I had an interesting conversation the other day with the CMO of a local company over lunch and they were raving to me about a new online marketing company they picked up to handle their web advertising.
Since I know just about everyone in the local Internet marketing space ( this is what happens when you pioneer a service in your hometown for well over a decade ), I inquired about the company they picked up and to my surprise, their name didn’t ring any bells with me. As I dug deeper into the conversation, what alarmed me was that this “new company” might actually be some kind of fly by night service about to pull the wool over my potential client.
I asked questions about this company:
1. What kind of clients do they handle now?
2. What kind of budgets do they handle for those clients?
3. Did they provide you references?
4. How qualified do you think they are to actually handle your account?
The CMO didn’t have what I would call “great” answers to those questions and a little more background checking should have been in order to find out more. It never ceases to amaze me how companies can jump head first into a partnership without doing their due diligence just because they got a “hot tip” or because someone at their office knows someone who knows someone.
What happens when you partner with someone that you barely know anything about and you want to grow past their limitations? Are you going to let them “learn” or educate themselves on your dime when that hurdle comes up? Wouldn’t you rather partner up with someone that not only has years of direct experience, but routinely handles clients that have million dollar budgets in the field you need help in?
The CMO was looking for help with Facebook advertising, something I have been doing since Facebook first opened their doors with their self serve system. If I were him, I would much rather take advice and get help from someone who can prove what they do with million dollar budgets and can help me scale my success, then hire someone that barely has a couple hundred dollars in unproven experience.
Small sample of a few of my Facebook Adverting accounts:
Account #1
Account #2
Account #3
