One Person. Not Enough Hands. Here’s What to Do.

I think we've figured it all out. I feel, I feel empowered. Okay, let me go network. Who would've thought this would've turned into a networking conversation? My goodness. Never thought it. Never thought it would. We'd ever have a networking. It's always a surprise, Mike, whenever we sit down and start chatting.

Welcome to the marketing team of one podcast where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now, here's your host, Eric and Mike. Eric today. Yeah, I think we need to talk about how to get help acknowledging you need help and getting help.

Yeah, I like that idea. You know, it's interesting, I got a LinkedIn message from. One of our fans, which was, it brought a tear to my eye. I was very touched by this. And, uh, they connected with me on LinkedIn and, uh, exhibited a lot of frustration over the fact that they were a marketing team of one. Yep.

They did have somebody else helping them, but they were overwhelmed and they were wondering, we always talk about well get help, you know? Yeah. It's easy for us sitting up here on our couch, uh, just. Dictating to the world how it should work. But the real reality of it is it's hard to find somebody who can help you.

And a couple of the things that come into mind are, first, what do I need help with? Mm-hmm. Right. Identifying what would, what might be the highest leverage help that you could get. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one thing is, okay, I need help now I need to kind of filter down what, what do I need help with? But the hardest thing is that trust factor.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. We could talk about it all the time and it, it really touched me. 'cause I could sense in this person's, uh, comments and, and questions back to me, how do we go about finding somebody that we trust? And the the problem is, is that you can't do that quickly. And there's no, there's been different ways that we've done this.

You and I have both. Gone out and gotten help for projects that we've worked on. We work with a lot of partners, some freelancers, and some others. So I'd like to just go over the things that we've gone through Yeah. To help vet and build that trust and then hand over responsibilities because we have a lot of different things going on.

And I know that you just recently had to do this actually, uh, for some of the things around websites on your side of things. So, um, I'd love to talk about that. Is there. Let's start with you. Can we start with you first as far as like when you go about looking for somebody to help you with tasks first you've identified what those tasks are and you don't just have this giant bucket, you've got a very fixed set of requirements.

Um, yeah. I think bringing in someone who to new is, is. Tough for a lot of reasons. Like when I've done it, sometimes it's really hard to just acknowledge the problem, acknowledge that they need the help, right? And so with that might also have a tinge of the trust. Like how can I trust somebody else to do this?

Mm-hmm. Piece. And so how do you build up that trust with somebody that's new, is something that I kind of, my inclination is, this is painful, I need help. I just wouldn't dump everything off, but I don't think that's the right way to approach it. Well, a lot of times we get too far into it. Yep. And then all of a sudden we're like, you know, you're drowning.

Yeah. And it's like you, when you're drowning is not when you start to look for this stuff. Yes. Correct. You really need to kind of make a plan around finding resources. And getting to know who can help you and at what level they can help you too. Yeah. Because our instincts are to just throw everything out there and hope somebody can help us with something.

Right? Totally, totally. And I think that, I think what we found is if we're more proactive about it and we look to, and we try and establish like. Almost audit everything that we need to do. Yep. Right. And then try and strategically find the right fit. Then you know who to go and try and build relationships with it.

It becomes a part of our job description is to finding those resources Yes. In our quote, downtime, whatever that means. And kind of having that, um, collection of help. Yes. Available. But I mean, that's, so we identify 'em all, but then there's the, I still wouldn't wanna throw. Something big to an untrusted or un someone I haven't worked with.

Right, right, right. I think in the instance you said, like me trying to find somebody new, like I'm thinking back to this thing goes back probably two years now. Like I had one project that was a perfect project to. Almost, it's a vetting process, right? Yeah. Like give a smallish project, see what it's like to work with them.

See how easy it is. Uh, you know, it, were there any friction points? Did you have, I think there sometimes just does your communication style match their communication style? Yeah. And everything. I think that was a, that's a big thing. And then not seeing as like a, a marriage, it's more like a date. And then that's a good, yeah.

You know, like kind of kinda like dating and, um. As time goes on, bigger engagements, bigger things, and then then you have. Yeah. That's how you build that trust with that partner to build up. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna back up a little bit and talk a little bit about where to find those partners. Yeah. Because I think that's something that I've tried to work on, on my, uh, challenges when I've come around to this and what I've ended up finding more and more, getting back to the trust issue, is meeting people in person.

