It is my third week as Business Development Manager for a small and medium business marketing agency, and I am starting to meet some of our clients. Our Queen Bee, Sharon Latour, had been passionately telling me of the connection we have with our clients, but I hadn’t yet considered how personally involved I would be in their stories. They all had this remarkable vision for their business, and as I realized that we could be the ones to help take them there, I started to realize how much I was going to love this job.

The first person I met was a business owner named Shaun. He not only told a story of a vision that needed to be realized, but also had an approach to outsourcing in his business, that describes exactly what I think all of Australia should learn from.

Shaun’s Marketing Problem

Shaun essentially can give your IT department a ton of fire-power. Hell, he could be your IT department, all from wherever he happens to be at the time. He says he can get text alerts if something goes wrong, jump on his laptop and fix everything remotely, without you even needing to care. He can play a vital role in supporting an IT department, but he also said he’s ready and open to companies outsourcing their entire IT department to him.

Which makes sense- outsourcing IT can save a lot in overheads like HR costs; streamlining a whole department into an automatic, efficient process. Hence why in places like the USA, it’s natural for companies to focus on spending time making money with what they’re good at… which a lot of the time means outsourcing their IT.

That understanding of the efficiencies of outsourcing had implications for his marketing. He had a typical marketing communications problem- lots of companies were starting up that said they were in the same category as him- “Remote Managed Services”, but they are actually very different. From what Shaun tells me, he invests in quality, highly sophisticated software… and his competitors might as well be using a few free apps on the iPhone. So he needed to reposition himself away from these competitors. So does he say ‘well I might as well spend my time having a crack at this marketing thing?’ No of course not…

Shaun’s decision to Outsource Marketing

As somebody who spruiks the idea of outsourcing IT, he knew that outsourcing his marketing was the obvious choice for seeing his vision realized.

As a small business owner, you obviously know the company vision better than anybody else. But that doesn’t mean that it’s your sole responsibility to market it. There’s a big difference between knowing a vision and getting it marketed. With Shaun, there would be no need to spend time mucking around with marketing, when he could be spending time as a powerhouse of IT support and actually… you know… making money. With a relationship with us, he now gets access to a whole experienced marketing department working on his brand and getting and keeping the customers he needs. He does remarkable IT stuff, we do remarkable marketing stuff. We’re an obvious match.

Three great reasons for Australia to take heed of outsourced marketing.

Our Queen Bee has already given three reasons in-house marketing rarely works. Now, I would like to focus on 3 reasons why I think outsourcing marketing is sensible move for taking a good business and making it remarkable.

Great reason number one: Outsourcing marketing saves money and time

It would cost more to hire an extra admin person than it would be to outsource your marketing to a dedicated, bright, experienced team of marketers, who already know what they’re doing.

Great reason number two: We help you focus on core competencies

There are things your business does really, really well. Those are things that make you money. Spending time experimenting and trying to learn the whole new industry of marketing will be haphazard at best. Outsourcing your marketing means it is all streamlined.

Great reason number three: A caretaker of your marketing vision

You’re probably used to hiring single marketing functions such as printing pamphlets, etc. But outsourcing your marketing means that you’re objectively given the marketing that will best suit your needs- rather than being sold the only specialty the agency is capable of.

Outsourcing your marketing means that you’ll have one primary contact that will get to intimately know your brand and vision while building a long-term relationship based on making you money.

That’s why I’m making it my mission to open people’s eyes to the benefits outsourcing marketing can bring to companies wanting to focus on what they do best, and leaving the marketing to the best marketers.