant to move into other areas and provides your new purchasing agent with a go-to other than you to ask questions.

Others have also used the above procedure for outsourcing certain things as well. Using an advertising or marketing agency is such an option and you of course can elect to bring it back inside some time in the future. In the meantime, it's someone else's baby and your tasks are strictly administrative.

While you may be able to financially bring on all these people in a short time, controlling your growth on the inside is also essential. A company that has largely depended solely on you will have a hard time bringing on all these people and give them enough tasks to fill their time and keep them focused. You can't just drop everything into their respective laps and tell them to run with it.

You and these new staff will find that while the first couple of weeks, what you can accomplish in your 15 hours per week while wearing that hat doesn't convert into a 40-45 hour per week job for someone else overnight. Things get caught up, people get bored, and you are going nuts trying to keep them focused. That is by far the biggest advantage to outsourcing. When an advertising agency is done with your job, they aren't left sitting.

Focus on bringing just a few people on at a time. You might grow slower, but low morale in the staff because they are bored won't be a bigger problem for you to deal with.

As for the points assignment routine, question askers generally just click the "Accept This Response" for all answers that you think answered your question, got you to think, or generally gave you value. Depending upon how many you checked, those points will be automatically and evenly divided.
 
Posted by: nmuqbel Accepted Answer
8/22/2006 1:17 AM (CST)
As Steve mentioned, maybe outsourcing would be a good start before deciding to hire a marketing manager. You can hire an agency to handle this job for you and they will report directly to you. You will learn their methods and strategies. you'll get a general 'feel' of how marketing should be done. Then when you plan on expanding and hiring more people you'll know exactly what you want from the marketing manager.

Good luck,

Nader
 
Posted by: telemoxie Member Response
8/22/2006 7:26 AM (CST)
I do not know much about your business or about distribution businesses in general, but you might consider hiring a junior level "marketing assisitant" or "marketing specialist" and back them up with an expert on retainer, especially someone with experience in your industry.
 
Posted by: follet* Member Response
8/22/2006 3:14 PM (CST)
This seems like a real big jump, but I think you should way your options and check out which would be most beneficial to your company, researh the marketing agencies before you contract one, It seems that you may just have to hire someone with alot of experince in this industry first of all. Would you like to sell shares in your company.
 
Posted by: kevinbhuynh* Author Response
8/22/2006 9:55 PM (CST)
Oh boy, I got some very good advices here.

Thanks again everyone.

Papadoc: what a detail and helpful answer you gave! I agree 100% with what you were saying.

nmuqbel: as Azmico mentioned above: "..there will be lot of time wasted in coordination and explaining your vision/strategies to an outside firm and expect them to act accordingly.." this is one of the negative aspect of hiring an agency and it can slow thing down. I can agree that to hire an agency and learn how they work is good for people just starting out. I have been in the business for 10 years. I have some specific strategies that I want to accomplish. I know I am taking some big risk here but moving forward with my plan, I cannot afford to "wait and see". You know what: the more I think about this, regardless which way I decide to do, there are always some advantages and disadvantages in either way. The key to succeed is to find the right agency or the right person.

telemoxie: the strategy you mentioned will not work for my plan because it will take me back to where I am now. I need some "key" players within my organization, meaning REAL professional people who has REAL experience that generate REAL results.

follet: it will be a plus if I can find somebody who has background and experience in the industry.

I know many of you've already given me the answer but I would like to keep this question open. I am sure there are a lot people out there will benefit from this post.

Thanks all.

Kevin


 
Posted by: kevinbhuynh* Author Response
8/22/2006 10:08 PM (CST)
I have another question related to this topic.

What kind of a marketing manager would I expect if my budget is:

1. $85K - $100K

2. $65K - $80K

3. $45K - $55K

4. $35K - $40K

I know this is kind of a tough question. Just give me your best shot.

Thanks very much,

Kevin
 
Posted by: Jo Masterson Member Response
8/24/2006 11:49 PM (CST)
I dont know where you live... but in the the Seattle area a Marketing Manager with 5 or more years experience will run you $60-90+K. If you are planning on solid growth that depends on their efforts, I would look for someone with experience and proven results... That usually means some experience. Hope this helps,
Jo

PS - I would hire part time, contract or outsource your Marketing Plan if you cant afford a proven person full time. I think using someone less experienced to implement the plan would be fine.
 
Posted by: kevinbhuynh* Author Response
8/25/2006 1:17 PM (CST)
Thanks all.

All answers are great.

Kevin
 


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