When hiring a marketer, "I didn't insist on being heard"

Marcia Pledger's "My Biggest Mistake" feature from The Cleveland Plain Dealer remains one of the best resources of mistake learning you will find. This story is from Rachel Friedman, founder of A Better Pet.

My biggest mistake was not trusting my gut instinct in hiring someone for an area of running a business that was not my area of expertise....

I hired someone to help market my product based on a referral from someone whose opinion I respected. The problem was, it didn't occur to me at the time, the degree to which familiarity of my industry was key to marketing.

When I hired the marketer, I brought up my concern. Their response was, you don't need to be an expert in an industry to market a product. It didn't feel right. Even though the person was a qualified and experienced marketer, I ignored my gut instinct....

I ended up spending about a third of my entire budget on marketing but got what I felt to be very little return on the investment. For instance, a big chunk of money went toward preparing for and participating in a tradeshow at a dog training conference.

The product has evolved to include companion and working dogs, ranging from urban strollers on leashes to off-leash hikers. But early on, the first people who embraced it were people using service dogs, who knew what else was out there - less versatile and less functional vests.
You never know how any marketing campaign is going to go, or even who will be your end-user for sure. But I firmly believe it's best to aim for your target market when you're starting out. Even though my product fits any dog, I invented it for the working dog industry. My work in training service dogs was the inspiration for the product. Service and therapy dog organizations were first to embrace the product, not pet dog trainers.

If I had hired someone familiar with my industry, I would have been able to communicate with them in shorthand and not have to reinvent the wheel. It costs time and money to educate people about your industry. We weren't on the same wavelength.

I learned from the experience. Even though I don't mind hurting a pet owner's feelings to help them get their desired results from training, I used to be a wimp in dealing with professionals I hired to help build my business. I didn't insist on being heard.