8 reasons why you should work with a marketing mentor
You’ve been thinking you should work with a marketing mentor, but you’re not sure what your investment will get you. You work hard for your money, so why should you spend it and your time on a marketing mentor?
Here’s the thing…
The most successful businesses have one thing in common: they have advisors, mentors, or coaches. I know from my many conversations with small business owners that marketing is one area that they really struggle with.
But seeking out advice can be scary. After all, you’re going to be investing your time and money in this relationship. So, what will you get out of it to make you feel that it’s time and money well spent? Read on to find out what working with a marketing mentor can bring to your business.
1. Benefit from some real-world marketing experience
If the marketing mentor you’re thinking about working with has been a marketer for years, you will benefit from a whole world of experience. In my time as a marketer, I’ve tried most tactics to raise awareness of a business, product or service.
When you work with a marketing mentor, he or she will also be able to tell you about pitfalls they’ve come across. Imagine being able to see into the future and know that a marketing tactic might fail miserably. Well, your marketing mentor will be able to help you figure that out. Actually, more than just telling you it won’t work, they’ll sit with you to talk through the options you should take.
Finally, anyone who’s a professional marketer is testing with their marketing all the time. That means you benefit from learning about the latest techniques and how they would work for your business.
2. The stopgap you need until you can afford a permanent resource
Do you often dream about the marketing in your business just happening? Well, that’s a reality if you can afford to hire a dedicated marketing resource, either an employee or a consultant. But that does cost money that you might not have yet. So, what’s the next best thing? A marketing mentor.
I’ve already mentioned that you will benefit from their wealth of experience when it comes to marketing your business. But there’s more in it for you than just that. Working with a marketing mentor will show you just what it takes to market your business. This will make it easier for you to pick the right person to do the job permanently.
In the long term, whether you want to employ someone to do your marketing or bring in a consultant, having worked with a marketing mentor, you’ll know exactly what you need from that resource. In addition, you’ll know the right questions to ask the person you’re thinking of hiring or working with.
The goals that Minal set us were very tangible to deliver and we could easily measure progress. We rapidly saw an increase in our planner sales whilst working with her.
Charlotte Barrett, 1 Less Stress
3. Fast-track your learning and make a bigger impact on your business
Think about the last time you tried to do something new for your marketing. How long did it take you to figure it all out before you could even get started on seeing results? Every minute you spend on figuring out how to market your business is a minute not spent on running and working on your business. That time is money.
So, what happens when you work with a marketing mentor? He or she can help you understand quickly what will and won’t work for your business. You’ll also be able to learn about new tactics and tools in a fraction of the time you’d need if you researched it all yourself.
What’s more, you can fit it all in and run your business because you’ll spend less time learning and more time doing!
4. Create that elusive marketing plan without a fuss
You know you need a marketing plan! The only problem is you don’t know where to start or even how long it will take. Meanwhile, there are a million other things that need your attention. Sound familiar? Well, a marketing mentor will be able to help you understand exactly how to go about creating a marketing plan.
Working closely with you, he or she will help you understand the process you need to follow. When you’ve done it once, it becomes easier and having the confidence you’ve gained from this learning process will set you up to create your marketing plan with ease.
In addition to the process of creating the marketing plan, your marketing mentor will help you understand the systems you need to have in place to make sure your marketing happens seamlessly. That means more time for you to work on the rest of your business!
Working with Minal, my emails now receive significantly higher open and click rates, and we have far more engagement with our customers and regular visits to our website from subscribers than we used to.
John Callow, Northern Wine School
5. Quickly get to grips with the marketing tools you want to use
Something small business owners frequently tell me they find frustrating is the amount of time they spend figuring out how a marketing tool works. There are so many marketing tools out there that you could spend all your time learning about them and how to use them. That’s valuable time you don’t have. It’s time you need to spend focussing on your existing customers and finding new ones.
Working with a marketing mentor gives you that safety blanket of knowing that you have a real-life person to guide you on how to use that marketing tool, pointing you in the right direction to the right information. What’s more, they’ll suggest tools they know you’ll benefit from, and speed up what you need to know about using them.
6. That second opinion when you really need one
When you need a trusted opinion about your business’ finances, who do you turn you? For me, it’s my accountant. So, what if you had a trusted advisor when it comes to your marketing? That’s what a marketing mentor can offer. They’re that sounding board, for some reason when your world is that bit crazy.
In addition to being a sounding board, they’re also objective. Sometimes, it’s all too easy to make a decision based on emotions. A marketing mentor will give you an objective opinion because they can remove all the emotion.
I did just that for one of my clients, who was offered a too-good-to-be-true opportunity to advertise in a publication she would love to have been featured in. What she didn’t realise until we spoke was that it would have probably cost her the same amount again as the advert to have a designer create an ad she was happy with, in the time she had. We chatted, and I pointed out the pros and cons she was able to make the decision to pass on it, but after having worked through all the reasons why.
7. Working with a marketing mentor can give you the gift of time
OK, so not literally. But if you’ve read this far, you’ll have seen all the places where you likely spend a lot of time you just don’t have. Working with a marketing mentor will help you get to the tasks of actually doing your marketing more quickly. Even just 30 minutes spent with them will give you the edge on what you’re trying to achieve.
All this means that you can spend more focused time on other aspects of your business that may be suffering as a result of marketing taking up your time. You can spend time developing new products or services that will help your business grow. Or, imagine having more time to spend with your family. All this is possible with the time you’d save not having to figure out all your marketing on your own.
Minal really pushes me to think about how to communicate with my customers. That has helped me to get bookings for my artists’ workshops at a time when people think carefully about spending money.
Mary Turley, Wonky Wheel
8. Keep hold of your hard-earned cash
When was the last time you spent money on your marketing and thought to yourself that you might as well have thrown said money down a well? We all want to try things to give our businesses exposure and bring in new customers. Sometimes, we don’t think about the money we’re spending to do that.
Working with a marketing mentor will help you spend your money on things that will be effective. By working with you, your marketing mentor will help you understand what is likely to work in marketing your business and therefore whether it’s worth spending the money on.
You’ll also find out about resources that are either free or very low cost. I’m in the same boat as every small business owner. I have to make every penny work hard for my business, so having that insight into tools that won’t stretch your budget is a godsend.
Finally, when you work with a marketing mentor, he or she will show you how to budget for your marketing spend. We all have to budget for the things we want in our businesses and our lives. Marketing is no different. Working with a marketing coach will show you how to make your scarce resources work harder.
We all rely on advice in every walk of our lives. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received since starting my business is to surround yourself with trusted advisors. Whether they are friends, family or a more formal mentoring relationship, having an advisor to turn to will help your business to grow.