How to actually know when to hire your next marketer

Impact, not workload

Amy Hopkins, who ran an entire marketing function solo, puts it plainly: "You don't hire to reduce workload. You hire someone to increase impact. It comes down to the growth and results you want — and whether your attention could be better used."

Miguel Netto of Bootlegger works backwards from the outcome: "I want to get to here; I'll get there if I have X hours, X deliverables — then you can warrant adding an individual." Otherwise, he warns, you throw people at the problem and end up with too many. His metaphor for scaling is structural — you're not covering leaks, you're adding pillars before the load arrives.

Exhaust the system first

Harsha Prag of Electrum lays out the sequence that makes the ask easy — and makes it an easy conversation with finance:

"We've exhausted what we can change from a workflow perspective, from a process perspective; we've done everything to level up our people. Now, to do this specific thing we don't currently do, we need this skill set. You're setting the vision, selling the problem, then saying: these are the resources I need."

And Bronwyn Pretorius adds the strategic filter: the refreshed brand strategy dictated the focus, and the focus revealed the gap — in her case, real investment in organic social, "which a lot of people take for granted."

The when-to-hire gate

1. Strategy first. Does the brand strategy demand this capability now? 2. Exhaust the system. Fix workflow, process and upskilling before headcount. 3. Work backwards. Define the outcome, then the hours and deliverables that justify a person. 4. Sell the vision. Take the business a problem and a plan — not a complaint about being busy.

One honest tension, echoed by several guests: you often can't anticipate the need — you have to wait until the team is genuinely stretched before you can justify the hire. Dylan Bosman of BluLever names it: "It almost feels like you have to get to a point where the team is already stretched." AI muddies it further by lifting everyone's output. So the gate isn't about predicting the future perfectly — it's about refusing to hire on vague busyness, and only moving when strategy, an exhausted system and a defined outcome all point the same way.

Try this week: write the impact sentence for your next potential hire — "this person unlocks ___ by ___." If you can't finish it, don't open the role. Then run Harsha's sequence in writing: what you changed, what you exhausted, and the one specific capability that's missing.

The best hires usually arrive by referral before they arrive by advert — which is an argument for building a marketing network in South Africa long before you need one.

Sourced from recorded, on-the-record interviews on the South African Digital Marketing Podcast. Every practitioner quoted above is named in the text.