Have you had any luck hiring a marketing/growth freelancer?

Ah, the $10k inflection point - I know it well!

I've actually been on both sides of the table before... As a founder looking for help just like you are, and as a growth consultant to a fair few startups.

Here are a few things you should know...

Firstly, there are three types of growth freelancers/consultants you could potentially hire...

1. very expensive, very capable generalists
2. expensive, very capable specialists
3. everyone else

At some point in your startup, you probably want to hire all three.

But why? And in what order?

Great questions.

The first person you want to hire is the generalist. This is someone who has broad experience and can help you prioritise where your growth will come from, what you need to improve, and - most importantly - what you need to learn about your customers and audience to make investing in marketing/growth worthwhile.

This shouldn't be a long engagement. Probably a few days at most. Ideally with some kind of monthly coaching call to help you moving forward.

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Once the generalist has helped you get 'growth-ready' and identified the best channels for you to try, you need a specialist. The generalist should be able to refer you to a very good specialist they've worked with before.

You know the saying, "If your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail?"

Specialists are like that. Absolutely brilliant at one thing (eg Facebook ads). And when it comes to, for example, Facebook ads, you should only ever hire a marketer who exclusively does Facebook ads.

But you need the generalist to help you make sure a hammer is the best tool to use in the first place ;)

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Finally, we come to everyone else.

The only time you should ever hire any other kind of marketer is when you...

• have a marketing channel working well
• understand exactly why it works, and have a clearly defined, written guide to doing it well
• want to train someone cheaper to follow that guide and save yourself some time

You'll be tempted to save money and go for a cheaper marketer/growth hire upfront.

Don't do it.

You won't just lose out on a lot of revenue and time, you'll end up with a lot of false assumptions about your business. Because, when your marketer unsuccessfully tries (for example) a referral program, you won't know if it failed because it was a bad idea, or a good idea poorly implemented.

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I hope that helps.

Happy to answer any questions and - if you give me a few pointers about your business and current challenges - I'd be happy to point you in the direction of someone awesome!

Hi, I'm going to give you some advice that may go against the common grain. But hey, this is IH! I co-own a small search marketing agency with a handful of full time employees, and we've had unfortunately a lot of experience in hiring freelancers. We've spent thousands upon thousands and learned things the hard way.

1. Hiring marketing people is the worst. I say that as a marketer. It's so easy for marketers to sell themselves, that it's hard to see through the jargon and identify the bullshit. Be really, really wary of people who use a lot of fancy marketing words in their pitches.

2. Don't go cheap. Marketing is one of those low-barrier-to-entry things where you get what you pay for. If someone is charging $25 an hour, there's a reason why.

3. Don't believe any "growth hacker" or "growth marketer" who can scale your business without any costs outside their fee. Seriously, these are the guru guys who just take your money. You should expect to pay a lot for advertising or SEO or content promotion.

4. If you have the ability, hire full-time. We made the decision to go for full-time employees at Discosloth, and that was the best decision we've made in a long time. It's a bit nerve-wracking to pay someone a full time salary, and it's hard to find the perfect employee, but it paid off for us. The level of marketer you get that way seems to be much better.

5. Avoid Upwork like the plague!