Yeah. And getting to know people in real life and understanding their situation, their life, their proclivities, what they are great at, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what they present as those issues, and, and try to give them small challenges as testers. So may, they might be projects that I'm working on myself sometimes, but I might just call them or get to know them, but.

I, one thing that I would recommend is to get involved a little bit with your local creative community. Yeah. And see if there's people here in Sacramento. We have the Capital Creative Alliance, which brings together a lot of different creative people, a lot of designers, a lot of videographers and photographers.

And so there's a deep, well copywriters too. There's a deep well of people that I can pull from that. Um, I can call and see if they can help me. Outside of that, there's professional groups that you can get involved in. I know that there's LinkedIn groups you can get involved in. We're involved in a few different mm-hmm.

We have coaches. We have those types of relationships that we work with on a pretty regular basis. That also then expands our network and gets us. Familiar with a lot of different types of people as well. Plus you tend to make friendships in those, in those, uh, opportunities. And it's always fun to work with your friends, right?

So, and you can do this at work. You don't have to just carve out time outside of work to do this. Like talk to your management and, and leadership and say, Hey, I'd really like to start building a lot more professional skills, networking, getting to know more people, figuring out how they. Fix these problems that we have here consistently and maybe find some resources that way.

I think that's been really effective for us in both the, like I'm thinking of two very specific examples where we, we actually joined a group, it's almost like a, um. Cohort around or around training like us developing our own skills to improve. But a key component of both of those things was the community of other people in there.

Yeah. And the, there's such a great thing that happens with that community because there's, you build trust with. Someone you come to meet through the community mm-hmm. Or something, and then they start having networks of people to where you could just quickly ask somebody like, Hey, do you have a video guy?

Yeah. Like, oh, I know three of them and this one, have you talked to so-and-so? They are great. So it kinda sh it, it doesn't feel as daunting as doing web searches or something to try and find a videographer in your area. Like, just like, yeah. The, the, there is a sh. Fast track to trust in that because you have this, like, you have trust in this one individual, you trust their taste.

Yeah. And they, that if they work good with them, they, they would be great for us. And it, it's huge. It's a massive thing that so many other industries rely on. And it's always interesting to go into networking opportunities, especially when they're outlined as networking opportunities because you know, everybody in there is not there to.

Just make friends. Obviously you wanna make friends and be nice and have fun while you're doing it, but everybody is there with an intent to. And, and it may feel this is a hard thing for, I think maybe especially creative people, I'm not really sure. But it doesn't, it's like it's, it's not genuine. It's not this natural, organic thing.

It's this created environment where I'm supposed to be this person and I'm helping and looking for other people that I can hire and utilize and bring into my commerce. And it may feel artificial in a weird way. Mm-hmm. But honestly. Everybody else is in that situation too. And it makes it so much easier to just go up to quote strangers.

Yeah. And start talking to them and saying, here's what I can do, what do you do? How can we work together? Or do you know somebody who can help me with this problem, or whatever problem like that. And it's the strangest thing, you know, us being in marketing and, and most of our viewers in marketing as well.

There's marketing is everywhere and so many people you meet may not be quote marketing, but they have ties to marketing somehow. Yeah. Or communication or writing or anything like that. So, uh, there seems to be always when you open up your reality to see who's out there. It's surprising to see who kind of appears in your Yeah.

In your dashboard. You know? I know it's daunting. I mean, for me personally, like going to a networking event Yeah. And like meeting new people. That's not my. Strong suit, but I think that there's something for introverts too, right? Mm-hmm. Like I think that's where like the. The community, like the online communities type thing.

If you can build a little bit of a relationship but you or you can like see, especially for the pe, if you're active on these things, the people can get to know you a lot more and get a good feel for who you are. And so as an introvert, I might not be the one actually like being very forthcoming with all the information on, on here, but.

Um, I see the people who are, and I build a connection. It's kinda like this is almost the reverse of what we're talking about or trying to see how freelancers could be seen. Yeah. Have better visibility, but as someone seeking out freelancers that you can build a connection that way. I've been a big fan of that.

