Are You Stuck in the Matrix?
Remember in the final film of the Matrix trilogy, how Neo and Trinity’s ship burst out of the dark smoky clouds into a world of blue skies and sunlight. They see the beauty, the clarity and the calm of the world before gravity pulls them back down into the reality of chaos… that’s you.
You live in a daily whirlwind of problems, from sales to staffing problems. Heaped upon you are the problems of the world – their not your problems but staff keep coming to you with holiday requests and “What are you doing about the work place pension?” (yet another opportunity for the government to rob you). That employer’s contribution comes straight out of your holiday fund! Business isn’t the fun place for business owners it should be anymore.
Most of my friends own businesses, but those that don’t are often perplexed by our views as they seem totally at odds with that of staff. A chat at the bar on a driving holiday with my friends is just a never ending retelling of horror stories from our day to day businesses.
However, many business owners have finally got a handle on the problem. The answer is to step away from the problem – literally. If you’re in the office, people just keep turning to you for solutions and this turns into you getting nothing done outside of doing your staff’s job. The one you paid them to do, in attempt to free you up.
In Marketing the problem is even greater. The truly smart Marketing Manager that works for you knows a simple truth – they don’t and cannot possibly know all they need to know about Web Design, Website Maintenance, Pay Per Click, SEO, Social Media, Re-Marketing, Email Marketing, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. They actually need help. The future is all about Virtual Digital Marketing Managers, but we will get to that.
So, you know it all?
If someone tells you they know all about Digital Marketing, turn on your heels and walk the other way. No-one understands more than one or two areas these days – it is simply too complex. I would go so far as to say you either understand Pay Per Click or SEO but not both well enough to be successful. The number of times I have spoken to the ‘new’ Internet Marketing Expert at a company who tells me they have done AdWords for 10 years, yet when I ask them to show me around the AdWords account they aren’t even familiar with the buttons to press. Trouble is most business owners don’t like to be told the truth – you recruited the wrong person!
We’re growing rapidly in both the UK and the US, partly because I don’t work Fridays anymore. I work less hours and this enables me to take a more strategic view. I now work more on the business rather than in the business – I’ve stepped out of the whirlwind.
It’s a technique that more business owners are using. I have an unbelievably successful self-made client who has 4 staff working for him and the business is worth around £40 million. We manage his Digital Marketing. Well, we do more than manage his Digital Marketing – we’re effectively his Virtual Marketing Team. A team full of Virtual Digital Marketing Managers, each specialising in different Marketing areas.
Virtual Digital Marketing Managers
Think of it this way… to employ a marketing manager could cost between £16,000 to £24,000, but more likely £25,000 plus (for a reasonable one). Add on cost of employer’s national insurance, pension, a desk, a laptop, software and suddenly employing your own Marketing Manager becomes very expensive. Consider that their costs have to be paid out of gross profit. Even a general gross profit of 30% means you have to generate in sales anywhere between £60,000 to £100,000 to cover their costs – that’s before you add in the other costs of ad spend, distribution and other costs.
A Marketing Manager on even £18,000 is likely to require you to add an extra £75,000 in sales each year just to break even, should you want a profit you’re looking at upwards of a £100,000 in new sales. That’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears just so you can give someone a job. Then there is the question of do they really have the skills? You know the answer is no, nobody does.
It’s not a slight against your recruiting skills or your Marketing Manager, not even Bill Gates knows it all. You need multiple experts with depth, so by our calculation you need to add in extra staffing costs for at least two of the following skills – SEO, AdWords, Bing, Facebook, Website Developer and Email Marketing. Those costs are just through the roof for a less than ideal solution. This is where Virtual Digital Marketing Managers come into play.
Then what about the quiet months? Oh, yes we all know the feeling – the quiet months when it all slows and the cash starts to run down or we slip into the overdraft and the bank suddenly takes an interest in you again (not for your benefit). All those happy little faces on pay day, except you – empty bank accounts don’t make for happy business owners. You should let the staff go for a few months (in an ideal world) but you haven’t the balls or you aren’t sure if you could even find replacements come the busy time again.
If you have ever had to let staff go, you know they suddenly turn from being your friends into having a pop at you for being an incompetent idiot and not running the business correctly or worse. But, if you outsourced your Marketing to a Virtual Marketing Team made up of Virtual Digital Marketing Managers, you could just turn that team off and on at will with no hard feelings.
Outsourcing – Welcome to the future
This outsourcing concept is suddenly looking interesting – now you see why the guy with £40 million outsourced 190 jobs and that why he’s worth £40 million. You don’t have to look at all those faces wasting your money day in day out, if you outsourced.
I am sitting here in the garden munching Sainsbury’s Tortilla Chips (the Sainsbury’s basic are the best by the way) on a sunny Friday wondering if I should nip out to Chester for lunch, whilst teams in two countries work productively away. Perhaps you deserve Fridays off as well? You should call us and find out how outsourcing can help you have more time to yourself.
My final thought is this – I turned 50 last year and realised I have only 20 good years left of partying. That is only… 1040 weekends or 2080 days! By re-organising I have increased that to 3120 days by not working Fridays anymore! Do you see the benefit now?
Why not call us? Free up time and gain prosperity with Virtual Digital Marketing Managers!
