First, let's start with the definition of abdicating and delegating so we are all on the same page when it comes to how to market your remodeling business correctly. 

Abdicating - to renounce or relinquish a throne, right, power, claim, responsibility, or the like, especially in a formal manner: (source - Dictionary) 

When you are abdicating you are giving up responsibility and trying to wash your hands of the whole thing. 

Delegating - to send or appoint (a person) as deputy or representative. (source - Dictionary)

With delegating you are appointing someone with your company or externally to help with something. You are not giving up responsibility and you are still involved in the process just not as much. 

Too many businesses aren't marketing their businesses at all and just waiting for leads and new clients to magically appear on their doorstep. This is one of the strangest things to me and most frustrating. Business owner who wait for things to happen instead of making things happen using proven methods and systems. At least try to do something to make your situation better. Sometimes that requires taking a risk and making a mistake. Other times it involves actively finding the right people in your industry who understand how to help you.

Marketing your business and keeping the engine going is your #1 responsibility, nothing else comes close. 

And those that are typically marketing (or trying to) are doing it all wrong. I realize you have a lot on your plate and running a remodeling business is not easy, but abdicating your marketing is just plain dumb. When you are abdicating you are looking for one quick fix to make you rich and this simply doesn't exist. You need to fully understand the process and the people you bring into to help you need to know what they are doing. 

When You Give Up Responsibility, You Give Up Control

Here is what happens when you give up responsibility....you completely give up control of the process and 99% of the time you are giving up control of the process to the wrong people. And guess what? Most of the so called "experts", agencies, or people that claim they can help you are really not capable of helping you at all. You end up wasting a lot of time and money and typically your mistakes are compounded. You jump from one provider/agency/person to another hoping that this time it will work.

Does this sound familiar?

• You hire an intern or some low level person with not even a basic understanding of marketing to take over all your marketing. You don't want to do it, nor do you understand how to do it so give it to someone else. "This isn't my area of expertise so I let someone else do it. I just hired this kid out of college to handle this for me."
• You hire some SEO company that tells you they can get you ranked on Google. "They promised me they could get me on the first page of Google for $50/month. Thought I would give it a try. What do I have to lose?"
• You hire your 3rd company that tells you they can you ranked on Google. Been burned twice now, this time this company seems for real! "This company promised me some free advertising to go with getting my website on the first page of Google for $100/month! Can't really tell if it's working or not, but the sales person sure seems to think it is."
• You tell one of your family members to setup a website and mail some postcards for which you will pay them $15.00/hour. This will surely work, won't it? "Son, you can set up a website can't you? Well do it and let me know how it turns out. We also need some postcards sent out, see what you can do about that."
• You buy some book or product that promises you everything under the sun. You read it, do nothing, and it collects dust on your desk. "Boy that was some great information. If only I had time to do any of it I could generate a ton of new business."
• You buy some advertising in your local paper because some sales person showed up at your door and told you to. "Let's see how that ad does in the paper. That sales  person sure was persistent. This has to work this time, doesn't it?"

You try some different things and you continue to abdicate to others yet you fail to understand the core of what would make any marketing actually work. For marketing to actually work, you have to craft a great powerful message. You need to start with this before you can implement any tactics (a system or a detail of tactics like SEO or direct mail). The very first thing I do when starting any client in our marketing systems is we setup two 1-hour calls to help craft a killer USP, a competition crushing guarantee, clearly identify our niche, and understand who are target client is. Not everyone is a prospect; you need to understand this first!

Only a select group of people are worthy of your services and we need to identify who those people are before we can implement a marketing system that is loaded with tactics. What makes your service better than anyone else's? Why are you unique? What do you stand for? For how long will you stand behind it? 

The Pushy Marketing Sales Person Isn't Qualified to Help You Just Yet

Delegating marketing tactics don't work unless you have the marketing foundation and messaging behind it. I have analyzed several of the big internet marketing agencies, most are doing $50,000,000.00 or more per year, and NONE of them take any time or thought into helping lay the proper foundation before you start spending money on media. NONE. ZERO. ZILCH.

Why?

Because they don't understand marketing, they only understand the tactic they are selling. For these companies to grow to that level in sales, you will never speak to anyone in the organization that is smarter than you right now. That's a big problem. You want to find people that are smarter than you in areas that you are weak. And if you are weak in marketing knowledge, the last thing you want to do is hire a big company with the low man on the todem pole handling your marketing. They will not have the knowledge to help you. I have seen this time and time again.

They aren't qualified to help you grow your business unless you have everything else figured out and you can delegate very specific tasks to them to complete.

Don't Jump to Tactics Before You Differentiate and Perfect Your Message

You can't jump to the tactic or media stage without clearly differentiating yourself from the pack. You will not get the response you are looking for and will waste a ton of money in the process. You will jump from one idea to the next making one bad decision after another. Listen, no one is going to figure this out 100% without your involvement. This is your business and you are the only one that fully understands what makes you unique and better than the competitor down the street. 

The next time you go to hire someone to "help" you with your marketing, and they aren't asking you about your messaging, ideal target, guarantee, and uniqueness...RUN! They aren't qualified to help you with anything at this point.

Need more help growing your remodeling business? Take advantage of all the FREE resources I have on www.RyanPaulAdams.com and download my "3 Killer Ways to Grow Your Remodeling Business" today.