What are the three steps you need to take to find a suitable marketing partner? I think the first step is you need to figure out if that partner shares your values.

1. Subscribe to their free content

Subscribe to their free content. Subscribe to their blog or newsletter. Get a sense of how valuable the content is. How insightful is it? Does it address the types of concerns you have and handle the challenges and problems that you see in your practice? That’s one way that you can figure out, is this for me? Does it resonate? Is it something that makes sense?

That’s one way you can ascertain their values.

2. Get an assessment to understand your strengths and weaknesses

The next thing I would do is look for some suitability. Just like you check for patient suitability, I think a good marketing agency partner will have some sort of quiz that you can use to get a sense of where you are at. It should give you some assessment to figure out in a quantified, structured way what am I doing well? Where do I need to improve? Get yourself a score. You need to figure out what you’re doing wrong so that you can then fix those things and move on to what you’re doing right.

3. Have a short discussion to determine compatibility

Then finally, I think a good marketing partner will be able to give you a complimentary discussion where you have some compatibility call so that you can figure out again, continue that values exploration and say, are we a good fit?

• Can we work well together?
• Do they listen?
• Do they ask you questions?
• Do they jump and tell me what to do?
• Do they figure out what you are trying to achieve?
• Do they know your goals?
• Often, you might not exactly know what the next steps are. Can they help you figure out your goals, quantify them, figure out how many leads you need to achieve?
• How many phone calls do you need to bring in?
• How many totals leads every month do you need to get?
• Can they help you with your business funnel to quantify your business?
• Ultimately, do they understand how to make you profit?

Because at the end of the day, marketing isn’t about marketing. It’s not about box-checking. It’s not about tactics. It needs to have a business result in mind.

Those are the things that I would urge you to consider that you evaluate in a checklist format. Make yourself some bullet points that you go through when evaluating your marketing partner to find the best fit for you to drive profitable growth.