Thinking about bringing someone in to help with your marketing — whether that's a new hire or an outside agency? Before you post a job listing or sign a contract, there are a few things worth getting clear on first. In this episode, I'm walking through what I've seen go wrong when businesses jump into a marketing hire before they're ready, and the three steps that will save you a lot of time, money, and frustration. This one is practical and straight to the point — you can walk away and start implementing today.

What You'll Learn:

• Why getting clear on your goal before making any marketing hire will determine everything else — including who you should even be looking for
• How to avoid the trap of shopping for marketing assets before you know what outcome you're actually trying to reach
• What most business owners get wrong when writing a job description for a marketing role
• How to decide whether bringing someone in-house or working with an agency is the right fit for where you are right now

Work With KLC The Studio: If you're sitting with questions after this episode and would rather talk it through with someone, that's exactly what our first call is for. Head to klcthestudio.com to get started.

Hello, hello guys.

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Welcome back, or if this is your

first time here, hi, I'm Kiara.

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I'm the owner of KLC The Studio,

and I am so glad you're here.

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Whether you have just stumbled across

this episode or you're on a full

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binge right now, either way, welcome.

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You are in the right place.

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, Today's episode is one I think a

lot of you are going to find really

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useful, especially if you're at the

point in your business where you're

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starting to think about bringing

someone in to help with your marketing.

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And I want you to walk away from

this understanding exactly what some

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of the steps that you should take

and things you should have in place

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before you decide to outsource it.

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So let's go ahead and dive in.

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So the first thing that I'm gonna

say that you should have before you

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decide to outsource your marketing

or even hire someone internal, and

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we're gonna get to that in a minute,

the difference between the two.

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But the first thing I want you to

do before you make any marketing

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hire is get clear on your goal.

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And I want to give you a really practical

way to think about this, because get

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clear on your goal sounds simple until

you actually try to do it, and that's

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where most people realize they're a

little bit hazier than they thought.

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So I'm gonna say, answer this: What does

success look like in the next 90 days?

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Not vague success.

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Try to be as specific as possible.

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Is it a certain number of new

clients, a revenue goal, getting

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off of a platform that's not working

and going all in on a new one?

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Write it all down.

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And if you don't know, This is one of

the first things that we do with any

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of the clients that we work with is

before we ever talk about the content,

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before we talk about the platforms

or the packages and the strategy and

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the da, da, da, the first call starts

with one question: What is your goal?

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We're gonna ask that before

money even exchanges hands

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Because that goal is going

to determine everything else.

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The goal is gonna set the tone for the

strategy, the platforms, the content

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types, the team structure that we're

gonna need internally to pull it off.

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All of it flows from that answer.

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When you skip that step, and I cannot

tell you how many people skip that

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step, or they think they have a goal and

they're like, "Yeah, I just need more

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leads," or, "I just want more clients."

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Of course, obviously, that's the reason

why everybody wants to get into marketing.

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When people get into that space, what

tends to happen is if you don't have

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it clearly defined and you don't know

what outcome you want, what tends

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to happen is that you start shopping

for assets instead of outcomes.

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So you'll say things like, "I

need to be doing reels," because

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you saw your competitor on reels.

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Or you'll say things like, "I need

to run ads," because someone told

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you that ads get leads, and you just

figured it would be a lot easier and

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a lot faster if you just paid for ads.

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And so you go straight to buying the thing

without knowing if that thing actually

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connects to where you're trying to go.

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So you wanna do the reverse of this.

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You wanna tell us the goal, and then we're

gonna select the campaign assets that make

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sense for hitting that goal in that order.

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So you can do that yourself right now,

even before you talk to anyone, write

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down the goal and then come to a call

or talk it over with your team about

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what are some of the assets that it is

that you might need to hit that goal.

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So that's number one, okay?

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Step two is be realistic about what

you're asking one person to do.

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All right?

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We gonna be real real here, okay?

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The amount of job descriptions that

I see online of y'all asking for a

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social media manager to come in and

do 100 jobs under one title is insane.

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I see this mistake happening all the

time, where someone will post a job

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listing for a marketing manager, a social

media manager, something along those

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lines, and the description is asking this

one person to handle content strategy,

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to shoot the content, to create video

content, to edit the content, to write

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captions, to run ads, to manage the

website, to manage a posting schedule,

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to write emails, literally all of it.

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Y'all are asking for an entire

marketing department under one person.

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Those skillsets, email, video

content, editing video content,

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creating a strategy, those are all

completely different skillsets and

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completely different specialties.

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Especially the difference between

ads, organic, SEO, all of those things

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are completely different skill sets.

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So what ends up happening is that when

you put all of that on one person, you

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are setting them up to be stretched too

thin and to do any of it really well.

