You've decided to bring your marketing and sales in-house. A logical choice: you want more control over your marketing and sales activities, save costs and perhaps you have had some not-so-good experiences with external agencies. Besides, you know your company and your product(s) or service(s) best, don't you?

But now that you want to take this step, all sorts of questions come to mind. How much time does it actually take to do your marketing and sales yourself? What expertise do you need? How do you determine if you're making progress? And perhaps most importantly, how do you keep marketing and sales from getting compromised when you get busy with other business activities?

As a head coach at Buzzlytics, I've helped many companies bring their marketing and sales in-house. I've been in your shoes myself, first as CMO at a SaaS company and later as an independent marketing and sales coach. I know the patterns of success and failure, and know exactly what companies run into when they start doing their marketing and sales themselves.

In this article, I'll show you what pitfalls lurk when you start doing your marketing and sales yourself and how to avoid them. After reading this article, you will know exactly what to look out for so that you can take this step in a well-considered way and be prepared for the challenges that come your way.

Many companies underestimate how much time it takes to do marketing and sales right.

When you bring marketing or sales in-house, time is often the first pitfall you run into. Many companies underestimate how much time it takes to fill these positions properly.

In marketing, you often see what I call the "cafeteria model": once a marketer is hired, all marketing-related tasks are placed on this person. From organizing events to ordering pens with logos, anything that moves and has a logo suddenly becomes "marketing.

This is problematic because a marketer actually needs time for strategic work such as content creation for articles, videos and landing pages. With the advent of AI tools, this may be possible in three days a week, but your marketer must be trained in using these tools and be able to work effectively.

In sales, the biggest time pitfall lies in the onboarding process. It takes dozens of hours to properly onboard a new salesperson: he must get to know the company, understand the products, master the sales pitch and understand the customer group. This investment is often underestimated.

In addition, it's hard to know what to look for in recruiting when you're bringing your marketing and sales in-house. What skills are important? How do you evaluate candidates? This is the first learning curve you have to go through.

For marketers, it's mostly about content skills: knowing how to select the right topics, how to keep your content pipeline filled, how to build an article with a strong introduction and conclusion, and how to apply the basics of SEO.

Many marketers now work on gut instinct or copy what competitors are doing, without understanding what's behind it. It's like playing the piano: you can get a long way with self-study, but to play at a really high level, you need a teacher.

In sales, you see something similar: if you only lean on your own sales experience, you won't get beyond where you are today. A salesperson can't just take over the entrepreneur's job; he needs training to get results on his own.

Many marketers now operate on gut instinct or copy what competitors are doing without understanding what's behind it.

A lack of expertise often leads to another problem: inconsistency. Marketing and sales require a culture change that should not be underestimated. You have to start thinking differently about how you tell your story, where the customer is the hero and you are the guide. You have to start operating like a media company with consistent publications.

In practice, you see that the delusion of the day often thwarts this consistency. It's tempting to opt for quick wins: creating a newsletter or writing some social posts is easier than producing a thorough article. But those more difficult tasks are precisely what are essential for success.

A recent example: when we followed up with clients who had attended our sister company StoryBrand s live workshop, they gave us nines and tens and were full of praise. But months later, they still hadn't done anything with what they had learned, and that's a shame. The end goal is not that you get a good feeling from a workshop or training, but that you get better results. And that requires consistency.

This critical outside perspective gets you to do things you might never have done on your own. It helps you step out of your daily grind and keep your goals in focus.

If you are not consistent in your marketing and sales activities, it also becomes more difficult to look at your own organization objectively. After all, you lack the data and experience to properly assess what works and what doesn't.

For example, it's hard to look critically at your own webinars: have you chosen the right opening? Does your presentation lead to concrete sales or appointments? And when writing content: are you addressing the right target audience, or are you too preoccupied with what you yourself find interesting?

An outside party can help you see and address these blind spots.

Without an objective view, it's tempting to focus only on metrics that seem to matter at first glance, such as search traffic or number of leads. But the effect of good marketing and sales is broader: also look at the quality of your leads, how fast your sales process is going and how well prepared customers are to come in.

Some of our clients see immediate increased sales due to increased search traffic. Others see fewer direct leads but have much more professional sales calls. They are fundamentally better able to grow, even if it is less tangible.

Good measurement requires the right tools, but many organizations don't know the minimum tools they need for success. The good news is that you can often work with your existing tools plus some additions, without investing thousands of dollars.

For your customer journey, for example, you need tools for lead generation, nurturing and email campaigns. As a content manager, you may need specific AI tools. And salespeople need tools for scheduling meetings and creating 1-on-1 videos.

Not every organization needs HubSpot, for example; we can also help with other considerations. The important thing is to know what you need in the basics and what you might add later.

Bringing Marketing and sales in-house can be an excellent strategic move, but only if you're aware of the pitfalls that lurk. From underestimating the time required to lacking an objective view, each pitfall can make the difference between success and disappointment.

If you want to take this step, it's crucial to look beyond cost savings or greater control. You'll need to invest time, develop the right expertise and create a culture of consistency. You'll also need to ensure objective feedback, the right metrics and a thoughtful toolset.

At Buzzlytics, we have already helped many companies make this transition successfully. Time and again, we see that companies that are aware of these pitfalls and proactively address them achieve much better results than companies that think they can just do it themselves.

Because remember: if you keep doing what you did, you'll get what you got. Even the best athletes have a coach. Want to take that next step and get better results with your marketing and sales? Then schedule a call with me or one of my colleagues to discuss how we can help you avoid these pitfalls.