How B2B SaaS Companies Should Hire Freelancers, Contractors & Agencies

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Mark Evans: In tough economic times, marketing is an easy target. When it comes to reducing budgets, marketing quickly suffers the consequences. Fewer full time resources means marketing leaders have to be creative and agile to keep the machine moving. They often turn to agencies and freelancers for strategic and tactical help. Of course, there are pros and cons of using agencies versus doing things in house. With full time employees, you have dedicated resources. With agencies and freelancers, you have the flexibility and the ability to turn activities on and off. I'm happy to have Gwen Lefage on the podcast to discuss the in house versus agency slash consultant slash freelancer conundrum. Gwen is the VP of brand and content at Cynch, a cloud communications platform. And before joining Cinch in 2021, she spent twenty years working at agencies. Welcome to Marketing Spark.

Guest: Thanks for having me. This is dating me a bit, right, when you said it's been twenty years in agencies.

Mark Evans: Maybe I should have said that you're an experienced marketing leader. So that was just that would be a marketer doing marketing for a marketer if you follow my drift here. But I think what I'm getting at is that over the last twenty years in which you've been doing marketing, you've gained a lot of experience, and you can't buy experience. You can't buy perspective. You can be super smart. You could go to great schools and take take amazing courses, but having seen that, done that, sort of experience a lot of stuff is invaluable, and that's something that I think that we lose sight of from time to time.

Guest: Great. Because we see a lot of, I guess, posts or, like, comments on social from from people that maybe lack the experience, but have a lot of beliefs, I guess, or of, like, sharing sharing some advice and but it's not always based on concrete experience. Right? I see I see that often with with maybe consultant or people in agencies, actually, that maybe have not really been there or or done it themselves, which is always quite interesting. Experience definitely helps. It helps in remembering what happened the last time, having been through similar situations before. You talked about some of the the difficulties in the market right now, and it's not the first time. Right? Like, if if you've been in this space or if you've been doing in business for more than twenty years, you've been there before. Right? You know that this kind of tough times happen, and sometimes they are a great catalyst for creativity and innovation. Right? So I think it's sometime when you have less budget and more constraint that you can actually well, you you are forced to actually think outside of the box because your box got so small that it might be an opportunity sometimes for creativity.

Mark Evans: Just going back to that experience perspective thing. One of the things that I suffer from, even though I've been in as a marketing slash journalist for more than twenty years to date myself as well, is that sometimes I suffer from impostor syndrome. I'm talking to a client, and I say to myself, do I really know what I'm talking about? Do they really believe that I have the expertise? I think I suffer from the fact that I don't recognize the fact that I don't sort of appreciate the fact that I've been there. I've done that. I've seen lots of things go up and down in the business world. What I see as basic advice, marketing one zero one, for a lot of people, that is tremendous insight. Now I don't wanna overblow my talents and go or anything like that. But the things that we look at is that's just the thing you do in marketing. People don't know that. A lot of entrepreneurs, for example, don't know that. So they just see it as gold. And I think it's a one thing to remember is that that we've built up such a a database of knowledge that a lot of people just don't have that. And that's something that we can share and and that we can take advantage of or people can take advantage of.

Guest: Yeah. No. I definitely I totally agree, and it's really interesting how the impostor syndrome never goes away. Right? Like, it's not because you gain more experience that you don't have that syndrome. Right? I have it a lot as well. Like, maybe every single time I have to press send on LinkedIn, I'm posting something. I'm like, is this actually something that is correct or make me look okay? Or, like, am I not, you know, like, overthinking things? And I think I think it happened to everyone. I it's a very interesting thing that I think from all of my first years in in business and for a long time, maybe for the first ten years, I had this feeling of always being too young or not experienced enough. And that lasted for a really long time until the day I was like, well, not actually. I'm the oldest in the room. So you went from being, like, too young to becoming kind of the oldest in the room in, like, a couple of years. So that that was quite interesting. And the the experience is definitely there. I think it helps in making decisions faster and sometime in seeing the the big picture. Right? Like, I think that's that's the thing that maybe comes with experience is kind of seeing the big picture, the forest from the tree. Right? Like we like we said, when, like, when you are too maybe in experience, sometimes you just focus on on smaller details and you have a harder time taking a step back. I think that's something that comes with experience, and that is hard to replicate without having worked for, like, many years.

