Raise your hand if this is you. It took not just one, but two, three, or four marketing agencies to get us back to where we started. Thousands of dollars are wasted each time, fueling even more resentment against marketing agencies. Well… you’re definitely not alone in this. Overall, agencies have a bad reputation for overpromising and underperforming.

Does this thought process sound familiar?

• Can I learn this myself and get the same results?

• Can this institution advance the results it last claimed it could deliver?

• Is this just a bunch of smoke and mirrors?

• Is now the right time to hire an agency, or should I try to learn enough to get me to a place where I can hire an agency?

• Where should I invest to maximize ROI?

• Can this agency exceed the hurdle rate?

RELATED: Thinking about bringing marketing in-house? Think again.

Checklist for finding the right agency partner

How do you avoid the agency dilemma and find someone who actually delivers results? There is something.

• Is this the right time for me to use an agency?

  • Agencies must commit to a minimum amount of advertising spend in order to deliver results on services such as paid media. This is because the algorithm needs a certain amount of data to find the right customers in order to reach the scaling threshold.

  • If it’s a website or creative service, at this stage find a friend who has the basic knowledge, or maybe you’re better off doing it yourself, or an agency that can take professional photos and videos. Hire or build that world class website.

  • It all comes down to early cash allocation. As you may have heard from the gurus, cash is king in digital marketing.

• Can they bring results to my niche? Do you have testimonials to prove it?

• Are agencies willing to reach out to past clients and ask what they have to say about them?

• how many employees do they have?

  • This gives you an idea of ​​the depth of resources they have at their disposal. It’s not a leading indicator of quality or results, but if you’re a business, you’ll need people with near-infinite resources to adapt.

• What are the 2-3 services they specialize in?

  • Agencies with 15 to 20 people or less will only specialize in 2 or 3 services, regardless of what their website or pitch says. They don’t have the manpower to get the best results beyond that. Nor do they have the scale to attract top talent to really crush those results.

  • If they claim to be masters of the five services at that level, dig deeper to find out what they actually specialize in.

• Do you need to hire an agency for just one thing or multiple things?

  • If you’re in the early stages, you need to find someone who can deliver 80% of the results that top-tier agencies provide. Save money and save yourself the headache of having to listen to multiple agency talking he heads. At a much larger scale or enterprise level, you should consider using multiple agencies, each specializing in different services such as Facebook advertising, SEO, brand strategy, website development, CRO, etc.

• Will they conform to what I think will work, or are they inflexible?

  • Agencies often have a set of processes that they find to be most effective. But if they want your business to be unique and you don’t want your customers to be flexible about what they buy, it might be wise to go the other way.

Related: How Your Company Uses Both Outsourced and In-House Marketing

The most important question of all: What is the biggest and best use of my time as an entrepreneur?

Suppose you need heart surgery. Do you go to pediatrics? Or general practitioner? of course not! I’m going to google the best heart surgeon you can find. why? They have expertise in delivery which makes their job almost perfect.

The same is true for marketing agencies and other business roles. You can hire them so that you can free up time and actually work on growing your business. As a business owner, you start as the jack of all trades, from marketing to operations, product management, human resources and accounting. As you grow, you hire these roles. Well, believe it or not, you’re losing money by not hiring these roles (by not using your most valuable skill sets). opportunity cost).

Ultimately, it comes down to where you are in your lifecycle, what you can afford, and your current skill set. Knowing these three things and considering the questions above will help you identify where to lean. This greatly reduces agency turnover and, most importantly, loses valuable growth time.

RELATED: How to Hire an Effective Marketing Professional for Your Company

warning: If you’re a true marketing expert with years of experience in a particular area like Facebook advertising, Google, or SEO, why not hire these people until other areas of your company start taking a lot of your time? can wait

Consider these points carefully and carefully. Here’s to putting an end to your more consistent growth and reaching for aspirin after laying off yet another marketing agency. Cheers!