Training Marketeers

Although there are number of scale up and startup programs in the UK and specifically in Scotland, we constantly here that there is a skill shortage in marketing.

This is probably due to actual experience, if you are a good marketeer then you should probably be starting your own business rather than working for someone else.

I constantly talk about solving the marketing problem in business – it usually isn’t purely a marketing issue and you should always look at product and channel. Product market fit seems a very hot area of focus of SaaS businesses but in consumer most businesses fail due to a sketchy product market fit.

Sometimes you can get away without great product market fit in the early days as customers are buying from you and the things your business stand for. When you scale most businesses you hit a wall at certain points. Piper Private Equity that we worked with at Diet Chef talked about 7, 17, 70 (there explanation here) which resonates especially in consumer which I know better than B2B.

London and other cities are quite well served by marketeers both from agencies and companies, but as you leave this ecosystem there are limited people and companies to target to find good marketeers.

We used to train our own, and perhaps its time to get a group of businesses together to try and build some more marketing experience but also a peer group for marketeers. If you are looking for training a good low cost place to start is the Mark Ritson Mini MBA, I haven’t done it but have heard good things from others.

But always look at product and channels first, a poor marketeer in charge of a good product will alway be better than a great marketeer who has a product problem!