Should you hire a business development manager to do your own marketing?

Many free lancers, consultants and professional service providers wonder out loud to me if it would be worth the investment to "hire someone to do my marketing for me". Realizing they are experts in something other than marketing, they quite correctly look around for someone to outsource this function to. I have a very definite opinion about whether or not you should do this if you're a consultant. And the answer is......ABSOLUTELY NOT.

You should hire a marketing consultant to help you arrive at a plan that covers your goals, your target market, your company's positioning, your marketing strategies and tactics and your budget (all the things I help clients with, by the way), but when it comes time to talk to prospects, meet with them,  establish your expertise, and close them into clients, don't outsource this function.

The reasons I believe you should handle these key tasks personally are:

• You are the chief chemistry officer for your services - Clients want to know they have a certain  chemistry with you before they hire you. The only way for them to know this is to hear you in action over the telephone or see you in action in a sales call.
• You know your processes better than any business development person - Many times a client wants to know what your consulting process is. What steps will you take to solve my problem? they ask. You, and you alone, know all the steps in the process...and any nuances to this process. A business development person can show the prospect a flowchart of your processes, but you are the only one who can bring it alive.
• Being present creates credibility - When you discuss your qualifications, in first person terms, in front of a prospect, you build a personal credibility with that person. The prospect hears you tell him/her about your qualifications and subconsciously transfers that credibility to you personally as they hear you tell it personally. When a business development person describes your qualifications to the prospect, the prospect is left with an invisible "distance" between themselves and you.

Maybe I'm all wet here, but in my opinion the very best way to personally market a personal service business is....personally.