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Anyone promote themselves as a virtual marketing manager?

by ronr
4 replies
Anyone actively promote themselves as virtual marketing managers for busineses bigger than a local mom and pop. Instead perhaps B2B clients.

With small local businesses you have the constant grind of getting new customers for websites, SEO etc. especially since many of those end up being short term local small clients without a lot of money. If you do monthly residual it might be only a few hundred a month so you are dealing with lots of clients to make any decent money.

A half decent full time marketing manager gets $50-70K+ at a little bigger company but some companies of that size don't want to hire a full time person or can't find someone locally.

What if you charged even $3k per month to oversee their marketing with the idea that it wouldn't be full time but they would get the benefit of getting an "expert from a far". Since you weren't a full time employee they would save:

recruiting expenses
employment taxes
benefits
space
equipment
training

You could have 3-4 of those kind of clients, make a decent monthly income and a steady cash flow and only work with a few steady clients.

Granted this isn't much different than consulting but framed in a different way so it was more long term.

Most company's still think of hiring and having an inhouse person but having virtual help is becoming more common.

Any thoughts?

Ron
#manager #marketing #promote #virtual
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    I suspect for companies close to 50 employees they would be interested. The reason being the rules that treat small businesses differently once they get 50 employees.

    I am sure each company would be a different sale and how much work they would expect would depend on how they valued you. So your value and their value might be very different.

    Worth trying if that is what you want to do. Just remember you are selling yourself more than your company in this way so you have to structure the deals right or you could limit your income plus have your income tied to just a few companies. Which IMO is worse than being a valued employee at one.

    I work for one of those just sub-50 employee companies and I am not sure if I left rather they would be open to that kind of arrangement. Perhaps if I offered it but that is due to the relationship I have already built with the company.

    If you have relationships with key employees in these sized businesses I could see how you could talk about the idea and get them on board. The key IMO to this kind of sale will be the relationship.
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    Aaron Doud - Sales & Success
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    • Profile picture of the author ronr
      Just testing the water, I had two companies interested. One of them was willing to pay 60K plus incentives but ended up finding a local guy so it just made sense for them to go with him.

      The other wanted to move forward on a base+commission deal but after much thought I decided not to do it because of the time it would take to help them get to the point I'd be getting commissions. I prefer laydowns if part of money is comming by commissions.

      Ron
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Lessard
    I do exactly what you are suggesting but maybe a bit different than you would expect.
    I have had no problem finding clients that have as little as 6 employees that could use my services at 3k+/month. For instance a high end cosmetic dentist, national PI firm etc...

    The trick is simple. With your skills, team (in my case VA's) and resources (think all the software you buy and use etc..) could you make them more than you cost them? If the answer is yes AND you take a heap of headaches off the table for them they are happy to do it.

    Of course it certainly helps if you have a proven track record.

    If you are confident in the value you bring to the table and know you can make them more than you will cost them, make sure the deal is as good for you as it is them. I no longer even consider a client unless they bring a substantial upfront retainer to the table (10k+) and there is always a recurring monthly fee. Deals that include incentives based on performance jump to the front of the pack for me.

    Good luck :-)

    Even for a cosmetic dentistry practice imagine all the things that are costing them money and all the different sources they turn to, generally too late.

    The need seo, social media, youtube vids, reputation monitoring and managment, someone to keep an eye on hosting and act as a liason for all the other people trying to sell them technical services like call tracking, software etc...

    If you can act as their quarterback there is significant value in it and if you use resource pooling and apply lessons learned from one non compete client to the other you really bring some serious value to the table.

    Using this approach this is the first time in a year I have had an opening for a client and mostly it is due to all my projects now running like clockwork because of the processes I have built in to my business.
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    • Profile picture of the author ronr
      Thanks, good information.

      Sounds like you've positioned yourself well. You're right the business doesn't need to be big if you can produce for them. They would rather have quarterback handle the things you mentioned so why not give them what they want.

      Better for them because you are helping them in numerous parts of their business and better for you getting substantial monthly retainers and working for only a few clients for the long term which is easier because you understand their businesses.

      Much better than the grind that most offline marketers go through offering low paying single services which mean having to work with a lot of clients and constant prospecting to keep the pipeline full.

      Ron



      Ron


      Originally Posted by plessard View Post

      I do exactly what you are suggesting but maybe a bit different than you would expect.
      I have had no problem finding clients that have as little as 6 employees that could use my services at 3k+/month. For instance a high end cosmetic dentist, national PI firm etc...

      The trick is simple. With your skills, team (in my case VA's) and resources (think all the software you buy and use etc..) could you make them more than you cost them? If the answer is yes AND you take a heap of headaches off the table for them they are happy to do it.

      Of course it certainly helps if you have a proven track record.

      If you are confident in the value you bring to the table and know you can make them more than you will cost them, make sure the deal is as good for you as it is them. I no longer even consider a client unless they bring a substantial upfront retainer to the table (10k+) and there is always a recurring monthly fee. Deals that include incentives based on performance jump to the front of the pack for me.

      Good luck :-)

      Even for a cosmetic dentistry practice imagine all the things that are costing them money and all the different sources they turn to, generally too late.

      The need seo, social media, youtube vids, reputation monitoring and managment, someone to keep an eye on hosting and act as a liason for all the other people trying to sell them technical services like call tracking, software etc...

      If you can act as their quarterback there is significant value in it and if you use resource pooling and apply lessons learned from one non compete client to the other you really bring some serious value to the table.

      Using this approach this is the first time in a year I have had an opening for a client and mostly it is due to all my projects now running like clockwork because of the processes I have built in to my business.
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