Those kind of professional. Groups that, that you can be a part of. I always feel like I walk away as a smarter person after a lot of those engagements. You know, getting even further outside that universe. How do I meet those people? Obviously, if you're looking for design help, there's uh, platforms like Dribble.

Yeah. Sometimes people even say like Etsy or some of those online platforms that are a little bit more general worldwide. Even LinkedIn a little bit. Yeah, you can find some stuff. Obviously Instagram, um, be hands is a good one. Yeah. But that's where that trust, that's where you might find the right help, but then it's up to you to kind of cultivate the relationship and build in that trust element that doesn't exist on those platforms.

And that's what's hard. I think it's really hard to kind of, 'cause you could spend a lot of time like. Vetting and understanding it, especially with. Design elements where you're, it's primarily visual. I think a good designer could present themselves really, really well. Exactly. But it won't indicate what it's like to work with them or how responsive they are or anything like that.

Or if they truly understand your needs, you know, so that's where it's a little harder and. Fishing in those pools. You know, it's hard because, yeah, especially like, let's say I'm gonna go to some award-winning designer. They might be wonderful at design, but they might not have this, the capacity and they, they might not be able to help you and you might waste a lot of time trying to figure that out.

Or working through a relationship dynamic that might not be, you know, fruitful for what you're looking for either. So. But then the next universe outside of that, which I'm, I'm not really gonna recommend too much, but I'm just gonna put out there, is the fiverr slash, what do we want to call it? Upwork 99 Design.

99 Designs. Yeah. Yes. There's plenty of resources out there. There have been times we've experimented with that. Yes. Just to be perfectly transparent. Yeah. But, um, it's nothing that we really feel comfortable going back to or like, oh yeah, that's the solution. That's great. That one seems very, yeah, it's very hard.

I think I, I mean, of them. You could spend a lot of time looking at portfolios and you might get a, might get closer, but still there's so much you just don't know and you kinda, and you can't know until you work on it, get what you pay for a little bit. You know, it's like, hey, I'll do 10 logos for 50 bucks.

Like, okay, I don't know that I want a $50 logo and like that's gonna look like probably 6,000 other logos out there because it no time was real spent figuring things out. I think with those mar design marketplaces, I'd call 'em. Yeah. And everything. I think if you really wanna try it out and everything, I would not put something high profile.

I would try something very small like, yeah, like, Hey, here's a sales sheet we did before. Here's a new one, here's the copy. Design it and mm-hmm get it back to me. And make sure that it stays on brand and everything and vet it there, like a small little test. And then if it totally goes off the rails, it's not a big enough project that it's probably.

It's taken you out of the flow of things, or if it totally fails, it wouldn't be that hard for you to pick up the pieces and do it yourself again. But like try a little test and see what works. And then, and or I mean with places like 99 Designs or something like that, they're so cheap. Like maybe you give the same assignment to multiple people.

That's a good idea. Yeah. I think we've tried that actually. Yeah. Where we've tested out with a few, yeah. It's a little bit more expensive, but Yeah. Yeah. But it's still, it's just tough. I mean, ultimately, I think back to what you talked about is like getting there, building a network and like. It's the network is really what's key.

Yeah. And if you can build the network and build a stable of trusted sources for certain things, you build those partnerships and then that's where a lot of the friction goes away. And you just know, oh, I can trust that person to gimme some video. Call him up. I got a video again. Here we go. Just, I'm just gonna iterate a story that I heard yesterday while I was at coffee networking with another wonderful individual from here.

Uh, kind of a local legend, but he gave an example of a campaign that they were hired for, uh, back in 2020. That's all I'll say. Yeah, that's as specific as I'll get. And it was hundreds of millions of dollars to put this whole thing together. And it was, uh, a big deal that was way beyond the scale of his agency that he was running and the strength and the success of that program that came out of that whole effort that he put together really relied a lot on his network that he built before that, that he had built before.

That being this kind of local legend. And maybe not even local, but like kind of legendary around the whole ca uh, state was able to quickly put together a, you know, double the size of his team, execute on so many. Different elements that were not super familiar to him exactly, but he knew the right people to put in place to take care of that stuff.

