I have a startup company. I feel my marketing team does not make enough efforts. Should I fire the team?

First, start measuring things.  Don’t let marketing be a soft science.  Measure, if nothing else, (x) leads generated plus (y) ROI on all marketing spend.

Now you have a baseline.

Second, set goals here.  If you want to grow revenue 150% in the next twelve months, then say make marketing hit 200% lead growth.  And break this up into monthly targets for MQLs, or just Plain Old Leads, or Opportunities, or whatever metric you pick.

Ok …

So I’m guessing you’ve gone neither of these well.  Part of the reason may be the marketing team lacks sufficient ownership / management experience. One big problem with junior marketing hires — unlike junior sales hires — is they’ve rarely been given a number to own.  Marketing thus doesn’t breed ownership and leadership as well as sales.

So if you hire too junior in marketing, you often just end up with a squish soft mess.  Blog posts.  Social stuff.  A B- PR firm.  But … not so many more leads.

Now that you have the team aligned around quantifiable revenue goals … you’re ready to hire a boss for the team to blow out those goals.  If your team is horrible, yes get rid of them.  But in marketing, sometimes for a short term, something is better than nothing.  Focus instead on hiring a boss for them.

Then, she’ll figure out who to keep.  And who to let go.