Mark Evans: And that ties in, I think, to, you know, one of the themes of the podcast is taking a look at what does 2023 look like from a b to b SaaS perspective. You look at the situation in Ukraine. Maybe we're on a the verge of a global recession, maybe not. Thousands of tech employees are being laid off right now. Microsoft, Amazon, Shopify, Slack, many of them are marketing people because marketers are are, as I said, low hanging fruit. What's your take on how the marketing landscape is going to evolve? Because we're coming off two really good years where we spent a lot of money on marketing to acquire customers, and now things seem different. What do see some of the key things, the some of the more the things good and bad that are going to emerge this year?

Guest: I think that, in a way, having too much money have made some of the marketers lazy. Because if you if the only thing you have to do is just put more money on, like, a campaign, right, on paid search and paid ads, and it's kind of an easy way to grab attention. So I think in a way, we'll force different type of creativity to stand out. It's a difficult time, especially seeing all the layoffs. I think that's that's tricky, and that mean that teams will have that stay. Right? We'll have to operate with less people, less resources, and they'll have to focus a lot more. That mean that that teams are gonna be or marketing team are gonna be forced to really look into what works and don't work for them. So I don't think there is a one size fit all or, like, all companies should stop event or, like, all companies should stop, like, you know, paid search because it really depends on, like, the market they're in and, like, what actually work for them today. But I think the key is is looking into the data, looking into what has been working for that company and being more focused. It's a bit as well of, like, going back to basics. I feel like there's a lot of, like, tricks and hacks, right, in in marketing that people claim or say you can by doing this, you're gonna get so much more traffic and this and that. And and I feel like a lot of companies maybe have been doing that and getting into that doing doing wheel without having set some of the foundations. Of course, I come from a brand background. So for me, foundation starts with brand and establishing some of the the the brand foundation in terms of of visual identity, but mostly in terms of positioning and messaging, what is kind of, like, the the message you wanna convey. And that has nothing to do with how much money you paid on you put on paid ads. Right? But if you have the right message on those ads, they should be performing better. Right? So I think a bit of going back to basics, making sure that you understand your audiences and that you have the right brand foundation, I think, is probably what a lot of marketing team are going through right now.

Mark Evans: A lot of places we can go from here. One of them that I wanted to focus on is positioning because I spend a lot of time doing positioning work for b to b SaaS companies. And sometimes I feel like I'm Don Quixote sort of tilting up windmills. I'm advocating for positioning. No one believes me or no one thinks that it's a need to have. Maybe it's a nice to have. What I'm sensing, and I'm glad you mentioned it, is a return to fundamentals. And a lot of companies looking at their positioning and asking themselves, do we stand out? Are we differentiated? Are are we better than than competitors? And when times get tough, if you haven't got that, if you haven't got that core piece in place, it's really hard for your marketing and sales to succeed because you're just like everybody else doing Yep. Using the exact same channels as everybody else.

Guest: Exactly. I think it's like it's it means that right now, you you can't just, like, see a problem and throw money at it. Right? So you just have to be a bit more a bit clever, I guess, on on how you approach it. And, yes, the the positioning and the foundational work of marketing needs to happen, I think, now. And that combined with an analysis of, like, what's been working. So I I will say a lot of kind of data analysis, but also probably a better understanding of of target audiences and, like, focusing efforts. Because in a time right now, you can't be anything to everyone, right, or any everything to everyone. You have to really pick your battles. And in order to do that, you need to know which battle to pick. Right? So I think that's that's the tricky part. And I think from from where I stand right now, even at Cinch, that this is kind of, like, the moment we we are into. I think we've done a lot of work last year on on positioning, positioning, on umbrella positioning because we are a kind of newer a new company in the sense that we've grown a lot and acquired a lot of companies, so we had to redefine what is the new story. So we've done a lot of that work, and now it's about when you're such a large company, you have so many target audiences, so many things that you could do or say that the tough part is to decide which one to focus on. Right? Which one will have the biggest business impact because you can't do them all? And I think that marketing will have to learn to say no more often. And I I say this for myself as well. I'm not the best at this. Right? Like, I I'm a I'm a crowd pleaser. Right? I think when you come from agency and have clients your life, you have that mindset of, like, serving people. But I think marketing will have to say no. We said our focus is x. Like, we're not gonna do this this time because we cannot do it all. And that's really hard because there's a lot of requests and expectation for marketing from the whole organization, and and you've gotta let some people down.

