Am I looking for a Unicorn? (If not, where to find?)

[Alxf]

I'd like to ask the collective hive mind here for some feedback on my potential approach to finding a marketing person for my biz.

A quick back-story on my current situation:

I run a small, local tutoring business. It's well-managed, makes 6 figures in profit, and doesn't take much of my attention. At the same time, the business has not grown in any meaningful way since covid. I have, until this point, relied on a good SEO and a strong market for business growth, but I'm seeing that if I want to be more in control of my destiny, I need to be more active when it comes to getting our name out there.

Instead of trying to do this all myself, I'd like to bring someone on board who is young, hungry, has time, and is eager to take on this challenge for low pay (now) in exchange for the opportunity to be involved in something, learn how things work, and make potentially lots more $$ later with some kind of profit-sharing setup.

I get that most people want to get paid *now*, and many might see this as a 'work-for-free/cheap' scam, but when I was younger, I would have *loved* this kind of opportunity. Furthermore, I did the same thing with my manager, and it's worked out very, very well so far.

In specific, I'm looking for someone who:

a) Is willing to work for very little at the start
b) Doesn't have to know much of anything about marketing, running a business, etc but...
c) Is smart, open-minded, wants to and is willing to learn different skills
d) Is willing to take ownership of what they are doing and put in a lot of effort (as apposed to the people who want to get to work as little as possible)
e) Doesn't have to be from the U.S. - as long as the person has strong English skills

I don't know what, specifically, would work for my biz in terms of marketing, so I'm looking for someone who could research, brainstorm, propose, and execute different kinds of strategies.

This might include: content marketing, fb/google ads, email marketing, social media, etc, etc.

I am, essentially, looking for more of an apprentice than an employee.

What do you all think?

Is this reasonable? Has anyone here done something like this? Does such a person exist? Where might I find such a person? What should I offer them?

Any other feedback is more than welcome.

 

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[Spino]

It's contradditory to look for an apprentice that "Is willing to take ownership of what they are doing and put in a lot of effort" and "who could research, brainstorm, propose, and execute different kinds of strategies" with also little pay.

I think you need to give up something there, you either get experience and ownership paying some bucks or an apprentice willing to grow for little money.

Perhaps try finding someone passionate about marketing with little experience, or a student, that is still hungry to learn and experiment, and pay in some sort of commissions based on result, it's a win win for them so they can get experience and grow and for you that you expand the business and pay related to that.

 

[Alxf]

I think you need to give up something there, you either get experience and ownership paying some bucks or an apprentice willing to grow for little money.

Good point - I think I was unclear in my description. When I said:

"who could research, brainstorm, propose, and execute different kinds of strategies"

I didn't meant that they could do it well right off the bat. More that they would be willing to learn and try to execute different kinds of strategies.

For example, if they suggest that we try Facebook ads, and I feel that it's a good idea, I could give them a budget, and a bunch of time to learn how to make Facebook ads, etc. and then to play around with them, improve them, etc, etc.

 

[biophase]

You aren’t gonna find who you’re looking for that way. Basically you’re looking for somebody who has no experience, is a self-starter, who is willing to do research and work to grow your company on his own. And then you want this person to basically take no pay or a little pay.

My suggestion is you actually put a job request out that pays the market rate for somebody who can do marketing for you.

Why would they come work for you for a little pay? You are not teaching them anything. When people come to work for a little pay it is because they can learn a lot from the job or from the boss. That is not what you were offering. You are basically telling that guy to train himself for no money which he can basically do at home on his own business.

 

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[biophase]

I don't know what, specifically, would work for my biz in terms of marketing, so I'm looking for someone who could research, brainstorm, propose, and execute different kinds of strategies.

This might include: content marketing, fb/google ads, email marketing, social media, etc, etc.

I am, essentially, looking for more of an apprentice than an employee.

This is not an apprentice position. You say it above yourself that you don’t know specifically what this person would do. So how are you planning to teach this person.

This would be different if let’s say you had an SEO company and you needed somebody to help you run a couple accounts because you are too busy. In this case this person would learn a lot about SEO under you, while managing other accounts. There is a specific skill for this person to learn so they might do it for a lower pay check.

 

[Alxf]

You aren’t gonna find who you’re looking for that way. Basically you’re looking for somebody who has no experience, is a self-starter, who is willing to do research and work to grow your company on his own. And then you want this person to basically take no pay or a little pay.

My suggestion is you actually put a job request out that pays the market rate for somebody who can do marketing for you.

Why would they come work for you for a little pay? You are not teaching them anything. When people come to work for a little pay it is because they can learn a lot from the job or from the boss. That is not what you were offering. You are basically telling that guy to train himself for no money which he can basically do at home on his own business.

