Let's start with this short story about Ed Kleinman. Notice that the story is 5 years old, but I'm using it for two reasons. First, Ed's clients love him and even though he stopped working for Dave Kurlan a few months ago, his clients still find him. Second, he knows his stuff cold! He doesn't need the book. He is the book. He not only can quote the book, but he can tell you the page that the quote is on and he can show you how to do it and tweak you so that you can do it right.
Enough about Ed. You might be wondering, where's Rick going with this?
This is probably a good time to share the two titles that I was considering for this post. As you can see, I decided on "Inbound Marketing for Dummies". The other was,
"The Top Ten Signs That Your Marketing Person Doesn't Know What They're Doing".
So, here we go....
#10 Their Contact Info on their LinkedIn Profile lists "Company Website".
#9 Their Headline on LinkedIn is CEO, President or Founder of (their company name)
#8 They can't spell SEO (c'mon lighten up!)
#7 They have 5+ Twitter accounts (so they can spam, but it looks like somebody else)
#6 They are examples of the Cobbler's Children (They don't blog, read, fix their website or do anything else that they expect you to do.)
#5 They don't have enough leads and/or sales. (Seriously. Just shake your head. Isn't that what they do?)
#4 They want to talk to you about SEO, social media, website revamps, leads, page rank, analytics, marketing software rather than where your business needs to be and why. (It shouldn't be about what they want to do, it should be about what you want.)
#3 You aren't impressed by the route that brought you together.
#2 They don't understand why your customers buy from you. (It's not about personas. It's about the person's why.)
and the #1 sign that your marketing person doesn't know what they're doing is
They haven't read Inbound Marketing. They don't know the answer, nor what page it's on. They have to look it up. ('Inbound Immigrants' come in all shapes and sizes. Some used to be designers, writers, advertisers, PR people, even salespeople and they know how to do what they used to do well, but they may not be able to solve your problem.)
If you're looking to hire someone to help you grow using inbound marketing, tell me. I've talked with a lot of them. I'll show you where to look. I'll tell you what I know. I'll give you the questions to ask.
