When you put a monetary value on your entire career experience and it's value to your customers, it’s a daunting task.

No one tells you about knowing your own worth in your MBA or when registering your business, you do it yourself.

I know my own worth and most independent consultants do also because the passion that built their business, built their clients businesses too.

If you work with someone like me, with a multi- industry, diverse offering of support and growth skills, you have to invest.

You invest financially as you would in any Director but without the full time commitment, HR issues or any legal backlash should you change course.

You invest in the future of your business and you invest in your people.

Hiring me is like having a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta and taking it to a master technician in Maranello.

Skimping and choosing too many ‘quick wins’ without an all inclusive strategy that takes your company stability and growth higher in the future is dangerous.

It’s like taking your Ferrari to 19 year old Harry down the road who started his mechanics apprenticeship last week.

The other thing you need is patience. It’s so easy to get frustrated with traditional marketing and it’s all inclusive consultancy because it’s often intangible.

Digital marketing is without doubt a superb and dominant element of the overall plan with weekly dashboards and upward trends on the charts but what you need for success is an integrated marketing approach.

How often have you seen an advert for something on TV, had a flyer through your door and then gone online to find out more and low and behold...look, the advert has popped up on your social media too and now it’s following you round the web when you are searching for lawnmowers!

Or how often have you seen a photo of a celebrity wearing or using something that you might want because it says something about you and you want to be ‘like them’. David Beckhams agents aren’t sat their analysing Calvin Klein underwear sales and attributing Harry, our technician’s purchase of said pants in Slaters (Harry likes to impress with his pocket money), to him watching a TV advert after Top Gear re-runs on Dave last Tuesday night.

They are dealing in brand equity, PR and brand awareness. Some of these elements are measurable so you can see what you get for your money but some are not but someone advised them to do them. David Beckham could have done a Wayne Rooney and been banned for drink driving during the campaign and sales may have dropped but the adverts were still going, is that because it’s a bad month, the weather, the advert, the placement or David Beckhams bad judgement?

What I’m illustrating is that if you want short term quick wins from your marketing you can get them and it’s on while it’s on. You can invest in digital marketing alone and think you are getting a return but as soon as you turn that off, what do you have? If you are savvy, wanting to grow with stability and in it for the long game you may need help to gain consistency, an integrated approach and a strong company culture.

I do a lot of 4-5 month planning for events (which I love) and it’s the perfect solution as there is a set outcome at the end over a short period of time which sits well with human money in money out behaviour. Let’s say you set up some digital retargeting though, for your website, you pay per click and hey presto you see an upward trend on your charts along with your bank balance. What that doesn’t show you is did your client actually purchase off the back of that? If your internal teams aren’t asking the right questions on the phone and face to face are you satisfied that your money is being well spent in terms of customer acquisition just because you see an increase in the click numbers? If you want go grow, take your people with you, stay profitable or even create an exit strategy you need an integrated approach that includes a strategy and all elements of the marketing mix collaborated with every other department in your business.

Decide where you are taking your Ferrari, do you still want her to be on the road in 10 years or at the local scrapyard?

I’m in Maranello...if you need me.

Performance@gemmaangharad.com

Www.gemmaangharad.com