This is a short post but an important one, inspired by various meetings that have taken place over the last few weeks. It’s about marketing and sales spend in mid-sized businesses.

Quality, quality, quality

Time and time again we see people choosing quantity over quality. 8 junior sales people over 3 senior ones. Lots of cheap digital marketing suppliers over one coherent strategy managed by a single quality provider. A marketing assistant in a post that only a marketing director is qualified to occupy. The list goes on and on. And it cripples results for those businesses.

Quality correlates with results

For every single pound you spend on sales or marketing for your mid-sized business, buy the very best you can afford, every single time. Invest in the best possible people. Invest in the best suppliers. You note we’re talking about investing here, because in marketing and sales, more than any other area of your business, you’re expecting to see a return. And the better you buy in the space, the better that return is likely to be. Spread betting across a range of cheaper resources might feel like a de-risking activity, but all you’re doing is cutting your firm off at the knees in terms of what it is able to achieve.

Do less, but better

You may be sitting there thinking “but I can’t afford to do it all on a top quality budget”. If that’s the case, you’re trying to do too much. Whatever you do in sales and marketing, you need to be able to do it really well. This might mean prioritising, cutting out some activities altogether to go deep on those that work. And that’s how you get a grip on your business owner FOMO, you measure results and get brutal about what’s working for your business. If nothing’s working, even better, you have nothing to lose so stop everything, go niche and start again.

Too often, we hear “that activity doesn’t work for us” and when you dig into it, the reason that say, events haven’t worked for a client is because they’ve sent their most junior staff who’ve treated it like a jolly not a business development opportunity.

If you can’t be certain you’re putting your best foot forward in an activity, it’s probably best not to do it at all.