I had a meeting today with an owner of a small business who wanted to speak with me about online marketing. His company is quite small and he has had to assume both the marketing and the accounting responsibilities. In this tough economy, he admitted spending more than his fair share of sleepless nights worrying about the financial viability of his business.
After hearing him speak about his concerns for awhile, I knew we weren’t going to discuss Internet marketing. He had a different problem. His accounting responsibilities had sapped his creative juices needed for his marketing. His financial stresses and the day-to-day grind of paying the bills had pushed him into a hole. He couldn’t do any creative marketing because other concerns had him paralyzed.
In larger companies, these two job functions would be completely separate. Philosophically, they’re at odds with each other. The marketing department wants to spend money while the accounting folks want to hold the line on costs. These contrary goals provide tension in a company. In this circumstance, the tension is good. However, imagine for a moment one person tasked with both functions. It just doesn’t work.
A good marketing program requires creativity and novelty. If you have the added concerns of paying the bills, it’s that much more difficult to be creative, much less spend the money necessary for marketing.
The small business owner I mentioned earlier is leaning toward handing over the accounting responsibility to someone else. This will give him the freedom to formulate a strategy to grow his business. His passion and expertise is in sales and marketing, that should be his focus.
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