What’s so great about having a growth hacking consultant on board anyway? Well it’s like this.

A growth hacking consultant is typically equipped with a broad set of technical skills to help your startup scale quickly.

They’re often referred to as ‘T-shaped’ marketers. Bonus point to anyone who can guess why.

Basically, they’re armed to the teeth with enviable digital skills and have an experimentation mindset, making them focused on results and business growth.

Now that’s a lot of knowledge. Which makes finding a good one harder.

So to help you to avoid hiring one unfit for the job, here are some tips to help you find a growth hacking consultant who can actually get the job done.

1. Define your requirements.

As they say, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Similarly, a strategy that may work for one startup may not be quite as effective for another startup.

That’s why it’s important to consider whether your company is ready to onboard a growth hacking consultant in the first place.

Here’s a few questions that might help you to identify your company’s requirements:

• What is the one true metric that is a good measure of growth for you company (aka your north star metric)?
• What stage of growth is your company currently in, and how aggressive (or realistic) are your growth targets?
• How will a growth hacking consultant fit in with your team and help you to reach your goals?
• Will you be able to determine when the growth hacking consultant’s input looks like success to you?
• Will a growth hacker fill a current gap (or weaknesses) within your team right now?
• Do you need a full-time growth hacker OR a growth hacking consultant to help you to hit a certain milestone?
• Do you have the budget?

Based on the answers to these questions, you’ll be able to establish whether you’re ready to onboard a growth hacker or not.

2. Search on the right platform.

The elusive growth hacking consultant. Master of many disciplines..

But, where exactly can one be found and where would they hang out?

Well, as you might expect job portals are still a decent place to look. But, you should should definitely dig a little deeper if you’re taking your search seriously.

• Twitter: It’s still alive and well and it’s home to growth hacking enthusiasts who tweet about their latest successes. Jump straight into a conversation with them to start building a relationship, and who knows.. they could end up being your next hire. Try your luck at filtering for people ‘near you’ if you’re looking for someone local.
• GrowthHackers.com: If you don’t already know it, this is a platform for newbie and experienced growth hackers alike. It’s somewhat of a forum where an active community contribute and share the latest content that’s making waves in the industry. And you’ll have no trouble reaching out directly because they tend to keep their personal social media handles on their profiles.

• LinkedIn: What a beast of a platform. It’s fair to say that it’s the elite, professional social media platform & it’s still great for finding ‘growth hackers’. One downside to keep in mind is that everyone loves a buzzword on LinkedIn, so you might have to sift through a fair few duds before you find your gem.
• Local seminars and meetups: Now these can’t be underestimated. When it comes to connecting to the growth hackers and marketers in your community, this great. You can get to know people in a deeper way than their online personas and probe them on their knowledge and experience. At the minimum, you’ll be more aware of who’s active, even if they’re not the right fit for now.

3. Check their results and track record

At this point, you should have an idea of what you want to get from a growth hacking consultant as well as a few ideas on where you can source one.

Now’s when you should dig a little deeper to see if they’re fit for the job and up to the task of giving your business that much needed boost.

You’ll want to start by shortlisting the growth hacking consultants who’ve worked in industries similar to yours.

Experience rarely does any harm – although ‘years on the job’ isn’t always a good indicator of how good someone is.

If possible verify their claims and case studies and certainly be wary of the candidates who over-promises and guarantees results.

They should be comfortable to put you in touch with clients of theirs if you want a clear picture.

4. Do a background check

 

These days, people are experts at doing background checks. And social media makes it super easy to ‘insta-stalk’.

Bare in mind that people have lives though, so don’t judge too harshly. But the main benefit is that you can see if some of what they’ve said matches up.

Like when you checked their LinkedIn profile, does it look likely that they achieved 500% uplift in sales for a role that they were at for 3 months? Not likely.

On the other hand, if you see strong recommendations for past clients or roles, then it can be a fairly good indicator that they know what they’re doing.

5. Consult your business network.

On the off-chance that you’ve had no luck finding someone, another great way to find good growth hacking consultants is through other business owners.

Typically, if they’ve worked with a great consultant they’ll do one of two things:

1. Keep them an absolute secret because they want to hang onto them at all costs
2. Give a shining recommendation and referral

And if that’s not a glowing stamp of approval, then I don’t know what is.

Ideally, you’d want them to have had an impact on a business that’s at the same stage of growth as yours but to be honest, a good growth hacker is versatile.

They’ve most likely worked with a mix of different businesses and have had time to develop their own approach to growth hacking.

6. Be clear on your expectations

Once you have zeroed down on the individual that seems to be the perfect growth hacking consultant for you, it is now time to have an open dialogue with them.

You want to share your aspirations and hopefully have them buy into your vision. Let’s face it, nobody will be as passionate about your vision as much as you are but someone who cares about your cause is an added bonus.

Take time to define how you want the growth hacker to contribute to your mission.

Seriously. If you’re not clear, then you won’t know how to get the best out of them which is a recipe for disaster.

When you decide to share your expectations, be open to taking suggestions and direction too.

It’s a bit daunting but you’re essentially looking for someone who can bring a fresh perspective, so don’t put too many constraints in place.

7. The hard truth

There’s no denying it – a growth hacking consultant can put your business on the map & accelerate your growth.

But in all honesty, it takes more than just one person to bring this change. And that’s where some people go wrong.

You should look at growth marketing as something that needs to be embedded into your business.

It’s a team sport. It requires people to care about results, data and generally doing things differently.

Without an environment where taking risks is rewarded, any growth hacking consultant will struggle to make an impact and feel like their work is valued.

I personally make a point about being quite open about my background. As well as showing that there’s nothing to hide, it let’s people get to know more about me as a person.

Have you tried another way of finding a growth hacker that works? Let me know!