Blog | Sweet Marketing Group

I want to use this introductory post to explain why I decided to create this business and our business model perhaps in a bit more informal tone that you’ll find on the rest of this site.

There are two primary reasons I felt the need to start Sweet Marketing Group. The first reason stems from a job I had years ago as the web marketing manager for a law firm know for being a big advertiser. Every day, I would receive calls from potential vendors wanting to get me to sign up to work with them. They promised results. Top organic rankings, lower costs per click, more leads, all the things we needed. Terrific. And all it would take was a set fee, a percent of spend or signing some sort of subscription contract for them to get started. At that point, I would stop them. I would tell them that I had a proposal for them. I would say, “I tell you what…. I’m not going to pay you anything up front. You go and do the all the things you say you can do. Get the results, come back to me and I’ll pay you DOUBLE what you’re asking for now.” All of a sudden, all the assurances and bravado went out the window. In my view, they didn’t have the confidence in their abilities to get the results. Even for a much larger pay day.

I know what we can do. I’m so confident in our ability that I am willing to take that risk. Granted, I consider myself more of an investor than a gambler and I do my research to make sure we can do what we promise and we can’t take on every opportunity that presents itself. But I’m sure not going to take a partner’s money if I don’t achieve what I sold them on in the first place.

This leads me into the second reason why I started Sweet Marketing Group; properly aligned goals. One thing that has never made much sense to me is a buyer’s real estate agent. They work on behalf of the buyer to find a home and get as good a deal as possible. For that service, they get a commission based on the sales price. If they work to get a lower price, aren’t they then lowering their own income? See the conflict? Similarly, in many web marketing situations, the goal of the vendor and the goal of the client are not necessarily aligned. The goal of the client is more sales and more profit. The goal of the vendor is not necessarily the same. Their goal may be to just get a good ranking on a keyword that doesn’t actually generate any new business. Or spend the full PPC budget so they can get their percent of spend instead of cutting spend and optimizing lead generation costs. Or promising a service for a flat fee every month and then spending as little of that money as possible so that they can hold onto it for THEIR profit. These sort of incongruities bother me. I want properly aligned goals with the businesses we work with. I want everyone on board with the same goals where everyone shares in the spoils. In arrangements like that, I’ve found that client and vendor work much better together to assure success.

Perhaps it’s my background coming out of college as a talent agent. My job was to get gigs for the bands I represented and get as much money as possible for them. The more money I got for them, the more money I mad and we were all happy. Of course, I also had to consider the concert promoters likelihood of success as well, since I would have to call them next week for another band coming through town. Perhaps it’s my dislike of failure made worse by then having to ask for payment regardless. Whatever all the reasons may be, I am happy to have created this business around an original business model that truly creates and delivers value for our partners.