Wanna know one of the highest, typically hidden, yet most glaringly, obvious costs any CEO will incur: the high cost of not knowing squat about digital and content marketing.

Wearing The Wrong Hats

I was having dinner with a CEO friend of mine many months ago. He runs a $50 million company and is incredibly successful. And like most CEOs and business owners, he wants to grow the business. He knows growth is driven by marketing, sales, people and tech. And he just wants to know that it’s all being done so he doesn’t have to worry about marketing stuff.

The best CEOs want to be CEOs. This is not the same job description for a VP of Sales, the Chief Marketing Officer, or even close. But too many CEO’s and business owners wear this and other hats, and they do a really poor job of recruiting and hiring the right marketing leadership and management. Without the right knowledge and action steps there’s no way you can have the right marketing people working on your team, can you?

I remember my dinner conversation with Greg as if it was yesterday. We were sitting in a really nice restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, where we live. Our server dropped the chopped salads in front of us when I asked, “So what do you think your biggest marketing challenge is?”

Greg paused and said, “Cliff, I’ve got no clue. Marketing isn’t my thing. I let my team run marketing. Talk with my President.”

I did. Guess what? The President didn’t know marketing. I never got to meet their marketing guy though. Too busy.

CEO Alert

If you are a CEO or business owner reading this right now, please “listen.”

To NOT KNOW what you DON’T KNOW about hiring, managing and empowering the right marketing leadership and management for your company, the best digital and content marketing leadership and management your money can buy, is to incur the HIGHEST COST you incur.

Being ignorant about digital and content marketing as the CEO or business owner of any company is hazardous to your health and wealth. It’s too stressful. It makes no common or business sense to piss money away.

This is true because EVERYTHING is marketing. Marketing costs money. And if your marketing lacks the optimal strategy for your business model,  lacks focused planning, ignores action steps, accountability and everything else then every dollar you invest in marketing is coming back less than a dollar. And you will not be happy.

If you are a CEO or business owner and this is your own money you are investing in marketing, sales, people, technology and that overpriced, high-back leather office chair and 27″ Mac desktop you didn’t need, you are guaranteed to go OUT OF BUSINESS unless you have an infinite money supply or a close relationship with the Central Bank and their printing press.

Every CEO and business owner must get a grip on their marketing bus. This means knowing the right questions to ask for hiring the right people who have the TALENT to plan and optimize marketing. Successful marketing is all about discipline and focus. You have to make damn sure all marketing ROI is tracked and that 100% of your marketing investments are directed at the sales goals for your team, including your bottom line.

I felt so passionate about the need to educate CEOs and owners that I SHUT DOWN my digital marketing AGENCY and focused on teaching, publishing, training and coaching CEOs and business owners how to plan, measure and optimize digital and content marketing investments and results. I also created a sales and marketing action planning system called The Sales and Marketing Success Builder. And it’s helped more than 300 companies get a better sales result. Simple, not easy.

The Pillars of Profit

Back to the high cost of what you don’t know as the CEO or business owner…

What you don’t know as the CEO when it comes to digital and content marketing is costing far more than you know. Once you know what you don’t know, and the cost, once you get to see your blind spots in marketing, they will glare in all other pillars of profit including strategy, planning, sales, team, tech and finance. This is because marketing drives all the other outcomes in the remaining pillars of profit.

Pillars #1 and #2 are fundamental. You and your team must be clear on Strategy and Planning. Be honest. Are you and your team working enough “On” your business? No.

The last pillar of profit on this list is the most important. It’s Finance. It’s the bottom line. This is where the rubber meets the road. The bottom line is so often red for small businesses that 80% are toast, done, out of business, within 5 years, or something drastic like this.

But it doesn’t have to be this way, and digital and content marketing doesn’t have to be – no, wait – it can’t be a mystery to you as the CEO or business owner.

How can you demand ROI or marketing success of anyone you hire when there is no way to do any of the following, critical tasks…

1. Create an effective job benchmark, description and compensation plan for the right person to drive your digital and content marketing bus. (This is not you.)
2. Search, recruit, interview or begin to hire with any degree of success the right digital and content marketing automation leadership, management and rest of the team.
3. Measure or achieve a positive marketing ROI. (You need a killer dashboard!)

Because of the first two failure points, there’s no way in hell any CEO will have the right person driving their digital and content marketing bus without taking effective action on steps #1 and #2 in order to nail the bottom line; #3.

This may seem obvious, but I assure you that MOST CEO’s don’t know squat about digital and content marketing. But they fake it thinking they will make it BEFORE they run out of money or patience.

Why? Because most CEOs and business owners already have too many things to do.

In the unlikely event a business owner could build her own website and landing pages, write her own sales, website and blog copy, create great content for lead gen marketing, do her own social media, write all the job descriptions, place the job posts, interview the 100 ugly frogs to hire the only two who are hire-able and fire the one who rips you off in the second month by not showing up for work too much. (Ever have a creative, design, programming or marketing person go dark on you? How much did that cost? Me too. We learn to get better.)

Get it?

This is pretty much why business owners and CEOs don’t make their own paper clips. You’re too busy. And this is just the beginning of the folly when it comes to the same, uninformed CEO or business owner calling me wondering why they’ve been ripped off and lost – in some cases – hundreds of thousands of dollars. No wonder they are pissed.

I do my best to calm you down when you call me really upset. Listen, you have to get a grip. You do this by learning over time and knowing at least 100 questions you and your team must discuss, study and answer in order to get better digital and content marketing results. You have to use a process that works!

It’s this simple. You are not getting the marketing result you need or want. You and everyone on your team is frustrated. And you’re sick of it.

Why Are You & Team Frustrated?

Here’s why ..

• Your marketing plan stinks because you don’t have one.
• You don’t have a marketing system that tracks activity and ROI.
• Nobody knows precisely what to do, when or how. (See #1)
• Everybody is afraid to tell you this. So they fake it.
• You don’t know what they or you don’t know. (You’re all faking it!)
• You keep doing what you’re doing.

This is insanity and you’re living it wondering why you’re frustrated. It is time to end the insanity.

Here’s the best way to do this. Stop doing what you’re doing.

Commit to hiring a trusted adviser, manager, trainer or coach who can give you all the questions to ask and walk you through a process that has proved to work before.

Make sure your team has the marketing plan, tools and SYSTEMS they need and want to produce the desired sales and marketing result. This means you must make what you want crystal-clear. You can only do this once you know what you don’t know; the 100+ questions.

When will you be willing to pay someone to manage, plan, train and coach you and your team?

Your sales, marketing, team and technology plan is all in ONE PLAN. The best part about this is everyone is on the same marketing bus, with the same road map, goals and accountabilities. Everyone gets happy, fast. Stress is less!

Through this process, because process is critical to your success, you create a written, living, breathing sales and marketing ACTION PLAN.

And in the end, even though all marketing roads are bumpy due to the creative process, people and technologies involved today, you will get where you’re going. You will get the marketing result you want.

This is how we roll at Conversion Marketing Experts.

Want to get on our digital, content marketing bus?

Let’s have a conversation. Just complete the form here or call our office in Scottsdale, Arizona.

We always appreciate your comments and questions here on the Conversion Marketing Experts blog.