Pros and Cons of Hiring a Marketing Consultant

In the past year, we’ve seen the “Great Resignation” – people quitting their jobs in large numbers in search of something different, something better.

That leaves teams and companies short-handed. You might be able to get away with asking people to take on more responsibility for a short while, but it’s not a sustainable plan. To fill the gap you may consider a marketing consultant.

Before you hire a consultant, here are some things to consider:

Pros of hiring a marketing consultant

Flexibility

You may have a project that you only need help with for a couple of months. In this case, hiring a consultant is a great choice because you can quickly get the extra resource you need without needing to go through a formal hiring process. As the project winds down you can part ways. The consultant will move on to other things and when you need help again you know who you can call.

Varied Skill Sets

Let’s say a client or customer comes to you with a project that requires email marketing and paid ads. Hiring a consultant is a fantastic option. You can find someone who can do both or you can find two consultants who specialize in each thing. Consultants tend to stay up to date on their skills, making it easier for them to find new work. This will also allow you to change the scope of the contract with your consultant without having to find someone new.

Varied Levels

One of the nice things about hiring consultants is that you will have access to experience at all levels. If you need an analyst to pinch-hit you can find that. If you need a strategist to help problem-solve for a couple of months, we’re out there!

And since you can’t have the good without the bad to balance it all out:

Cons of hiring a marketing consultant

Integration

Consultants will have a more challenging time integrating themselves into the company culture, especially if they are on a short-term contract. If you’re wanting to find a resource that is with you and your team long-term, a consultant may not be the right option.

Competing Priorities

This is going to be hard to hear. You are not their only client. One of the jobs of a consultant is to be present and engaged with every single one of their clients. This makes the client feel like the consultant works only for them. In reality, consultants may have a handful of clients that are all clamoring for their attention at the same time. If you don’t want to compete for your resource’s attention, a consultant may not be for you.

Professional Development

As mentioned above, consultants tend to keep their skills up to date. While they are always looking to learn new things, those things may not be what you and your team need. Depending on your contract, you might be able to ask your consultant to learn a new skill to meet your needs but don’t rely on it. If you need to have a little more control over the skillset of your resource, a consultant may not be the right person for you.

Admittedly, I’m biased toward hiring consultants. In case you didn’t know, this is what we do at Trust Insights [https://www.trustinsights.ai/expertise/]. We support your existing team, bring a set of skills you may not currently have, and help you hire the right people. As your team grows and you’re finding that you need different skills, consider a consultant to help with the transition. If you’re not sure what you need, a consultant is also a great choice as we can help you figure it out!

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Trust Insights (trustinsights.ai) is one of the world's leading management consulting firms in artificial intelligence/AI, especially in the use of generative AI and AI in marketing. Trust Insights provides custom AI consultation, training, education, implementation, and deployment of classical regression AI, classification AI, and generative AI, especially large language models such as ChatGPT's GPT-4-omni, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude. Trust Insights provides analytics consulting, data science consulting, and AI consulting.