Mark Evans: On my last podcast, I interviewed Andrew Orocha. He's the chief revenue officer for Drift. And and not surprisingly, he leaned into revenue growth and optimizing marketing as a key theme. So the idea was less is more, more discipline, more structure, more focus, and everything has to drive revenue growth. Yes. That's a valid argument, and it will be part of a business mix, but I'm I also think that creativity is also important, and you can't back away from creativity even when times get tough, when you're trying to tighten your purse string. Can you talk about the need for creativity in b to b? What it means to be creative and how creativity is changing a very high level esoteric question because creativity is everything, especially in a creative economy. What is the importance of creativity, and and how do companies make sure that they're balancing revenue growth with the creative side of marketing?

Guest: I think, like I guess I'll start with saying that I think there is a risk in seeing marketing at just just a a revenue channel. It is true, and especially in self serve model. Right? Like, when you do digital marketing, it's a pure acquisition, model and campaigns. And but I think marketing is, bigger than that. And we were talking about some of those foundations, and they are driven by, like, marketing team in the strategic side and understanding customers and establishing those stories. And and you can't really put, like, a revenue number on that. And the risk was also this kind of revenue approach, which I see a lot. Right? It's like everyone in marketing needs to kind of own a revenue number. And I I kind of get that, but at the same time, I think it misses the point on some of the fundamentals of marketing. I think marketing is bigger than that. And when you look at brand and creativity, again, I think you you have to think long term, and those kind of revenue metrics are short term. They're, like, performance based and immediate based. Right? Like, you have to see the numbers now. But with what we do, you have this long term effect. And whatever you're doing today might not really have, like, an effect today, but it might next year. So I think if you if you put that on the side, you will not kind of, like, achieve the same time of growth, I think. So just to go back to to creativity, I think it's a way to stand out and think outside of the of the box. It can take a lot of shape or form. I think there is a bit of misconception that creativity is those kind of big creative ad campaign that come from consumer world, and you need a TV ad, right, like a highly produced video. And that's what you call creativity, but I don't think it is, especially with the emergence of social and, like, the time that people spend on social and and especially in b to b, especially if you are, like, targeting marketing and sales. Right? They're all on LinkedIn all day. Maybe not, but you know?

Mark Evans: Yeah. It seems like it.

Guest: I think there's a lot of creativity there that I think is kind of new that we didn't see before. I think there's a lot of ways to be creative when you reach someone's inbox. Right? That's creativity. Like, I receive sometimes messaging from SDRs that are a poem or they sing me a song, and I'm like, okay. That's cool. That stopped my attention. Right? Like, and it's the same on social. Right? You will see, like, a rap song and, like, people doing, like, good video when they share their learnings. And to me, that belongs to, like, the creativity bucket. It's about trying to not do exactly what everyone else is doing. Doesn't have to be the beautiful ad campaign, which, of course, I love, but you need budget for that. So

Mark Evans: As of creative, obviously, I agree with everything you say about the value of creativity. But in an economic environment where a lot of CEOs and a lot of entrepreneurs are demanding leads and more leads, and there's a sense of desperation out there. And they're saying, if we spend x, I expect y. So if I'm gonna spend put my budget against advertising or search engine marketing, I wanna get a two times return or a three times return. And as a marketer, how do you sell creativity within that context? How do you say to the CEO, I wanna do something interesting. I wanna build something for the long term that builds brand awareness and differentiates us from competitors who are just doing vanilla marketing. What approaches would you take as a marketing leader to get a CEO on-site?

Guest: It's a it's a really interesting question, and it's a difficult one. I think what's sure is that you need to tick the box on delivering those leads before you can try to sell the bigger ideas. Because if you don't, for sure, you will fail. Right? Like, for sure, like, you're you're staying the company not long enough for your activities to actually show results, and then I'm gonna keep you. Right? And I think that you see that sometimes with CMO having very short tenure, right, like in company, then they come in, change everything. Let's change the website. Let's rebrand. Let's put a new paint on on the side and on the brand, and and then they're gone. Right? Because I think if you start that way and spend too much time doing that, you will never really get those results. So I think you need to do both. You need to first approach the the tactical thing that will deliver results today. You need to have a focus on that so that you can show results so that your CEO can trust you to do other. Right? So you could probably gonna have to deal with your your your boss or your CEO of, like, okay. I'm gonna deliver you on this. You leave me this to kind of explore, experiment for big ideas and creativity, and I do cool stuff with that. And I would like I want that program to not be measured in the same way because it won't be the same direct response to it. So I think it's probably a bit of a trade, but I think it's hard to just come in and do a job and just say, let's just be creative and do all this cool stuff if you can't really show any results straight away, especially right now in b two b. Right? You you do need to show those those results.