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The strategy will be very surface

level, the content will feel rushed or

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incohesive, and then it'll feel like

the marketing isn't working when the

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reality is, is that the thing that you

were trying to hire for was just too

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much for one individual person to do.

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So when you're thinking about

your goals, you wanna be thinking

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about how can you prioritize what

you want this person to focus on.

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And if these are questions you don't

know how to answer, this is a good

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sign that you should be working with

an external party because this person's

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gonna be able to come to the table and

be able to tell you all of those things.

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It's really hard to post a job posting

when you're not fully clear yourself

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on what is necessary to accomplish

the goal that it is that you need.

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So you don't even know what to ask

for because you're not clear yourself.

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Those are instances where you need

to be consulting with someone first

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prior to trying to create a job post.

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Which brings me to thing number

three, which is how do you know if

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you should hire someone internal,

bring in a new team member, like a

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social media manager, or hire external

and work with an agency like ours?

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I will give you my perspective.

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I promise I'm not biased

because I have been both.

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So I have been the internal hire

when I worked at Gap and Banana

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Republic, and as an internal hire,

I was fully embedded into the brand.

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I did celebrity marketing

campaigns and brand collaborations.

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So any time that we had a collaboration

with a baseball team, a basketball team,

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we had several contracts with the NBA

where we did a Kevin Love campaign.

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We had another one with Olivia Palermo,

another one with Goop by Gwyneth Paltrow.

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Any time we had any celebrity

campaigns or brand collaborations,

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those all fell under my department.

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And so I know what it's like to run

a campaign from start to finish and

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having to work with multiple different

team members to get something off of

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the ground, and I have been on the

internal side of it, and then I've

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also been on the external side of it.

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I now have my own agency where other

companies bring me in to manage their

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marketing and oversee their campaigns.

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And so I have experience on both

sides of the coin, and I'll tell

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you the core differentiator.

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From a skills level, you can find

anyone who can do anything, okay?

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So you can find someone

who's a strategist.

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You can find someone with the right

background that you're looking for.

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It's not a matter of if you go to

an agency, you're gonna find smarter

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people, and if you hire internal,

you're not gonna find as great talent.

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You can find great talent anywhere.

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The core differentiator is not necessarily

the talent that you are hiring.

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The only thing that separates between

if you should hire internal or external

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is do you want your role as CEO to

be project manager or to be client?

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If you want to hire internal, that

means you are the project manager.

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You are the person responsible for putting

out this job posting, for knowing what

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you want this person to do end to end,

day to day, for being able to manage

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this person and oversee them, or to hire

someone on your team to oversee them.

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You're responsible for setting what

the core KPIs are, which are the

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key performance indicators, AKA how

are we measuring this person being

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good at their job, and how are we

measuring if they're doing a bad job?

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And then what are the resources

that we're gonna put in place

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to be able to help this person?

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When you bring in someone internal,

you are saying, "I am willing to train

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and create the necessary workflows

to have this person in my team

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and be a core part of my company."

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The risks with that are if you are someone

who is not very clear on what your goals

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are or what you're trying to accomplish

in marketing or what you even need to be

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successful in marketing, going to be very

difficult to hire someone for something

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Speaker 4: that you're not really clear

on what you're supposed to be getting.

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The other note that I wanna say around

a lot of times why people choose

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to go internal instead of agency

is that internal often comes across

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like it could potentially be cheaper.

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If I go with an agency, I'm

gonna spend this big fat spread,

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and it could be really, really

expensive and get pricey over time.

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And so I'd rather just hire someone,

pay them $24 or $35 an hour or

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something like that, have them

come in, create some content for

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me, bada bing bada boom, I'm done.

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And I can understand the logic of that.

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However, going back to the initial

note that it is that I mentioned,

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is that one of the reasons why I

was successful at Gap when I was an

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internal hire is because I had guidance.

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I was coming into a pre-established

structure, and I knew what the core

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goals were, and I also had the proper

resources to make those goals happen.

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There was a pre-established workflow.

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There was a pre-established guideline.

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There was something for me to step into.

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If you are new to marketing and you

don't already have those things in place,

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you as a CEO are gonna need to create

those things, and you will actually

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end up spending more money if you are

trying to figure it out with a new hire

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than you would if you were to already

have those things pre-established.

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I kind of like to say it, like this.

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When you go to Costco or Target

is always my Achilles heel.

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You go to Target, and you go in there

without a clear sense of what it is

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that you're walking away with, you're

gonna end up spending a lot more money

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in Target than you anticipated because

something's gonna catch your eye.

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You're gonna get sidetracked.

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You're gonna think you need one thing,

but then you're chatting on the phone

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and you weren't paying attention, and

next thing you know, you end up buying

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candles and makeup and clothes and

purses that were nowhere near the aisle

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where you're supposed to be getting

toilet paper and detergent, okay?

