Should I hire a marketing agency?
Short answer
Only after you understand the basics yourself. Otherwise you can't tell when they're doing a good job or wasting your money.
The trap
Owners who hire an agency without knowing what good looks like get charged $2K a month for things they could do themselves in two hours a week. Six months later they don't know if it's working.
When to hire
When you can name exactly what you want them to do, measure whether they did it, and judge whether it produced leads. Until then, do it yourself, badly, until you understand the shape of it.
Ask your version of this question
This is one business owner-tested take. Your shop size, trade, and team change the answer. Ask the exact version inside Ask a Shop Owner and get a response grounded in how owners like you actually handled it.