Mark Evans: I see that firsthand with clients because I lean into the brand creative side of the house, positioning, messaging, content marketing, putting together strategic plans, and my forte is marketing foundations and setting a a company up for the long term. But what I'm finding with clients these days is they want leads, and so I need to produce help them produce leads right away. Once they see say they see lead, then they'll let me do what I want. They'll do the positioning work. They'll build out the strategic approach because they there's a sense of relief that marketing is doing what it's supposed to do, And in their view of the world, it's generate leads. And it's a nice segue into how do you think brands should approach using agencies, freelancers, consultants at a time when marketing budgets are being cut back. So they have to be agile. They have to be creative. They have to think of cost effective ways of getting the work done. Where do they start if they if they've been leaning into in house resources on a regular basis. And now the landscape changed, and they've got a small team, and they need to figure out a new way of operating. What would you advise a CMO or CEO who needs to leverage third party resources more than ever?

Guest: Yeah. I think that's it's a interesting situation because in a way, it is more expensive in some ways to hire external resources than not having them in house in a lot of cases. So I think it's a mistake to let go of, like, all the designers or creative resources in house. I believe that you need some in house. I see the role of agencies as being, like, a true collaboration or an extension of an in house team. Like you said, I've been on the agency side for a really long time with some client that we spend years working with and as an extension to their team. And I think that kind of model works really well if you become so close to them that it's almost like you're in house. And since we have, like, a an external a small external studio that we work with day in, day out, right, like, they've been there for for a really long time, and they help scale the output, I think, like, the day to day. So I think that's one way for urgency, I think, is to scale the work, being able to deliver more. Right? And in that sense, you can externalize to potentially cheaper resources. We're in a global economy. Right? So there's also great designers in a lot of different places where that could be a good good way to not spend as much, but use great creative resources in in other places of the world. Like, not US, but you can go to cheaper markets. Right? But I also see the value in really creative agencies that you will bring in to bring that extra creativity. So I think there's, to me, two different type of agencies and two different ways to work with with agency. It's one is to scale, likely just the outcomes, and one is to think outside the box on kind of more a bigger campaign or a specific piece of content or a piece of video that you really care about. Video is a really great great one because it's really hard to have in house video resources because you might not need them all the time. Although, you can argue now that you need them more and more and that you should get, like, video in house. But I think for big creative or video production or animation, then it makes sense to go to external agencies. But I think either way, what's important is to work with agencies as collaborators. Right? Like, as not like, I'm your client. Here's what you need to do, but more you're hiring them for the expertise. So trust that they will give that expertise and help you. Right? I feel like sometimes you see that with clients. And having been on the agency side, I've been that agency where clients just hire you and then they just tell you exactly what to do. And then you're like, why did you hire me if you don't listen to my advice? So I think it's listening to the advice and let them do what they're good at, right, which is those cool creative ideas are sometimes a lot harder to do when you're in house because you're so embedded into the day to day and the politics that you can't really think a bit wider. Agency also have, like, the benefit that they work on a lot of clients. So they have a a bit more of an opening on what's happening in the rest of the world. Right? So they can you can benefit from that, I think, as a company. So I like both. So I like having an in house team, but being able to work with freelancers or agencies when when needed on specific projects.

Mark Evans: Given your experience working for agencies and now working in house, here's a two sided question. What are the keys to getting good work and value from agencies or consultants? And on the flip side, how can agencies and consultants show their value to clients as soon as possible?

Guest: So I think one thing to get them the maximum of the agency, I think, is be grateful. I feel like it's a weird thing to say, but I feel like when we were when I was on the agency side, we will categorize some of our clients on, like, these the work might not be the most interesting, but they are the loviest to work with. Right? Like, they are the best team, and they love us. And every time we do something, they say thank you. And then these ones, like, okay. Maybe the money is good, but they never say thank you. It's always last minute. You know, they treat us really bad. When that happen, you don't give your best work because you're like, well, what does it matter? Right? They're not gonna have get they're not gonna like it either way. Right? So I think being able to collaborate with the agency and sharing what you the expectation, but let them do what they're good at and treat them well. Right? I feel like it seems obvious, but it's because I've seen so many client treating agencies so badly that I think it's really important. You'll get a lot more things done, and they'd be a lot nicer to you if you do. Right? If you treat them more than just a supplier, I think. So that's the first part of the question. And then what was the second part again? Sorry.