These are good questions, and I should come up with some answers.

1. If their work has measurable effect, I would pay them accordingly. More so, they have a larger potential upside than an entry level job. That is, if thing go well, I'd be happy to pay them proportionally to the results generated.

2. "You are basically telling that guy to train himself for no money which he can basically do at home on his own business."
That's what I used to think as well, bust most people don't have the confidence to start and run their own business. Mine already exists, has revenue, so it could be a sort of sandbox with structure and feedback for the right person.

This is not an apprentice position. You say it above yourself that you don’t know specifically what this person would do. So how are you planning to teach this person.

This would be different if let’s say you had an SEO company and you needed somebody to help you run a couple accounts because you are too busy. In this case this person would learn a lot about SEO under you, while managing other accounts. There is a specific skill for this person to learn so they might do it for a lower pay check.

This is true. Perhaps I'm looking for more of a 'junior partner' or something - essentially someone who could grow with the company. I'm really not sure what the right term for this is, so I appreciate you pointing out that my term was incongruent with my expectations.

 

[Empires]

Why are you afraid to pay someone? If you are making 6 figures in profit then take a pay cut and hire a person who does have the knowledge to grow your business.

If you have a good reliable business that has potential to scale and the only thing that is holding you back is someone on the team with the knowledge of how to grow it.. why wouldn't you pay for someone that knows what they are doing?

It should pay itself back 10 fold. If it doesn't work then you fire them and you are back where you started, no big deal.

 

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[biophase]

Why are you afraid to pay someone? If you are making 6 figures in profit then take a pay cut and hire a person who does have the knowledge to grow your business.

This is exactly what I was going to say also. It really does sound like the OP is being cheap by not wanting to pay somebody and instead looking for an apprentice that gets paid only if they make more than 100 K this year.

In my opinion this will never work. I’ve seen many fellow entrepreneurs try to go this route and they never find the person that they are looking for because most of the good people want to get paid for their work.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

You have to provide value.

What value are you offering this person? How can you make it worth it?
If you want a higher value person on your team, you need to offer higher value.

normally this means paying them well. If you aren’t doing that, you need to get more creative.

 

[Alxf]

Why are you afraid to pay someone? If you are making 6 figures in profit then take a pay cut and hire a person who does have the knowledge to grow your business.

If you have a good reliable business that has potential to scale and the only thing that is holding you back is someone on the team with the knowledge of how to grow it.. why wouldn't you pay for someone that knows what they are doing?

It should pay itself back 10 fold. If it doesn't work then you fire them and you are back where you started, no big deal.

This is a good question. I'm totally afraid to create a fixed overhead cost that would be a significant chunk of my income and put me in a vulnerable state when it doesn't guarantee any kind of result. I don't know how to find a person who has a track record of 10xing businesses, and if I could find them, I would hope that their salary was significantly higher than whatever I could now pay them.

It's not that I'm not willing to pay - it's that I want to pay for results, and there are just too many things than can go wrong when hiring a person to a perform a job that I don't yet understand myself.

 

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[daivey]

Biophase answered all the quesitons.
/end thread

 

[daivey]

This is a good question. I'm totally afraid to create a fixed overhead cost that would be a significant chunk of my income and put me in a vulnerable state when it doesn't guarantee any kind of result. I don't know how to find a person who has a track record of 10xing businesses, and if I could find them, I would hope that their salary was significantly higher than whatever I could now pay them.

It's not that I'm not willing to pay - it's that I want to pay for results, and there are just too many things than can go wrong when hiring a person to a perform a job that I don't yet understand myself.

you answered your own question.

why on earth would someone who is able to 10x a business come work for you for free/peanuts?

 

[Alxf]

You have to provide value.

What value are you offering this person? How can you make it worth it?
If you want a higher value person on your team, you need to offer higher value.

normally this means paying them well. If you aren’t doing that, you need to get more creative.

I was thinking that I was providing value.. but I see that I'm either *not* providing value, or just not getting it across. What I'm offering is:

a) A learning opportunity
b) Mentorship (not in digital marking, but having access to a biz owner has value to someone.. right?)
c) Some percentage of profits generated by the work

I would have 100% jumped on this if I came across it when I was in my early 20s and didn't know anything but had a lot of time, energy, and motivation.

Either way, I appreciate the feedback that it's unclear as to why this would be worthwhile.

 

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[Alxf]

Biophase answered all the quesitons.
/end thread

Is my question / etc personally offensive to you somehow? I asked for feedback from folks more knowledgeable than myself and I appreciate their challenging me to clarify my thinking and value proposition.

