About Marketingsage—Background

Marketingsage was conceived in 2001 and incorporated in California's innovative Silicon Valley in 2002 by Agnes Lamont and David Lamont. Prior to Marketingsage the founders spent decades running both large and small marketing departments for Fortune 500 firms as well as startups.

Like many businesses, Marketingsage was born out of frustration — the frustration many CEO's, vice presidents and directors feel when trying to execute their marketing responsibilities:

• The budget is limited. Time is even more limited. Demonstrable results are expected.

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  ►	Words To The Wise
  	Video: Marketingsage in Just 80 Seconds

  
  
  
• The market does not care that your available resources are less than the Fortune 500 company you compete against. Whoever gets the marketing job done, gets the business.
  
  
• Marketing programs take time and consistency to work. Sales lead-times have stretched. Product life-cycles are shorter. Prices and margins fall with time. The window for success is compressed.
  
  
• CEO tenure has dropped to an average of 3 years. Board members are anxious to see fast results and capital burn-rates reduced. Pressure on the CEO and budget directly impacts marketing. Time-to-results is as important as the results themselves.
  
  
• You can't do it all yourself. Marketing skills are very diverse so multiple people are required to get the job done. Hiring takes time. Training takes time. Tools are specialized and expensive.
  
  
• You need "builders" — senior experienced people to set strategy, design programs and lead teams. This experience is expensive and hard to hire. Builders are busy building for 6 to 24 months and then end up implementing what they built. Senior staff don't like less skilled implementing jobs. Keeping builders to do implementation tasks is unnecessarily expensive.
  
  
• "Implementers", cost less than "builders", but don't have the know-how to build the processes and programs. They require training, mentoring and help from experienced people.
  
  
• Marketing tasks are seldom linear. Some months require a big team, others only require a small team. When the team is bigger than the necessary tasks, it ties up resources that could have been used for sales driving programs. When the team is too small, programs must be implemented linearly, not simultaneously — assuming you have the talent, tools and contacts available to implement the diverse tasks. Both situations put you at a competitive disadvantage.
  
  
• Employee costs are more fixed than variable. You can't really hire and fire skilled marketers on short notice. Fixed costs reduce the discretionary budget that's used for the programs that drive sales.
  
  
• Your marketing budget is very visible and always at risk. A budget reduction forces you to cut discretionary expenses — the programs necessary to deliver the necessary ROI. Lower ROI puts your remaining budget at risk. Morale and results fall together.
  
  
• Agencies are expensive. Their scope is limited. Too many are all hype and no substance. Hiring multiple agencies means paying multiple overhead expenses and repeated learning costs. Integration of programs is almost impossible.
  
  
• Relying on other departments is risky. Your performance can become dependent on resource gatekeepers who may have different priorities or political agendas.

The bottom line: A good marketer's performance is judged by sales, leads, trials, empowered resellers, publicity wins, sales tools, market awareness, prospect perceptions and other marketing achievements that directly and indirectly support revenue growth. Achieving these results, and doing so at a lower cost than your competitors, gives your business a sustainable competitive advantage.

The value of a marketer should not be measured in hours worked, the size of the team or the style of brochures. Hiring the team, buying their tools and designing the processes are important, difficult and time consuming. However, they are not in themselves noteworthy accomplishments.

To succeed in today's business environment you need:

1. Visible results within a relatively short period of time.
2. Maximum budget applied to programs that drive sales.
3. Flexibility to quickly reallocate resources by converting fixed costs to discretionary budget.

This success strategy is hindered by a large internal marketing team and/or hiring multiple agencies. It is made practical by having the right talent and tools available when you need them, for as long as you need them. You can achieve this by contracting Marketingsage.