The perfect team ???

[BryanCroft]

So I just got back from MozCon, my first one, wow - its got me jacked up and ready to rock!

Here is my question, we are a moderately successful eCommerce company (close to $2M in revenue for 2013) and we want to take it to the next level. As the owner of the company I feel like the head coach of a baseball team, while i would like to have a team of 20, we have to grow to that because we cant afford that today, so my question to you is we want to launch a new site for a product that we manufacture.  I am willing to hire tomorrow and make the invest in 3 positions, ( lets assume that the avg position is $30K - $40K )

What would you suggest that those 3 positions be?

UI Developer?
Link Builder / Social Media?
Graphic Design?

Im just looking for some advise or direction to give us the best opportunity to succeed!

thanks!

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Bryan,

I would suggest hiring in agency to start out with somebody extremely reputable friends since this the

http://moz.com/community/recommended

http://www.distilled.net/ , http://www.portent.com/, http://evolvingSEO.com, Internetmarketingninjas.com , SEERinteractive.com ,

Then get a recommendation from them it seems to me that to me

If you hire somebody and they are on Odesk and nothing against Odesk however there are some people that honestly have no business calling themselves SEO's

Or whatever they're calling themselves my opinion would be to create a relationship with one of the recommended companies and get them to then that your new employee that way you'll start off strong and finish strong.

You're looking to spend a decent amount of money, and I'm not trying to prevent you from hiring people I think that's a fantastic thing you're doing however you need somebody that knows what the other people are doing to tell you hire this guy or don't.

Some one you can test with http://www.distilled.net/u/home/

I hope this is going to help to you sincerely,

Thomas

[BryanCroft]

I like this reply .. its right in line with what im kinda thinking

1. Content Writer
2."Artist"
3. ??? Might need a ASP.net programmer if we need to make back end changes

thanks!
Bryan

[BryanCroft]

Hey Dana - thanks for the reply, we went thru the business plan stage and we have done our market research.  After all this research our team has come to the conclusion that this eCommerce site can grow to $1M + a year in sales ( that is what we consider successful )

Now is the time to build the BRAND

1. Add new products daily ( more pages and content )
2. Community Manager for our Social/Blogger/Outreach
3. ???

I still think we need graphic design in house because all of our products are custom - and the opportunity for new products is endless.

Ill tip my hat - the site we want to grow in our portfolio of sites is www.CustomSigns.com

- Thanks - Bryan

[EGOL]

What would you suggest that those 3 positions be?

One content writer.   I would get an excellent writer, 4.0 GPA English major, preferably someone who already knows an awful lot about the types of products you sell.  Steer clear of the fiction and poetry types.  I would want a newsy, business, journalist, product how-to-do-it type of writer.

One artist / photographer / videographer who has a great portfolio of product photography and video production.

Another content author who has experience storyboarding for video.  We would be building the best content library (text with photo and video for your product area on or off of the web.

[danatanseo]

Hi Bryan,

I can totally relate with riding the high after MozCon. Now is the perfect time to do something about it, while the fire is still hot, yes?

My background is in eCommerce, primarily, but my very beginnings on the net were in email marketing. While my current job title is "SEO Strategist," I have never considered myself just an SEO, but more an Internet or digital marketer. To answer your questions, I would answer these first:

1. Have you written a complete business plan for this new product and new Website? If so, I assume you've identified potential competitors, done your SWOT analysis, defined customer personas, have a budget, financial projections, et al. If you have, you should also know already how you are planning on promoting your site. Is it some paid search, Facebook ads, retargeting, blogging, print, organic, email, other? What mix of those?

2. Have you defined the new brand? Have you decided who this brand is going to be, what it looks like and what it's supposed to (hopefully) mean to your customers?

2. Are you going to be using an existing list of customers to spearhead your efforts, or are you going to begin a new list?

When I think about the answers to these questions, in my own experience, my list of 3 new hires would probably be the same regardless of the answers:

1. Brand Strategist / Search Engine Marketer (preferably someone with a strong background in eCommerce sales)
2. Email Marketing Manager (eCommerce background) - For Retargeting Emails, Content Emails, and Promotional Emails.
3. Community Manager  (again, eCommerce background) - for Social Media, Blogging and Blogger Outreach

I would outsource the UI and graphic design as Francisco suggests. The three positions I mentioned are three you'd most likely never want to outsource and they should bring a mix of other skills that should make for a strong team. For example, if you haven't yet written your business plan, a good brand strategist most likely has written or helped to write a business plan at some point prior to coming on board with you. They should be able to help with that.

I'm excited for you and keep us posted about the launch of the new product!

Dana

[Francisco_Meza]

LOL no problem! I do outsource to people in USA ESPECIALLY for content writing and some development.

I also like the in-person team environment. Your reply does not sound cheesy. I find that community is stronger in other states vs Southern California. Over here it seems that companies are not loyal to their employees or their families. Oer here it's all about the bottom line and keeping the most money in our pockets. I wish the community here was more like yours like Jacksonville, FL.

[BryanCroft]

Francisco - thanks for the reply. We have used alot of outsourcing help in the past, and certain things are good for outsourcing, i get it. But one of the things i love the best about owing a company - is creating jobs for my community and a giving others in life the feeling of being on a successful team, that might sound cheesy, but its what i love and it keeps me going to meet new people, coach, train and mentor them into being great team members with great families in our community. So that is a long cheesy way of saying, outsourcing will not work here for me. thanks Bryan

[Francisco_Meza]

I'll probably get big thumbs down for this, but this is what I have done.

UI Developer - this is a coder you can find on oDesk. I have my own guys. If you are going to be using a custom application (like a customized database driven site using ZEND or php), you might want to contract someone, then give them a monthly maintenance fee to handle bugs or upgrades.

Link Builder / Social Media - Use buzzstream. This is where I would spend the most money to get rankings. This is ONLY a part of marketing. Read this to get a better idea of what you need for tools: http://moz.com/ugc/13-social-media-software-tools-for-marketing-your-company-or-clients

P.S. I wrote it.

Graphic Design? - You don't need a full-time graphic designer. Even if you take the pictures in your warehouse, you can outsource the work to someone on oDesk using dropbox.

So as you can probably tell I outsource to other people, especially to my guys in Bangladesh. KEEP the programming in USA if it's a big project that requires someone to be there in person.