"/end thread" doesn't help me or anyone who might read this thread in the future.

 

[daivey]

Is my question / etc personally offensive to you somehow? I asked for feedback from folks more knowledgeable than myself and I appreciate their challenging me to clarify my thinking and value proposition.

"/end thread" doesn't help me or anyone who might read this thread in the future.

but dude, you've been given the answer:

there is no such thing as a free lunch.

now you're moving the goal posts to rationalize why your perspective is right.

 

[Empires]

I was thinking that I was providing value.. but I see that I'm either *not* providing value, or just not getting it across. What I'm offering is:

a) A learning opportunity
b) Mentorship (not in digital marking, but having access to a biz owner has value to someone.. right?)
c) Some percentage of profits generated by the work

I would have 100% jumped on this if I came across it when I was in my early 20s and didn't know anything but had a lot of time, energy, and motivation.

Either way, I appreciate the feedback that it's unclear as to why this would be worthwhile.

In the same way that you don't want to pay someone without guaranteeing you will get results, an employee that is worth while isn't going to want a job that doesn't guarantee pay. They will at the very least want a salary + commission.

We all wish there could be guarantees in business but that isn't usually how it is going to work.

Hiring someone with no experience and hoping they learn along the way doesn't seem like a great idea. You said you don't know how to find someone with a good track record, but you can figure that out.

Take the time and figure out what skills you need in your business in order to grow it. After that put out a job post and see what happens. Ask the right questions and you will be able to tell a good applicant from a bad one whether you've had experience hiring in the past or not.

 

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[Bekit]

Try offering this in homeschool support groups. There are families who would jump at a chance like this for their high-school grads.

 

[biophase]

It's not that I'm not willing to pay - it's that I want to pay for results, and there are just too many things than can go wrong when hiring a person to a perform a job that I don't yet understand myself.

Everyone wants to pay for results. If it were that easy that's how every single contract would be. There's a reason many people don't work based on results. For example, let's say you hire me to do SEO based on results. I tell you to get rid of the pink text on purple background, but you say NO because think it's pretty. Well, who's fault is it now when I can get you traffic and the website doesn't convert?

Guess what's going to happen your way. You will hire someone who is willing to learn and work for peanuts but will have no experience in marketing. You also have no experience in marketing, so it's basically the blind leading the blind. So one year from now, you will have hardly paid out a salary (great) but your business will also have not doubled or even 1.2x'd. So you end up the same place a year from now, making $100k.

Or go hire someone for $50k who has experience and can actually start working from day 1 and you end up making 50% more, $150k. Now you've broken even again making $100k yourself, but your business is actually on a growth path.

 

[biophase]

This is exactly what I was going to say also. It really does sound like the OP is being cheap by not wanting to pay somebody and instead looking for an apprentice that gets paid only if they make more than 100 K this year.

I still have a question about this though. You said that you made $100k. Now you want to pay for results. How much are you offering exactly. If I came onboard and the business made $150k, what were you planning on offering in commissions on that $50k?

 

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[Knugs]

In specific, I'm looking for someone who:

a) Is willing to work for very little at the start
b) Doesn't have to know much of anything about marketing, running a business, etc but...
c) Is smart, open-minded, wants to and is willing to learn different skills
d) Is willing to take ownership of what they are doing and put in a lot of effort (as apposed to the people who want to get to work as little as possible)
e) Doesn't have to be from the U.S. - as long as the person has strong English skills

You are basically looking for an inexperienced marketing co-founder with no salary or equity but perhaps a little profit share.

The problem is that when you find that person willing to do that you have already made a fatal choice. They wont be your unicorn when they accept such terms.

If you cant pay me, offer me 30% sweat equity on a vested cliffhanger agreement based on 2-3 growth objectives. In addition, for the months exceeding 10k in revenue, I demand to be paid minimum wage. When we reach 20k/month revenue, my salary will go up 60k/year. From this point onwards, I will take a fixed commission based on % of revenue linked to my performance. Since you are willing for me to learn, I also want X,xxx/year towards training and personal development.

or you just pay me the market rate?


Alternatively, get a marketing student as an apprentice

 

[LonelyHook]

This is a good question. I'm totally afraid to create a fixed overhead cost that would be a significant chunk of my income and put me in a vulnerable state when it doesn't guarantee any kind of result. I don't know how to find a person who has a track record of 10xing businesses, and if I could find them, I would hope that their salary was significantly higher than whatever I could now pay them.

It's not that I'm not willing to pay - it's that I want to pay for results, and there are just too many things than can go wrong when hiring a person to a "perform a job that I don't yet understand myself."

