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The marketing conundrum You know what you’re supposed to do, but since your marketing department is understaffed and disempowered, you can’t make it happen.
I ’m sure many of you have found yourselves in that familiar seminar or conference listening to a speaker tell you how to better position your firm for opportunities or how to develop more business. I’m also pretty certain that it’s something you have heard before and that there’s nothing earth shattering about anything that is being shared. Why then if we have heard these things over and over are we not going back to the office and implementing them? Well, there are probably a number of reasons but I will focus on just a few key issues.
Chad Clinehens
of effort and might never see any direct benefit, and even if I do, it could take time. Marketing investment requires more faith and risk-taking than we are naturally wired to take. And it doesn’t provide the instant gratification that the business is built around – working on billable projects.” “Marketing investment requires more faith and risk-taking than we are naturally wired to take. And it doesn’t
Most of us are or have spent the majority of our careers as design or technical professionals and we do not naturally connect with the marketing side of the business. Our job descriptions dictate a list of priorities that allow little if any time for real marketing strategy. Being billable and maximizing utilization is natural to us and offers instant gratification. This is one reason that firms have trouble investing in marketing anywhere close to where they should be. It’s just not in our DNA. When I spend an hour on a project, I can immediately turn around and send a bill for one hour of work and get the return on that investment directly and almost immediately. When it comes to marketing, I can spend an hour
See CHAD CLINEHENS, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER January 23, 2017, ISSUE 1184
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