Building a team for success with Endless Customers

If you're about to embrace Endless Customers (formerly They Ask, You Answer), you've probably been ready for a change for a while.

Maybe you've become frustrated with marketing that hasn't produced a return on investment.

Maybe you've purchased HubSpot, but have yet to get much value out of it.

Or maybe you heard Daan Schmidt talk about it and a light bulb started to come on.

Anyway: you knew Endless Customers was the future for your business.

And now you're eager to get started. Understandable.

But before you get started, it's important to know that you usually can't do Endless Customers on your own. You'll need to expand your team, and in doing so, we can't stress enough the importance of bringing the right people on board.

At Buzzlytics, we've already helped several clients build a successful Endless Customers team that achieved great results.

All in all, these are the important Endless Customers roles (in order of importance):

Keep in mind that not every company needs everyone on this list. Your situation is unique, and who you hire will be based on your budget, company size and other factors.

The roles I just listed are more or less in order of importance, with the content manager falling into the "must-have" category and the Web site specialist and SEO expert falling into the "nice to have" or "maybe someday" categories. Again, this depends entirely on your individual needs.

In this article, you'll read what each of these roles entails and how the specific role helps you successfully implement Endless Customers.

To become the most trusted voice in your industry, you need to produce an entire library of content, from blog articles to pages of buyer's guides. This means literally hundreds (if not thousands) of pieces of content.

To get this done, we advise our clients to produce three new articles every week. If you stick to this rhythm, the number of articles on your website will quickly increase.

To pull this off, you need a full-time writer dedicated to content creation.

If you ask someone on your current team to start writing content, he or she will not be able to produce three articles a week unless you take everything else off his plate.

Too often, we've seen companies say they're going to commit to Endless Customers and then ask their one full-time marketer to write the content. This pace is not sustainable for someone doing it on the side.

To make Endless Customers work for you, content needs to be a top priority - and you need to commit the necessary resources to make it happen.

What it is: A content manager helps your Endless Customers run smoothly. She plans and writes articles, including brainstorming topics, doing research, conducting interviews and tracking publication. She can also write web copy, emails, e-books and video scripts or social media posts.

What to look for: A background in journalism, Dutch or communications is best. Marcus Sheridan, founder of Endless Customers, often says that a content manager should be a teacher at heart. Therefore, pay close attention to how your applicants explain things and interact with others.

Importance: Must-have

What it is: The videographer is the visual version of the content manager. These two people will likely work very closely together. Your videographer uses the visual medium (and YouTube) to educate customers and build trust. He or she is an important storyteller within your company.

What to look out for: You want your videographer to be a generalist. You want someone who can film and edit, but can also coach people on camera, conduct interviews and tell your brand's story effectively. A broad set of skills is best.

Importance: Almost must-have

What it is: A HubSpot specialist is your internal HubSpot expert who can keep track of your portal, bring your sales and marketing teams together and leverage the full potential of the platform. In some cases, a HubSpot specialist is also the head Marketing or responsible for demand generation.

What to look for For this position, hiring depends on your needs. If you already have a good foundation with HubSpot, you'll be looking for someone with relevant and recent CRM experience. If you're just starting out, you could hire a junior.

Importance: Almost must-have

What it is: A website specialist is the expert of choice for all your website needs, ranging from minor bug fixes and troubleshooting to designing and developing whole new pages. If you get to a point where you have work on your website so regularly that you hire an agency (or always hire freelancers), a website specialist can be a great addition to your team.

What to look for: The ideal candidate has a broad range of skills and experience - and a go-getter mentality to learn new things. Experience with graphic design is important, as is a background in programming (HTML, CSS and JavaScript are best) and familiarity with website analytics tools.

Importance: Nice-to-have

What it is: An SEO expert can help you become better found on the Web. This can include advice regarding keywords, hyperlinks and page structure, as well as technical SEO aspects such as schema, site speed and data security.

What to look for: A background showing that this person has an understanding of both technical and content-related SEO, and the ability to communicate necessary changes to the team.

Importance: Nice-to-have

Endless Customers is not something one person (or even a small team) can do alone. Yes, the content manager, videographer and other specialists will do the heavy lifting, but they need the whole team behind them to make it work.

Every time someone rolls their eyes when a new article is published, every time someone cancels a brainstorming meeting, every time an employee refuses to appear on camera or add their expertise to an article, your Endless Customers movement is losing momentum.

If a critical mass of employees in your company don't participate, implementing Endless Customers will fail - even if you have the best team in the world. As a business leader, do what you can to build consensus.

Hiring a new employee is an exciting and stressful process. In addition to budgeting for an extra salary, there are the concerns surrounding hiring, inducting and managing someone new - especially if you're talking about an entirely new role within your company.

But it may help to know the following:

If you partner with Buzzlytics in the marketing and sales program, we'll help you find and hire the right people.

The sooner you expand your team, the sooner you can begin to grow.

Marcus Sheridan, founder of Endless Customers says:

"If you have more than $1 million in sales, there's no reason not to have a content manager on your team. It's a small investment that pays off handsomely."

And if you have more than 5 million in sales, he says, you should also employ a videographer.

Your unique needs determine exactly who you need on your team, but the above explanation can get you started. When you know what each role entails and what to expect, your team can take shape in your mind.

Endless Customers is a philosophy that can transform your business. With the right team on board, you're ready to get started.