Don’t be shy – get professional help
I’ve recently had some experiences with people around me trying to do everything themselves. I don’t mean core business, where they are (hopefully) the expert – I mean all the other things. The marketing. The copywriting. The (please no) design work. While this is admirable, it’s not necessarily good business practice. In fact, spending your valuable time trying to work on something outside your area of expertise may end up costing you more in the long run, than if you had just hired professional help in the first place.
Today I am going to share three hypothetical personas with you. These imaginary people are an amalgamation of years worth of seeing the same mistakes play out over and over. And over.
And over.
Superhero #1: the overnight designer
Yep, I’m going there.
Let’s call him Simon.
Simon is an expert in what he does. He has loads of experience; he knows his business back-to-front; his clients trust him to do his job. However, Simon has decided that the time has come to do some proper branding for his business – you know, to make the appearance match how good the service is. It’s a fantastic idea.
So Simon buys Photoshop.
Simon has never used Photoshop before, but how hard could it be? He doesn’t realise that this is not necessarily the right software to use if he wants to design a logo or put together a brochure. Simon spends all weekend watching YouTube tutorials and sketching ideas. On Monday morning, he sits down at his desk and starts to design.
By morning tea, he is mildly frustrated. By lunch, he is annoyed. 6pm comes and he is ready to throw his computer out the window. He’s spent his whole day trying to make this stupid logo. He’s missed two meetings and hasn’t been able to complete any of the tasks he normally schedules for the start of the week. Now he will have to work twice as hard for the rest of the week to catch up.
The lesson here is appropriately valuing your own time.
It’s a common mistake that we see time and time again. If Simon had hired a graphic designer instead of trying to do it himself, he would have saved himself an entire day of lost productivity, a lot of frustration, and the tangible expense of buying software that doesn’t directly benefit his core business. He also would have received professional help with the design itself, and ended up with a better result with way less stress.
Superhero #2: the subject matter expert
Let me say this from the outset – you are the expert on your business.
We (the copywriting, marketing, design, SEO minions) know that. However, when you hire us to do a job, please keep in mind that we are the experts for that particular job. You want professional help, and that’s why you hired us.
Meet Susan.
Susan knows her stuff. She has been running her business for years, and she truly is an expert in what she does. Susan decides that she needs to revamp her website content; it’s been a couple of years, and it’s starting to sound tired. So she hires a copywriter to write it for her.
At their first meeting, Susan gives the copywriter a very thorough brief. Her goal is to gain new clients, as the market has been slowing over the past few months and she wants to tap into new channels. She wants her website to show up on search engines, be modern and user-friendly, and she wants it to be clear that she knows what she is talking about.
The copywriter returns a draft of the content to Susan and she is very disappointed. A lot of the information she gave has been condensed and simplified – some of the pages only have 500 words! How will anyone know that she knows everything about her business if all of the information isn’t on the website? Where are all of the technical terms that she uses when she speaks to other people in her industry? Why would this copywriter make the language so simple?
She immediately sends an email to the copywriter demanding that the entire thing be re-done, or else! The copywriter explains that they wrote the website content specifically to entice new clients, but Susan is not convinced. She has always done this a certain way, she’s not about to change it all now just because the copywriter she hired to write professional content for her website has advised her differently. She knows what she is talking about – after all, she’s been doing this for years.
Give your professional help the benefit of the doubt
There is a reason behind the way we do things. It might not always be obvious – but then, it shouldn’t be. It’s not your job to know why we would write things a certain way, make a logo a particular colour, or keep content to a certain length. That’s why you hired us. If you’re working with someone who is good at what they do, believe me – if you are not happy, they will take the time to explain why they have done things a certain way, and they will be willing to make compromises if you really aren’t satisfied. Our job is to give you our professional advice on what will most benefit your business. Help us to help you.
Superhero #3: the juggler
This one is my favourite. We’ll call her Samantha.
Samantha is a real go-getter. She has built her business up from scratch; she has an entrepreneurial mind, and she’s not afraid to use it. Samantha has so much knowledge, and has been so successful, that she has decided she can turn her hand to basically anything. And she frequently does.
Well, less anything – more like everything.
It’s important these days to have an online presence. Samantha knows this, and so she has made accounts on 10 different social channels and built a website. She is very busy with her core business however (being the expert that she is), and so she rarely gets a chance to use these accounts. They sit idle for months at a time. Her posts and comments are sporadic and aren’t linked to any particular theme or idea. She has not got a plan for these accounts. But the important thing is that she has them, right?
Samantha also wants to do some blogs and maybe podcasts, so she sets up a section on her website in anticipation. She advertises to her clients and on Facebook that she is going to do these blogs – watch this space! In the first week, she does one blog and one video. During the second week, she begins to draft the second blog, but work soon overtakes her and she sets it aside to finish later. A month, two months, six months go by, and that single lonely blog sits waiting for a friend. Eventually, she disables that page on her website so that her clients will stop asking her when the next one will come out.
The lesson: you can’t be everything all of the time
A good idea for marketing, an engagement strategy, or a potential new revenue stream is one thing – putting it into action is sometimes quite another. You need a plan; and sometimes, you need help from a professional in the field to make that plan a reality. Realise that you may not always have the time and resources to do everything yourself, and factor some professional help in.
After all, that’s what I’m here for! 😉
There are so many more of these that I could talk about…
The scenarios are endless, however my point boils down to this: your core business should be your main focus. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t undertake anything else – you definitely should, but does it really have to be you that does it? Or would you be better off getting some professional help?
I think it’s pretty clear where my preference lies.
How about you? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below, or – as always – get in touch and I’ll be back to you in a jiffy!
(Image credit: 28 Days, Columbia Pictures)