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You c- you went in there for one

thing and left with everything but

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the thing that it is that you wanted,

and that is the same concept that

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applies to how it is that you hire.

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And this goes for any

department, not just marketing.

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But if you don't go in with a clear

list and a clear intention, you will

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end up spending more money in the

phase of trying to figure it out.

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So that is my note in terms

of if you should go internal.

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You should go external and hire an agency,

hopefully mine, if you are looking to

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purchase a pre-established process.

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You don't want to hire,

you don't want to train.

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All you want to do is sit

back and be the client.

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You wanna show up to a call where all of

the assets are already produced, and all

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you have to do is say, "Yes, no, here's my

feedback, good to post, see you guys next

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time you send me some content our way."

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And if that's the role that it is

that you wanna take because you would

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rather spend your energy being with the

clients or being on the operations side

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of the business, and you don't wanna

focus your energy on trying to produce

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a strategy and then guide someone and

project manage someone, and make sure

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that they have all the things that they

need necessary to get it off the ground.

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If that's not the role that you

wanna take, definitely outsourcing

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is the right option for you.

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The other reason why I recommend that

if you're in that season where you're

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like, "Listen, I just wanna focus on

the clients, and I just want someone

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else to kinda run the whole show," is

when a campaign or a goal that you're

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trying to achieve takes multiple

different people to get off the ground.

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This kinda goes back to my initial note

around those job descriptions being crazy.

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Where you want someone to update

the website, and you want someone

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to take photos and videos and

create TikTok trends and do all

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these different things internal.

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When you are looking for someone to

wear all of those hats, typically

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under an agency, I'll just speak for

mine, . We have all of the specialists

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necessary to pull that campaign off.

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So for example, a 30-second reel, it

takes about six different people just

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to get a 30-second reel off the ground.

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For example, the first person you're

gonna have is a marketing strategist.

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That's me.

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I'm gonna figure out how that reel

connects to your overall goal.

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Are we trying to achieve

awareness, conversion?

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What's the hook?

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What's the CTA?

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That has to be decided before we

even go into shooting the content.

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Then I have a creative director, and that

person takes on the strategy and builds

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the visual plan, so the shot list, the

angles, the script if the scene needs one.

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Then there's a videographer,

and that person goes out and

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actually captures the footage.

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So if you want someone to come out

and create that fun in-office content

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at your yoga studio or your dentist

office or your lawyer office, or you are

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someone who knows that you need to be

in the camera doing talk-to-camera reels

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and showcasing your expertise, you're

gonna be working with the videographer.

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That person can come in with an

iPhone or a professional camera, mics,

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lighting, whatever the concept calls for.

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Then we have a video editor.

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Sometimes it's not always the

videographer, depending on workload.

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Then we have a writer who writes

the caption and emails and any other

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subsequent copy that needs to be added

to your website to support the campaign.

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Then we have a designer who comes

in and creates the cover art for

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that reel or the stories that are

gonna go along with that reel.

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And then we have an ops person who makes

sure that every single handoff happens on

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time and nothing falls through the crack.

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That is literally six to seven people,

yes, the six, seven joke, that are

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working on one piece of content.

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And this is what I mean about the

difference between internal versus

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agency, is internal you would either need

one person to do all of those things,

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or you would need one person to have

access to hire all of the necessary

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people to pull that campaign off.

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And so that is something that you

genuinely should think about as the

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CEO is what is the role that you wanna

take and what is the relationship that

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you wanna have with this individual?

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Do you wanna be the, the CEO who's

the project manager or do you

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wanna be the CEO who's the client?

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That's really the core decision maker.

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All right, let's go ahead and wrap it up.

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So here's what it is that I want you to

do at the close of this episode, okay?

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Number one is write down your 90-day goal.

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Be specific.

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Not just, "I want more leads."

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Try to be as specific as possible.

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What are you looking to do?

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What are you looking to accomplish?

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Two, list everything you need help

with and try to assess if that's a

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one-person job or a multi-person job.

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If you don't know, again, that's

a clear sign that you probably

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should be working with a specialist

who does know and can tell you.

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And then number three is based on how

involved you wanna be and your capacity

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to manage, decide whether you're gonna

go internal or external and which

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one makes sense for you right now.

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Those three steps will definitely help

you kick off in the right direction.

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And if you are sitting there

thinking like, "I don't even

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know how to do all of this.

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This would be so much easier

to talk this out with someone,"

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definitely book a call with us.

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We talk about this on the first call.

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Before money exchanges hands, before

you get a proposal, first thing I'm

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gonna ask you is what is your goal,

and the whole call is dedicated to

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understanding that goal and how it is

that we can support you to get there.

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You can find out more about working

with us at the link in the show notes.

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Thank you guys so much for being

here, for making it to the end, and

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I'll talk to you in the next one.