So I'm talking about a huge scale project, but think of that in terms of how that can apply to your small scale project. It does take time. You have to invest in those relationships. It is something that you, even if you can carve out an hour and a half or two hours a week to try to just reach out to people, build those real relationships, start to build the trust, invest in those, they will start to pay dividends, especially if it's something where you've got constant pressure to perform on things.

Like you said, put some of those low stakes jobs in front of 'em. Here's this replicated with this template. Again, this goes back to what we've talked about before with. Brand guidelines, having a brand kit, having something that is, send them to a website, send 'em A PDF. Here's all the rules and regulations about working with us and our brand.

Could be even words and, and copy. Yeah. Use that as a template along with some source files and see if you can get some performance out of, uh, start, start building that network of people. And it's probably a low risk investment. You know, hopefully you're not, you know, don't go out and spend thousands and thousands of dollars on this stuff right away.

Uh, but definitely you gotta start testing the waters to, to help. Yeah. I think, uh, a lot of it can feel daunting though too, like. I've got all this busy job and then I gotta spend time. You're talking about getting away from my desk to network or, but I, I like to think of it, there's a saying we have all the time.

I, I love to say this. It's like, well that's a fu that's a problem for future me. Yeah. I think it's kind of flip that, flip that on the, on its head. Right. And like, yes, it is more work right now. Yeah. But you're doing future you a favor by putting in the work now be by building that out and that, that, so.

There's always gonna be problems for future you, you know, but like, if you can eliminate some of them and have, do, do your future use in favors too. It might not pay dividends right away, but the, the practice and building that, building that network and that, um. All those connections will help streamline things in the future.

And it might not be one person, it might be a group of people, it might be two or three, or it might be a studio, let's say like maybe page design group that's, you know, we do that a lot for our clients. We're that on call offsite art department as we've used to say. Uh, that's kind of the way we function with a lot of our firms, uh, and clients that we work with is, um, work.

Kind of there at the ready when they need us. We've built up trust. We've got a system in place to handle what they want. They know the dynamic of how to work with us. Oh, they're gonna need this, they're gonna wanna know this, they're gonna wanna see a deadline, dot, dot, do. Here's, you know, and we've kind of built in to all of these relationships, that dynamic, which leads to success over and over and over again, over decades.

Yeah. So you've got your stable people. Yeah. Your horses. My stable of horses. Yeah. Yeah. As an example, like videographers. Yeah. We don't have in-house videography, but we get the call all the time. We promote it all the time as something that's critical to a communication plan. We have like three or four different videographers that we've worked with and they change out.

It's a stable of videographers, speaking of horses. Uh, and they change depending on what the project requires, we know what their specialties are. Maybe they are large production team of five, or this is just two people with, you know, sound and, and a camera. And they can be much more mobile, quick, a little bit more affordable.

So. Not, you should never stop building the network and in a way you need to think of your job. And I think that's something that, as both you and I have gone through in, in turning into more design leadership. Kind of roles as what we play here is we're more building, we're like the coach or the manager of the team.

Mm-hmm. Where a lot of our job is to build those teams and to continue to bring in the new talent and. Help teach them. And this not just applies with staff, but also freelancers and, and other people that we bring into our group. I think we've figured it all out. I feel, I feel empowered. Okay. In to go network.

Who would've thought this would've turned into a networking conversation? My goodness. Never thought it. Never thought it would. We'd ever have a networking. It's always a surprise, Mike, whenever we sit down and start chatting. Yeah. It's like, it's like driving with a blindfold on you never know where you're gonna end up.

Yeah, but exciting nonetheless, right? It depends on where you are. If you're outside the car, maybe not as much if you're walking your dog across the street. Yeah, yeah. It's a little more dangerous. Um, but let's just say we hope this helps you. I won't mention any names, but thanks again for sending in that comment.

We feel you we're with you. Please send in more questions, comments, whatever you'd like. LinkedIn, you can ping us on there. Go to marketing team of one all spelled out, not the number one ONE. Somebody got confused with that the other day when I said that marketing team of one, the number one, and I'm like, well, you spell out the number one.

So marketing team of one.com. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, fantastic. Thanks Eric. This has been very helpful. Appreciate it, Mike. Yeah, thanks everybody.

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