How can I find a business-to-business marketing guru for a small professional services firm?

There are many different disciplines within b2b marketing, so I would recommend trying to work out which of these is most relevant for you, particularly if your budget is limited and prioritising accordingly. My company is expert in b2b data driven marketing - basically finding prospects for clients through business databases - though we don't get involved in design, branding, or other areas which may be more relevant for you right now. I think, I would recommend looking for a group of specialists in these areas, rather than a single marketing guru, as each discipline is uniquely challenging. I have been worked with almost every major company in the UK for more than a decade and never met an all rounder yet!

There is definitely someone on our website, http://www.mosaicHUB.com that can become your marketing guru. mosaicHUB is an online community for entrepreneurs.  We provide a free platform for entrepreneurs to connect with each other and with service providers and find answers and resources to help launch, run and grow great businesses.

I'd Google marketing specialists/ consultants etc local to where you are based. Anyone worth looking at understands how to market themselves too, and you should be able to find them. The local thing can be quite important if you are a professional service provider, as having someone who understands your neighborhood, kinds of business you want to serve, and the marketing possibilities around you can create a special kind of insight. Having said that, a decent marketer should be getting to grips with those things as quickly as possible anyway. I wouldn't be overly hung up on whether they have huge experience of your industry - you want someone who will do what is right for your business and what you want to achieve. In assessing them, you want to be shown examples of how they have solved previous or existing client marketing problems. Showing you marketing output (pretty brochures etc) doesn't necessarily demonstrate how they reached the right target audience for the client, or worked within a budget. There are a variety of freelance portals that you could find people offering their services (but you will get a mix of good and bad). Local networking groups are often frequented by marketers, and I'd also look at any government support directories - in the UK, Business Link has a directory of 'vetted' service providers.

I own a small B2B professional services firm, and one thing I have discovered is that most of the people I want to reach--owners of growing businesses with 5 to 50 employees--don't spend much time on social media for business purposes. The people I attract via social media are usually one-person businesses. Nothing wrong with these, but they are generally smaller, less-lucrative projects. So I still reach my target audience the old-fashioned ways: introductions from clients and referral sources, public speaking to business organizations, and giving regular workshops and webinars.

I agree with the fact that you need someone experienced in B2B. You can ask for referrals of course, see who demonstrates their knowledge through online venues and content, and ideally someone that walks the talk.   For example, I am a small business owner of a service-based company, and I do freelance marketing and marketing coaching for select clients, based on over a decade of corporate world and small business/emtrepreneurial B2B marketing.   You also should look at your budget, whether or not you want local talent or you just want to work with the best talent regardless of where they are, and whether your company's work would get the attention it deserves, or be assigned to a junior person vs. a senior-level, highly-experienced marketer.   Hope that helps.  Please feel free to direct any quick questions you have to me--glad to be of service!

Sales and marketing today involves many disciplines to target, then market to your audience. The difficulty is that you would need to either employ a whole team of developers, social media experts, writers and direct marketing experts within your business to get the results. But in my experience most small professional firms do not want the headache and certainly do not want to have to learn how to do it themselves. Outsourcing is a good way, I would suggest you look at a company called Netsauce I came across their CEO recently and sounds like a good idea http://www.netsauce.net it is a new division of a 20 year old online consultancy firm that have created a local version of their global outsourced services and they literally do everything for you. Best of all they guarantee the results locally and costs are very good considering what they offer. I would ask them for a 3 month trial at a reduced cost and base the future fee on results, always worked for me. Local marketing is now big business with many Internet marketers using their skills to help smaller companies, but beware many of those GURU'S use Black hat techniques and you may end up paying good money to take a few step backwards.

You want an agency or contractor that understands the basics of building a B2B brand, which is quite different from a B2C facing brand. We leverage Social Media Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube coupled with content strategy this is market focused and optimized and a back end CRM application for lead management. We did a Blog Post today about retaining a "social media strategist" that maps out 16 critical assessments: http://www.linkedmediagroup.com/social-media-strategist/

Do a lot of research and ask a lot of questions.  Look for someone or an agency that you can form a long term relationship with.  Some great places to start looking are by asking other B2B companies who they use, also look to your industry organizations. Some things to consider: Budget for marketing services Marketing Goals Time Involvement

Look for one that specializes in your field (accounting, law or management consulting). Make sure they understand thought leadership and can personally execute. Best bet is someone formerly employed as a marketing manager in a professional services firm. Worst bet is a consumer product marketer.