About
Owners come to us when they want to share the burden of marketing — when they look for fresh ideas and more consistent implementation.
What makes us different:
We specialize in working with small business owners. This means we think more broadly–more ideas, smaller tests.
When you hire us you get me. My job isn’t to manage a consulting firm, it’s to grow your sales.
I’ll talk to your customers to inform our ideas. How someone can ask you to accept their ideas about improving your marketing without doing this suggests they’re more interested in their fee than your success.
Message trumps everything. An updated brochure, website or mailer without an updated message that reflects what your customers are concerned about (today, not 18 months when you launched your new site!) are a waste of money. It’s the message, stupid. It really is!
We’re also big on implementation. Consistency and the capacity to assess and refine marketing efforts is tough in a small business. We understand this and it’s one of the things we bring to every client relationship.
My background, briefly:
Second generation Arizona native / Jock / BA, Reasoning, Logic & Persuasion, Drake University / IBM / Realized I don’t like big companies / MBA, Arizona State University / VP Sales & Marketing for two small companies / Tried to buy one, the board laughed at a 27-year-old with his checkbook in hand / Declared myself a consultant, prayed someone would hire me / Almost three decades of working with small companies / And now here we are, you and I. . .
How clients most often hire us:
Virtual Director of Marketing — When you want someone by your side, weekly, to take the idea burden off your shoulders. Do more, faster, with fewer mistakes. At $750 per month, it’s the best bargain going. Click here for details.
Search Engine Marketing — Some call it PPC (pay-per-click), Adwords or sponsored search. Regardless, if your website isn’t your #1 lead source, we need to talk. I’m uniquely qualified to make SEM work for you: I generate traffic AND focus on increasing converting visitors into leads once they land on your site (most only offer the former); and I offer the unusual combination of technical expertise (Google Adwords Professional) and 25+ years of direct response marketing experience (most only offer the former). Click here for details.
The two things clients have said about me I am proudest of:
“Hiring Hamilton helped us finally project the feeling of what it is like to do business with us.” That was Vance Boucher. Watch the video. It typically isn’t one major thing that makes you different or unique. It’s a feeling or a sense people get from many things that gives them the comfort and confidence to go with you. I hope we accomplish this for every client. It’s certainly the goal.
“Just hire Hamilton and do what he says. When things stop working, fire him. We hired him in 2000 and are still using him.” That was Chris Jones and I’m fine with the fire-him-when-things-stop-working arrangement because we focus on results. I charge money for what I do, but I do what I do for the challenge and satisfaction of creating results. I’m not always right, but for the same dollars, there’s nobody better. The great David Ogilvy once said AD MEN fall into two categories, killers and poets. Killers see an ad as a means to an end. Poets see an ad as an end. He also said you need to be some of both to be successful. I agree.
My Story
When I was a kid I stuttered. As a result I thought long and hard about everything I said. It made me acutely aware of how you put words together.
In college I walked out of a class the first day knowing I had “come home.” The class and later my major: Reasoning, Logic & Persuasion. I’ve been an enthusiastic student of the process of human persuasion ever since.
Later I discovered a passion for another process: how companies grow. I was amazed: my observations over coffee with customers were often more impactful than all the expensive computer gear I was selling them. Humm, I thought, that’s weird.
Leaving IBM, an MBA, years in the trenches of small business marketing and almost 30 years as a small business marketing consultant. . .
Email me and let’s talk about the change you’re wanting to make.
