It can be tricky. Growing pains. In the early days, you split the marketing jobs between the founders and got fantastic results. But now you are no longer a startup…. According to the ScaleUp Institute, http://www.scaleupinstitute.org.uk a ‘scaleup’ is an enterprise with average annual growth in employees or turnover greater than 20 per cent per year over a three year period, and with more than 10 employees at the beginning of the period.
Congratulations on getting this far, but with growth comes new challenges. In this post, we will set out the symptoms scaleups experience when it is time to bring in new marketing skills.
- You don’t have the right skills – and if you are honest with yourself you never actually did. In the early days of the business, it worked, part luck, part tenacity but now you know you have got to up your game.
- Sales are stagnant – see point 1; what worked before isn’t enough and your sales managers are complaining there aren’t enough leads
- You don’t have enough time – initiatives are planned (a bit) and launched but they aren’t completed consistently. Or maybe they don’t even get off the to-do list!
- You don’t know what is working or how well it is working – tracking, analysing and reporting are all part and parcel of the marketing journey
- You don’t even like it – if you are totally honest with yourself, you much prefer working on other parts of the business
- You want a whole team but don’t have the budget
- You have a project with a clear scope – if you have a particular product you are wanting to launch or a discrete marketing project that is measurable with a beginning and an end then this could be the perfect time to reach out and find a freelancer or marketing agency to help
- You don’t have the time to interview and find the perfect person for your team – it can take between 3 – 6 months to find the right match