Should We Practice What We Preach in Marketing?

I recently saw a post on social media that had me scratching my head.

It was from a marketing consultant/content creator who basically said, "You shouldn't judge a marketing company by the lack of blogs or social media posts they put out for themselves. The successful companies are too busy serving clients to do their own marketing."

Are you scratching your head too?

I don't know about you, but I like to know that the service professionals I hire are successful in doing what they do not only for their clients but for themselves as well.

• I wouldn't employ a plumber who has leaks all over their house.

• I wouldn't employ a financial planner who will never be able to retire due to poor planning.

• Frankly, I wouldn't employ a marketing consultant who doesn't market.

I'll let you in on a little secret: I use my own marketing as a way of experimenting before I offer a service. When I was curious about how to start a podcast, I started my own just to try it out and understand the process. When I was practicing drip email campaigns, I started my own just to see how it works. Heck, even my website is one big experiment - if I want to try putting together a pop-up ad or - in the case of my personal website CatherineTidd.com - a listing of recipes...I try it out on my own website.

So, sorry to disagree with you, Random Marketing Consultant. I think if someone in the marketing space isn't blogging or creating content telling you what they think or creating campaigns for themselves to grow their own business (and test out systems)...they might not be the expert you're looking for.