There were episodes on a number of sitcoms across the networks that infallibly featured a member of the household who was to repair the plumbing or electrical work, somewhere in the house. All of the episodes inevitably caused all sorts of mayhem in the household, from flooding to electrical fires to switches that operated incorrectly. Finally, after someone else in the household put their foot down, the professional was called in to do what he or she does best.
There are many times when business leaders miss out on opportunities when they attempt to do things required by the business that the business owners aren’t qualified to do. As with home repairs, at times, the damage done by not hiring professionals ultimately costs the business a lot more than it would if the work had been done by professionals to begin with.
Take, for example, a website: A company’s website is often the first thing a prospective client might go to when considering doing business with a company. (According to ZeroMillion.com, a recent DoubleClick study suggest that more than 50% of people will look at a company’s website before making a purchase decision.) They’ll look at site design, content, ease of use and finally, if they are serious about doing business with you, keywords that are appealing to them.
Just in list of what browsers immediately observe, there are a number of items that only a professional would have the expertise, ability and time to tweak. Testing, promoting, optimizing and submitting the website to different search engines are some of the background tools that many business leaders don’t even check. However, these are the tools upon which you can begin to gauge a return on your investment.
Even if you don’t pay cash or barter for the services to get your website done and do the website yourself, there is an opportunity cost to it. Opportunity cost says that if you were not building your website, perhaps you could be doing something else, perhaps even something else related to earning revenue for your company. The easiest way to evaluate it is to look at the return on the time spent.
If you, for example, compared 10 hours of your time spent learning how to and building a website to 10 hours spent prospecting for new clients, assuming you can sell, the prospecting activities would probably result in better payoff. Now, if you spent a little bit of money and hired a professional to build the site, you might spend 3 hours working with them, then could spend the remaining hours prospecting and sending people to your website for more in-depth information about the company. The result could be like having your cake and eating it to.
Intuitively, many business leaders will not wish to spend the money to get the job done the right way, the first time. Logically, however, the results of a good decision to qualified help to get something done far outweigh the costs.
Be extraordinary. Know when it is time to bring in the pros. There are no compromises for greatness. If you want to be the best, you’ve got to work with the best.
Aepiphanni is a Business Consultancy that provides Management Consulting, Implementation and Managed Services to business leaders and entrepreneurs seeking to improve or expand operations. We are the trusted advisor to those seeking forward-thinking operational and strategic solutions to help them plan for and navigate through the challenges of business growth.
If you are ready to discuss how Aepiphanni can help you with business strategy, overcoming challenges to growth or any number of business solutions for your business, whether a small, growing or established company, contact us directly or submit a request for a complimentary Coffee & a Consult to learn how we can help you CREATE | DESIGN | BUILD an Extraordinary company.
