wheel - 8:14 pm on Jan 24, 2013 (gmt 0)

>>>.To be successful in business, you have to know when to outsource, especially when it comes to aspects of the business that you can outsource more cheaply (in terms of money or human capital) than you can do yourself.

Yes, I completely agree. That's why I tried repeatedly to outsource the sales and marketing of my business. Doing so has nearly bankrupted me in the past. I'm not a succesful sales and marketing person because I know how to market and sell. I'm a succesful sales and marketing person because I'm a tech person that woke up one day with my back against the wall, having tried 3 other people (all of whom were seasoned sales pros in my niche) and every one of them either screwed me or simply didn't put in the effort.

In other words, I agree with your sentiment, and wish it were true when it comes to finding someone to promote a small independent business - but my experience has been that it's not the case - no one is better than the site owner.

Your point is very true for tech people. I don't waste my time writing code - that I hire out. Sales and marketing of your site though? Attempting to outsource that is a common mistake of small business owners IMO.

>>>>But i'm a technician and my marketing efforts are simply not as productive as someone who is a specialist in marketing.
Incorrect. You are the best person. I predict that you will be unlikely to find someone to partner with, and if you do, I predict the partnership will fail. I further predict that if you suck it up and do the tough work, you will wake up one day and consider that you owe me a beer for making you do something you don't want to do :).

Think about what you're asking someone to do here for a sec. You're going to get some person all excited about your business. They are going to pick up the phone and start calling. WHo exactly are they calling? You don't think you're going to hire someone who has a magical list of phone numbers do you?

Or do you think they're going to start googling and calling likely candidates in your niche? OK, so now they're blind calling people. That's your first mistake - you ain't no-how going to find a decent rep who thinks cold calling is a good idea for their income. And if they do, do you really believe that this person has some sort of skill set that allows them to somehow convince people to buy what they're selling if they don't want it? That idea is commonplace,and it's false - do you get sold stuff you have no interest in?

There is no magical fairy sales dude with cash to invest in your business who's going to cold call people off of Google and sell them advertising in a business he's not an expert in. There is however, an extremely technical knowledgeable person who knows the business cold and is excited about it - that's you. Heck, I just got off the phone (again, I have no sales experience) with a customer who drilled me with technical questions for an hour. At the end, they thanked me profusely and told me how it's clear that I'm passionate about what I do - a comment I hear about once every couple of weeks. That's me, not a salesperson. And if someone's going to buy from you, they want passion and technical expertise, not a sales job. Disillusion yourself that there is a simple sales formula other than that.

Let me boil it down for you. I know what your problem
is. Your problem is that you're too chicken to pick up the phone and speak to someone who should be advertising on your site - to their benefit. That's it - you're scared of the phone.

Who knows more about your business than you? Who is more passionate about your business than you? Who knows better how to answer the question as to why someone would advertise on your site than you? Nobody. So why again aren't you doing this? Yeah, I know. You-don't-wanna.

Eventually you'll realize that either it's you doing this, or you don't believe enough in the business and it goes nowhere. Them's your choices.

Think I'm wrong? I've got repeated experience doing exactly what you're trying to do, from both the hiring and being hiring side of things and the only thing that works is what I do. You can reconsider when someone shows me how staying hidden behind your monitors and bringing on a one-man show just to sell your marketing has worked out well for them. EVeryone wants this, everyone rationalizes it, nobody pulls it off.