Mark Evans: The second part was how external agencies and consultants can show their value to clients ASAP. In my business, what I found is I look for quick wins. Website copy that can be fixed, CTAs that can be improved, a key piece of collateral that they don't have. To me, that's gold because it shows the client that I'm being proactive, and I wanna deliver value as soon as possible. So what's your take in terms of how agencies and consultants can do that kind of thing and show the value that they're bringing to the table?

Guest: Yeah. I think that you you're right. Like, some small tactical wins is a great way to approach it. Where urgency sometimes fail is the two months of, like, we need to analyze your business from, you know, floor to ceiling, and we're gonna spend two months doing that and interviewing everybody in the company, and then we're gonna produce this beautiful deck that no one cares about. So I think, like, that to me is, like, not the right approach. Of course, you need to understand your plans and you need to do some research. But I think if you can do that while showing some quick wins, there's a higher your chance that the collaboration is gonna get longer. Right? Because if it comes if it gets too long to get to actual deliverables, the clients won't have the patience for that. Right? Like, I mean, we we've had experience, like, even at Synch was when I joined, we started working with this agency, content agency, and it took months before anything came out. And when when it came out, it was like, well, okay. Great. I have an infographic, but then what have we done for the past two months? Right? Like, I think it's you really need to, like especially when you work with fast paced SaaS companies or tech companies. Right? Like, things move fast. You need to show you value straight away.

Mark Evans: The other angle is how do you identify good third party talent? There are so many options out there, so many marketing agencies and and consultants that are good marketers. So they'll position themselves as shiny and sexy and irresistible, and they've got these amazing track records, and they do this amazing work. It's easy to get seduced by an agency that looks good and talks the talk. Because if you're a marketing agency, you can't do good marketing. Well, that's a problem. So if you're a CMO or a CEO and you're looking for a marketing partner, what are some of the rules of thumb that you should follow in terms of sorting the good ones from the bad ones and making sure that you're making the right decision?

Guest: That's a good question, and it's interesting. It's a bit the same when you hire people. Right? You don't know until you actually start working with them. The the benefit when you work with agency that you can start working with them if it doesn't work. You can stop it when you hire someone. You kinda wanna, like, keep them in. Right? It's tough. It's, like, it's hard with just a few discussions to assess. I hate agency pitches where you get an agency to, like, do this whole pitch and do all this work before you even start working with them. Because I've been on that side, and it's, like, a killer for agencies. Right? Like, and that's the norm in in consumer agencies. Right? And it's also happening in b two b now. I think that's not the right approach. I personally definitely focus on track records and some of the other campaigns or work that they've done in the past, who they work with in the past, showing out, like, case studies just like you would do for, like, buying a software. Right? Like, what what kind of customer stories do they have? What kind of other campaign that they've done that that you see were were good. And I care a lot about the people. So I think when when you work with an agency, you work with a set of people, and the relationship and the people you work with is as important as the agency itself. And I think that personally, for me, I think that's why I have now a tendency to favor smaller agencies and freelancers rather than large shops Because the people that sell to you in the large company or agency, they're not the people that are gonna actually work on your account. And in my career, I've done both. I've worked with inside, like, large agency, creative agency, and then smaller ones. And I think the the work you do, the relationship you build with as a small with with small agencies is is stronger. And to me, that's what matters. Right? It's like, discuss or talk to the people you're actually gonna work with, the people that are actually gonna do the work on your account to see if they are what you think they are and not just what's on written on the agency website.

Mark Evans: Well, we've covered a lot of ground in thirty four minutes and fifty five seconds ranging from impostor syndrome to the b to b SaaS landscape to working with agencies, consultants, and freelancers. So thank you for all this great information. I think it's really valuable to marketing leaders who are trying to navigate very choppy waters. Anything they can do to help them make the right strategic and tactical decisions is very, very good advice. Final question is where can people learn more about you and Cinch?

Guest: I spent some time on LinkedIn, so you can definitely find me there. I'm pretty easy to find, I think. And then on Cinch, of course, on our website, on our YouTube channel, there's a whole bunch of videos. Feel free to ask me as well any any question about Cinch if you reach out.

Mark Evans: Well, thanks for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review, subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and share via social media. To learn more about how I work with b to b SaaS companies as a fractional CMO, strategic adviser, and positioning and messaging development, email mark@markedmunds.ca, or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll talk to you later.