Sounds like you should be paying a consultant to help you figure out a strategy for growing your business, not hiring a resource you don't even know how to apply yet.

 

[Alxf]

Everyone wants to pay for results. If it were that easy that's how every single contract would be. There's a reason many people don't work based on results. For example, let's say you hire me to do SEO based on results. I tell you to get rid of the pink text on purple background, but you say NO because think it's pretty. Well, who's fault is it now when I can get you traffic and the website doesn't convert?

Guess what's going to happen your way. You will hire someone who is willing to learn and work for peanuts but will have no experience in marketing. You also have no experience in marketing, so it's basically the blind leading the blind. So one year from now, you will have hardly paid out a salary (great) but your business will also have not doubled or even 1.2x'd. So you end up the same place a year from now, making $100k.

Or go hire someone for $50k who has experience and can actually start working from day 1 and you end up making 50% more, $150k. Now you've broken even again making $100k yourself, but your business is actually on a growth path.

Yes, I understand the surface-level logic in this, but - as you said - no result is certain, and I am not in a position where I can bet 50% of my income as I can't afford the downside risk. My business and survived the pandemic in large part because it has almost no fixed overhead, and I am very hesitant to create one now.

Hence my search for more creative, slower, but less risky solutions.

 

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[Alxf]

Sounds like you should be paying a consultant to help you figure out a strategy for growing your business, not hiring a resource you don't even know how to apply yet.

Thank you - this is not a bad idea at all. Can you recommend anyone?

 

[Alxf]

You are basically looking for an inexperienced marketing co-founder with no salary or equity but perhaps a little profit share.

The problem is that when you find that person willing to do that you have already made a fatal choice. They wont be your unicorn when they accept such terms.

If you cant pay me, offer me 30% sweat equity on a vested cliffhanger agreement based on 2-3 growth objectives. In addition, for the months exceeding 10k in revenue, I demand to be paid minimum wage. When we reach 20k/month revenue, my salary will go up 60k/year. From this point onwards, I will take a fixed commission based on % of revenue linked to my performance. Since you are willing for me to learn, I also want X,xxx/year towards training and personal development.

or you just pay me the market rate?


Alternatively, get a marketing student as an apprentice

I think what you are saying is that if I defer compensation, a savvy person would ask for an agreement that is less favorable to me in the long term than simply paying whatever the 'market rate' is now. Is that correct?

 

[Speed112]

I think what you are saying is that if I defer compensation, a savvy person would ask for an agreement that is less favorable to me in the long term than simply paying whatever the 'market rate' is now. Is that correct?

This is necessarily the case because money now is more valuable than money later.

From my perspective, the best way is to hire someone on a contract + performance basis to help you strategize your marketing direction for your business. Hiring a junior marketer will not solve anything. You'll both just be stumbling about for the next year until you maybe get lucky with an attempt and start seeing results.

Or worse, you get results from something completely unrelated and then credit the marketing efforts for it, so you double down on what didn't actually work and blow off your budget.

This is how big companies throw away millions on "brand marketing" when they have no way of quantifying results.

So let's take your ideal scenario here...

You find the elusive apprentice who's willing to work hard and gamble with your budget to help you grow your business for cheap, despite not really having much incentive to do so... It's some guy from the Balkans with solid English ability who just dropped out of University, and is willing to accept $600/month for 40 hours of marketing work.

They become your man-wearing-all-the-hats for marketing, and they start doing things... Building content. Writing ads. Calling people. Sending email. Facebook. Instagram. Youtube...

Since they don't know the direction they're going with certainty, and neither do you, it's likely that all of these are experiments. They bring some results, but not enough to justify a commitment, so you keep trying new things and you never reach solid ground to grow on top of.

6 month have passed. You've paid this guy $3600. His results have been underwhelming. He's starting to question what he's doing. Context-switching and idea-hopping have cost a lot of time and energy. You're starting to question what you're doing. Maybe you've given him a bonus for some of the things he's done just to raise morale and keep things together. Another $400. In the experiments, you've spent $1000 more on design-work, PPC ads, guest posts on blogs, or whatever else.

$5000 over 6 months to bring a slight chance at results and growth, paired with headaches managing a newbie and general uncertainty...

This is actually very similar to my first serious marketing job. I was 20. I knew copywriting, but dabbled in everything else. I got a copywriting job, and after I completed my initial proposal (3 month strategy) with great results, no new strategy emerged. There was no more clarity and no plan... Things spiraled out of control. My responsibilities broadened into the everything else. I stopped being a copywriting expert, and was suddenly a marketing apprentice. My skills got watered down. My results disappeared. My confidence died. My income dried out. No more performance bonuses. No more freelance clients. No more time to breathe. Overwhelm.

