[00:14] Darren Jamieson
On this week’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, as we start in January, a lot of businesses, and you might be one of them, will be thinking about their marketing. What are we going to do to attract clients this year? Where are we going to put our marketing spend?
[00:31] Darren Jamieson
I would like to stress that before any business starts thinking about marketing, before any business starts spending money on SEO, pay per click, Facebook ads, or joining networking groups, before you spend any money getting business in, there is something you need to do first.
[00:50] Darren Jamieson
We tell every single business that comes to us as a potential client this, especially those that want to spend money on SEO. You need to make sure you have a sales process first, because if you do not have a sales process that works, all you are going to end up doing is spending money on marketing and wasting it.
[01:10] Darren Jamieson
If you go to a networking event, maybe you join a BNI group or something similar, and you do not have a sales process, you will be seen as the person who does not follow up on referrals, and you will damage your reputation.
[01:23] Darren Jamieson
If you spend money on SEO, pay per click, Facebook ads, or email marketing, and leads start coming in through your website but you are not able to follow them up properly, you will not make a return on investment. None of those leads will close. Everything gets confused, muddled, and messy.
[01:39] Darren Jamieson
I say this because I see so many businesses get this wrong. So many businesses.
[01:47] Darren Jamieson
Only recently, and I am not going to mention the company name because that would not be fair, someone asked me for a recommendation for a company that could do a vehicle wrap. That is where a car or van is fully branded with printed graphics.
[02:08] Darren Jamieson
They asked if I could recommend anyone. I was just about to recommend a company we had used before when they stopped me and said they did not want me to recommend that particular business.
[02:21] Darren Jamieson
It was literally who I was about to suggest. I asked why, and they said they had spoken to them, they came out, measured up, and then never got back to them. They needed the work doing and heard nothing.
[02:40] Darren Jamieson
That got me thinking, because I had heard that before about that same company. They are great at what they do. The work they have done for us has been fantastic. But I had now heard from multiple people that they never followed up.
[03:02] Darren Jamieson
They have been in a networking organisation for a very long time, possibly over twenty years, and they probably have no idea that their reputation among some members is that they do not get back to people.
[03:21] Darren Jamieson
The reason is simple. They do not have a sales process. They rely on emails and bits of paper to track who has enquired about what and where quotes are up to. It is a mess, and it does not work.
[03:38] Darren Jamieson
If you do not have a sales process using some kind of software, some form of CRM, you will get into trouble. At Engage Web, we use Monday.com. It is not my favourite piece of software, and there are parts I do not like, but it does what we need it to do.
[03:55] Darren Jamieson
If you do not have something like this in place, you will get into a mess. It is not just you that suffers either. The people who recommend you also have their reputation damaged.
[04:07] Darren Jamieson
I now cannot recommend that company. Even though I know they do great work, I cannot recommend them because I cannot risk someone coming back to me saying the company I recommended never responded. I know that is a likely outcome.
[04:24] Darren Jamieson
Three different people said the same thing. They never got back to me. Because of that, I cannot recommend them.
[04:29] Darren Jamieson
I had a similar situation years ago with a glamping site. High end accommodation, large yurts rather than caravans. We were speaking with them about a website and marketing, and they mentioned needing some maintenance work doing.
[04:47] Darren Jamieson
They needed doors realigning and some general woodwork across several units. I recommended a joiner I knew who was good at his job.
[05:09] Darren Jamieson
A couple of weeks later, I followed up about the website and asked how they got on with the joiner. They told me he never got back to them.
[05:24] Darren Jamieson
That really annoyed me because I had recommended someone who turned out to be unreliable.
[05:36] Darren Jamieson
I spoke to the joiner the next day and asked how it was going. He said he needed to get back to them with a quote. Another week went by and nothing happened.
[05:54] Darren Jamieson
He had no sales process. Completely useless.
[06:00] Darren Jamieson
Unsurprisingly, we did not get the website project. By recommending someone unreliable, I damaged my own reputation because they assumed I might also be unreliable.
[06:11] Darren Jamieson
You have to be very careful who you recommend.
[06:14] Darren Jamieson
I will stress this again. Before you spend any money on marketing in 2026, before you spend money on SEO, whether that is with Engage Web or someone else, before you spend money on Facebook ads, Google ads, email marketing, or networking groups, make sure you have a sales process.
[06:41] Darren Jamieson
Make sure you know what happens to referrals, leads, emails, and phone calls when they come in. They must be logged somewhere. There must be a clear process for following them up.
[06:57] Darren Jamieson
You are paying for these enquiries to come in. Whatever marketing you are doing, you are paying for it. If you lose them because you do not have a process, that costs you more money.
[07:05] Darren Jamieson
Your cost per acquisition increases because you are wasting opportunities. You also damage your reputation, and people stop recommending you.
[07:23] Darren Jamieson
Get yourself a sales process. It is far more important than spending money on SEO if you do not have one.
[07:35] Darren Jamieson
You will not hear many marketing agencies tell you this, but that is why we are honest at Engage Web. We tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.
[07:44] Darren Jamieson
Get your sales process sorted, then come back to us. I will catch you on the next podcast.
