Let me tell you a story.
It’s not about any specific company. But if you’ve ever tried to build a content team, you’ll recognize yourself in it.
Meet “TechVision GmbH”
Imagine a mid-sized B2B software company in Vienna. Let’s call them TechVision.They’re growing. Revenue up 40% year-over-year. Customers love the product. Everything’s going well. Except for one problem: their content.
Their website looks like it was built in 2015 (it was). Their social media is sporadic at best. Competitors are publishing videos, case studies, and thought leadership pieces weekly. TechVision? They have a product brochure and some awkward stock photos.
The CEO makes a decision: “We need to get serious about content. Hire a team.”
Building the “Dream Team”
The CMO gets to work. Within three months, they’ve assembled what looks like the perfect content operation:
- Max the Videographer (€4,500/month) – Fresh out of film school, great eye, owns his own equipment
- Lisa and Thomas, Graphic Designers (€7,000/month combined) – One does social, one does print. Both talented.
- Anna the Content Strategist (€5,000/month) – Previously at a big agency. Knows all the frameworks.
- Sophie the Social Media Manager (€3,800/month) – Young, energetic, lives on Instagram.
Monthly burn: €20,300
Annual commitment: €243,600
“We’re going to crush it,” the CMO tells the board.
Month 1: The Honeymoon Phase
Everything’s great.Max shoots a company culture video. Lisa designs new social templates. Anna creates a 12-month content calendar. Sophie sets up a posting schedule.The CEO is thrilled. “This is exactly what we needed!”
Month 2: Small Cracks Appear
Max’s “culture video” needs revisions. The CEO doesn’t like the music. Marketing wants different b-roll. Legal has concerns about one employee interview.The video that should’ve taken 2 weeks is now in week 5.Meanwhile, Lisa and Thomas have different opinions about brand colors. Anna thinks they should be posting 3x per day. Sophie thinks that’s too much.Small disagreements. Nothing serious. Yet.
Month 3: The Videographer Situation
Max gets a job offer from a bigger company. Better pay. More interesting projects.He gives two weeks’ notice.
There are three client testimonial videos in production. A product demo halfway done.
And the new website redesign needs video backgrounds.
Panic.
Month 4: The Replacement Search
Finding a new videographer takes 6 weeks.
The new person, Jonas, is technically skilled. But he shoots in a completely different style than Max. The footage doesn’t match. They need to reshoot everything.
Cost: €8,000 in wasted production + 6 weeks of delays.
Month 5: The Strategy Crisis
Anna (the content strategist) and Sophie (social media manager) have a “creative difference.”
Anna wants long-form thought leadership. Sophie wants short, snappy Reels.
The disagreement escalates. They stop collaborating. The CMO spends 15 hours in “mediation meetings.”
Content production grinds to a halt.
Month 6: The Board Meeting
The CFO pulls up the numbers:
Spent so far: €121,800
Results:
- 3 completed videos (one already outdated)
- 47 social posts (inconsistent engagement)
- 2 blog posts (both behind schedule)
- Website redesign: still in “draft phase”
ROI: Negative
The CEO asks the question nobody wants to hear:
“What exactly are we paying for?”
The Real Problem (That Nobody Saw Coming)
Here’s what TechVision didn’t account for:
They hired talented people but built no system.
- ❌ No standardized workflow
- ❌ No quality control process
- ❌ No content library organization
- ❌ No clear approval chains
- ❌ No backup plans for departures
- ❌ No way to measure what’s working
Each person was doing their best. But they weren’t operating as a machine.
They were four individuals trying to coordinate in real-time, every single day.
And every time someone left, got sick, or disagreed with someone else, the entire operation stalled.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Calculated
Let’s do the real math on TechVision’s “content team”:
Direct Costs (Annual):
- Salaries & benefits: €243,600
- Equipment & software: €18,000
- Office space allocation: €28,000
Hidden Costs (Annual):
- Recruitment & hiring: €15,000
- Training & onboarding: €12,000
- Management time (CMO): €25,000
- Sick days, vacations, downtime: €30,000
- Failed projects & reshoots: €22,000
- Opportunity cost of delays: ???
Real Total: €393,600/year
And that’s being conservative.
What They Should Have Asked
Before hiring anyone, TechVision should have asked:
“Are we building a SYSTEM that produces content… or are we hiring PEOPLE and hoping they figure it out?”
Because here’s the truth:
People are talented. People are creative. People are passionate.
But people also:
- Get sick
- Quit for better opportunities
- Have creative disagreements
- Need vacations
- Require management
- Cost money even when not producing
A system, on the other hand:
- ✅ Runs whether someone’s sick or not
- ✅ Has redundancy built in
- ✅ Maintains consistency regardless of who’s working
- ✅ Scales without proportional cost increases
- ✅ Delivers predictable results
The Question You Need to Answer
If this story sounds familiar, ask yourself:
Is your content operation built on a system… or built on hope?
Because the difference between the two is about €393,600 per year. And that’s just the financial cost. The real cost?
Lost market share. Missed opportunities. Inconsistent brand presence. Competitors pulling ahead while you’re stuck in revision meetings.
What Happened to TechVision?
I’ll tell you in the next post. Because what they did next changed everything. They didn’t hire more people. They didn’t buy more tools. They didn’t create more processes. They did something completely different. Something that cut their content costs by 68% while TRIPLING their output.
Continue Reading: “How One System Replaced a €243K Team (And Actually Worked Better)” →