Marketing is the toughest check for any business owner to write. Even with our modern ability to track analytics and consumer behaviors, there is always a certain amount of marketing that feels like throwing mud against the wall. Furthermore, the effectiveness of marketing is ultimately based on an emotional response. One person can love an advertisement and another hate it. How many times have we seen controversy over an ad — like we recently did with Gillette — where one group is offended and another thinks it’s brilliant?

As Henry Ford said: “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping a clock to save time.” So we’ve got to do something, right?

Having worked with hundreds of clients in various industries over the last 20 years, I’ve had a front-row seat to what type of marketing works and what doesn’t. Sad to say, I can’t give you the silver bullet. No one can, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably not qualified to do your marketing. I have seen highly unprofessional ad campaigns work and brilliant stories fall flat.

What I can tell you is that marketing is essentially psychology. It succeeds based on its ability to engage with people at an intellectual and emotional level and take them somewhere new.

Therefore, the foundational principal I have always embraced is that developing great marketing assets and strategies is dependent on hiring great people who understand this philosophy.

What makes people great at marketing is their perspective. In my experience, the broader the perspective, the better the marketer. This is why marketing agencies are hired by Fortune 500 companies, even though they often have large internal marketing teams. A person who is solely focused on car washing, for example, will typically lack a broad perspective on why humans interact with brands and products. When a person has to also market something like furniture, for example, they tap into human behavior from a different angle, making them better at marketing car washes as well.

In October 2017, Ryan Essenburg, President of Tommy’s Express Car Wash, called me. Our marketing agency, Navigate, had done some video projects for Tommy’s. He told me that they were growing rapidly and needed to hire five internal marketing people as soon as possible to handle the increased demand. So, he wondered if I would be interested in selling him our agency and for me to take the reins of the Tommy’s marking department. We discussed it for a couple months and by January 2018, it was official.

You may be asking: Why would he do that vs. just continuing to use our agency or another agency? Two reasons: First is obviously the cost. Agencies need to be profitable like any other business. On average, your cost for an hour of labor with a marketing agency is at least double that of an in-house person. Second is focus. He wanted people who woke up every day thinking about car wash marketing, not just once a week.

That being said, one of the keys for Ryan and myself was that we wouldn’t just dissolve our agency into a car wash marketing department. We chose to strategically maintain external clients that kept our perspective broad and kept our creative team thinking outside the proverbial box.

Today, we have a team of 20 people that service all of Tommy’s marketing needs while still maintaining over 20 external client relationships. This gives us a team of people who are constantly thinking about car washing, but also growing as professionals by working in other industries.

That option doesn’t exist for everyone, but there is a way for any business to get a similar result by balancing your in-house marketing with external support. My advice to any car wash operator would be threefold:

1. Avoid the packaged marketing solutions. You probably get bombarded with offers every day for improved SEO, email marketing, social media management and much more. That’s a short cut, and those packages can be sold to all your competitors at the same time. You need to dig deeper. Having reviewed the performance of these packaged service providers, you’re not getting as much for your investment as you should be.
2. Hire an internal implementer. The first person you want on your marketing team is someone who drives projects. They don’t have to be graphic designer or video editor. They need to be someone who can manage details and communication. Ideally, they have at least some creative background, but most importantly they have an appreciation for understanding why consumers make decisions that are supported by their ability to manage projects. As your business grows, you may need more of these implementers, and it may even make sense at some point to add in-house creative talent to save costs on external agency services.
3. Find a good marketing agency in your community. Someone you can meet with who will invest their talent into your brand. Look at their portfolio of work and meet their team. Find someone who really knows the community in which you’re doing business.

That means they understand the demographics, the competitive landscape and the unique characteristics of your business.

Marketing doesn’t have to be that check you hate to write. On the contrary, it should be the check you know is making you money. But, you have to treat it like any other investment.

Invest with confidence vs. reluctance; hopefully the above steps will help you do just that!

Rob Stam is the director of marketing for Tommy’s Express Car Wash and co-founder of the marketing agency Navigate. Over the last 15 years, Rob has helped hundreds of companies with their strategic planning and marketing efforts. He is a frequent guest speaker for business seminars and is the author of the book The Entrepreneurs Survival Guide.