"You can have it fast, you can have it good, or you can have it cheap—but you can't have all three." Sound familiar? This classic project management concept is known as the Iron Triangle.
If you want something fast and high-quality, it won't be cheap.
If you want something cheap and high-quality, it will take longer.
If you want something fast and cheap, quality will likely suffer.
Every leader wrestles with the same trade-off: speed, budget, and quality. Trying to have it all is simply unrealistic. But business pressure points, like entering a new market, launching a new product, or responding to a competitive threat, can overheat that natural tension. When this happens - working harder isn’t the answer. There’s another dimension you can add to the equation. It’s domain expertise.
Knowledge Makes Good Things Happen Efficiently
In an ideal world, internal subject matter experts (SMEs) —engineers, product managers, commercial leaders, and even founders— provide brilliant insights quickly. However, in growing companies, their priorities are often elsewhere. If this is the case, fight the temptation to try and do it all. The trade-off between speed, cost-efficiency, or depth will be too onerous, leading to strained relationships and missed opportunities. Instead, rebalance the equation by bringing in external marketing support with deep domain expertise.
When You Shouldn’t Do It All
1. When You Need It Yesterday (Speed Over Everything)
Imagine this all-too-common situation. It’s ‘event season,’ and your team has invested tens of thousands in participating in eight events over the next three months– or maybe more. Your SMEs are away—meeting clients, prepping for a major launch, or just taking a well-earned break. You need a campaign with high-quality content now (!), but the team is stretched too thin, and your investment is at risk.
A marketing consultant with industry experience can jump right in. By reviewing existing material (e.g., sales decks or email threads), they can synthesize insights and add a fresh perspective to produce high-quality content in days—not weeks. It’s effective because external experts aren't struggling to find time to talk to the folks ‘in the know’ —they're focused on delivering. Plus, SMEs can keep working on their other priorities while still having input on final approvals.
2. When You Need It Cheap (Maximizing Resources without Sacrificing Impact)
So, you have won a customer in a new market? Congratulations! Now, you're scaling your go-to-market efforts to capitalize on the momentum. You can’t afford to hire full-time senior marketing leadership, so you heap the responsibility on less experienced folks in the name of professional development and pray they can get it over the line. You end up with a distracted business, unfair pressure, and a lot of risk.
What you need is strategic input and experienced hands. Consider bringing external domain experts for targeted support—through fractional leadership, consulting, or services.
Seasoned professionals with years of experience supporting companies like yours will have the expertise to execute across the board - content, ABM, product marketing, PR, and brand. They inject depth into your marketing efforts without the overhead of a full-time salary or (sometimes) multiple agencies.
3. When You Need It High-Quality (Depth and Authority Matter Most)
Is your company seen as an industry leader? Customers need to feel their decisions are future-proofed and their partners will keep them ahead of the curve. You know, thought leadership is the way to go. The ‘thing’ is that although your SMEs are AMAZING, they speak engineering, not business value. Your marketing team is comprised of awesome storytellers, but they don’t have the industry knowledge to guide and challenge. And your sales team is off … well … selling.
Senior marketing professionals with domain expertise can sit with your team and extract unique business value. They can collaborate on narratives and help give your experts a strong thought leadership voice in articles or whitepapers, on stage, or through interviews. This ensures your company is in its rightful position as an authoritative contender and your sales team is … selling more.
Don’t Get Bent Out Of Shape
Many companies think their marketing team can and should do it all. And in many cases, they're right. But trying to do it all without the right expertise is like cranking up the heat on metal without the right tools—it warps under pressure. Bringing in senior marketing professionals with deep industry knowledge doesn’t replace your internal team—it strengthens them. And when done right, it’s more cost-effective than hiring full-time senior staff or juggling multiple agencies. The Iron Triangle of speed, budget, and quality isn’t going away, but with domain expertise, you can keep it from bending out of control when it matters or even breaking.
Are you thinking about bringing in more domain expertise into your marketing efforts but unsure where to start? Let’s chat.
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