It was the biggest set-back of my life. Cost me years.

I would never recommend this type of position to anyone starting out. Even now, many years later, with way more experience and way more depth and understanding in all the different areas, I wouldn't take up something like this.

This type of position requires extreme levels of skill, discipline, and knowledge, and should imo be compensated many times more than a regular position, simply due to the sheer diversity of responsibilities. You'd need a CMO, not an apprentice, and to compensate them adequately.

no result is certain, and I am not in a position where I can bet 50% of my income as I can't afford the downside risk.

Then bet how much you're able (and willing) to afford. Learn some bankroll management. Look at these investments as gambles with certain upside and certain downside, chances of success, etc. Calculate the EV, sprinkle in some entrepreneur intuition, and make a decision.

Why are you in business? To be safe and never take risks? Or to take smart, calculated risks that have a strong long-term upside in the aggregate?

Now here's the alternative...

You find an expert to consult you. Could be a specialist in your niche, or a marketing generalist, since you don't quite know what special marketing service you need atm. You pay them $600 for a couple of hours of their time. Those 2 hours are 100 times more valuable than the 1 month a newbie will bring to the table because they'll solve the issue of clarity. Not knowing where to go or what to do.

Most importantly, it will save you time. So you can take action tomorrow instead of being in a state of limbo for 6 months.

Once you know the best path you should take, you can much more easily commit. So then you can hire a specialist service for $5k flat, or $2.5k/mo, or $3k now + 10% commission on new leads, or whatever payment option suits you best.

Say you've reached an agreement that Facebook Ads are the best way for you to scale. You then find a Facebook Ad agency or expert who has some experience in your niche or maybe even specializes in it and you hire them to handle specifically that. No context-switching. No figuring things out.

Just action.

2 months later you've still invested $5k into this thing, or maybe slightly less, or maybe slightly more... but now you've got a much higher chance of results and growth, and more importantly, you have certainty whether or not this avenue is something you should double-down on. So you eliminate the risk of mistakenly putting money down on an approach that didn't actually contribute to your growth.

And in the process, you'll likely find people who'll always be on your team and whom you can reach out to whenever you need another push in the right direction... instead of having some guy on your team who you'll have to keep pushing in some direction, hoping it's the right one.

So I think the question itself is flawed from the get-go.

I get the attraction of having someone handling things in-house, and possibly with some revenue-sharing incentive... since they're more invested in getting things right. You've got more control and can craft that person's skills to best suit your needs and your niche.

But what is it you really want?

Do you want a tailored marketing servant who you constantly invest in and build up, who can leave at any time and leave you high and dry at no fault of your own?

Or do you want results?

if I want to be more in control of my destiny, I need to be more active when it comes to getting our name out there.

Sounds to me like you want predictability. Data-driven results. Secure growth.

Being in control of your destiny necessarily requires you to have clarity in your path and the ability to craft your future into following that path.

For that, you need great knowledge and certainty. That's what experts are for.

Thank you - this is not a bad idea at all. Can you recommend anyone?

It's hard to recommend specific people without knowing the intricacies of your niche and what your actual needs are. I do Direct Response. I know Direct Response people... if you're in a position where you simply need to grow your brand recognition in your local market, however, you may not need this kind of stuff. If you think using copy to attract and convert leads makes sense, we can talk.

I could ofc say "hey yeah you totally need my kind of expertise and I know JUST THE GUY who can solve all your marketing needs and bring you the control you're truly looking for" but that'd be dishonest, since I don't know enough about your business.

There are a few people here on the forums who can give you general marketing insight and help you hone in on your strategy. I'm sure most of them have free strategy calls as well. Depending on what you need they can be all you need, or enough to get you started.

@Andy Black does Google Ads. @Kung Fu Steve does more general marketing consulting. @Black_Dragon43 does sales funnels and general marketing as well...

Look through the marketplace threads and talk to the people who resonate with you. They're all qualified to help at least steer you along, and I'm sure they'll save you a lot of time and give you clarity.

Anyway, hope this is insightful. Good luck building up your business!

 

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[Alxf]

From my perspective, the best way is to hire someone on a contract + performance basis to help you strategize your marketing direction for your business. Hiring a junior marketer will not solve anything. You'll both just be stumbling about for the next year until you maybe get lucky with an attempt and start seeing results.

...

Wow, thank you! This was extremely helpful, and I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this out.

I'll need to take some time to digest everything, but in the meanwhile, do you have a tip jar? I'll shoot you a pm.