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The Motivated Marketing Letter |
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April
1, 2003 Lessons from a New Toilet |
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After months of annoyance and clueless plumbers, I bit the bullet yesterday. I went down to the local home improvement mega-store and bought a new toilet. And then I came home and helped my wife install it. It took about 15 minutes (for this I would have paid $200 to a plumber?!), and the new one works like a charm. (I'll leave the details up to your imagination.) And therein lies a crucial business lesson...
When to Outsource and When to Do It Yourself I’m telling you the story of my new toilet because I'm extremely proud of myself, obviously. I come from a long line of men who couldn't tell Phillips head from Philips Andover. Also, because this story raises an issue critical to everyone's success: what to outsource and what to do yourself. I assumed that plumbing was going to be one of those things I was destined to outsource forever. I mean, those big wrenches and the gunk in the pipes... Not to mention the acetylene torches and the solder. The only thing in my favor – there was no vocabulary hurdle. Usually when I go to the hardware store I have to say something like, “I need one of those metal curvy things with the little, you know, bumps on the smooth edge and four sharp protrudey, well, they look like nail files but they’re pointier, and…” And then the sixteen year old girl at the register says without looking up, “Aisle 7A, it’s called a multi-flange gyro-shearing control.” At least I knew the word for “toilet.” And when I looked at the economics and when I discovered what the job of replacing a toilet actually entailed, doing it myself (by this I mean watching my wife do it and handing her tools, of course) started to make sense. All entrepreneurs, managers, and sales professionals have ample opportunity to do tasks they shouldn't be doing. Often we do them because we're comfortable with them, or because we're procrastinating the more different tasks. There's nothing wrong with doing it yourself, as long as you face facts and make a conscious decision. I'm here not to judge, but to empower. Here are three criteria for whether you should do the job yourself: 1. Economic Is it worth your time to do it yourself? Figure it out this way: How much money do you want to make this year? How many hours do you want to work? How much do you need to earn per hour to reach your target? How much would you pay someone else to do the task you're considering doing? If it's less than your target hourly wage, outsource. (Thanks to Jonathan Mizel for explaining this gem to me.) 2. Enjoyment Do you like doing it? Does it give you pleasure? Does it make you feel like a complete person, rather than a one-dimensional character? I clean my own home office, rather than hiring a cleaning service, not for any material cost-benefit reason, but because I enjoy the way it feels to dust and vacuum and find really big checks behind the file cabinet. 3. Responsibility Some tasks are just your responsibility. In business, two big ones that come to mind are control of finances and marketing. If you don't have oversight of the spending in your control, someone someday is going to make you sorry. It may be by mistake or on purpose, but it's going to happen. You've got to be in charge of your marketing. You can get help from professionals, but you can't let them dictate your message and tone. Huge impersonal corporations hire advertising firms who create irrelevant fiction (yeah, right, you care about me!). You have to be real. It's your business (whether owner or salesperson). It's your passion. It's your responsibility to tell your story the way only you can. The Punch Line
I hope my toilet story inspires you to take a look at your work habits. Make conscious decisions about what to do and what to outsource, and you too may be flushed with pride.
Quotes
Delegating work works, provided the one
delegating works, too.
It's not enough to be busy. The question is:
What are we busy about?
It is those who make the worst use of their time
who most complain of its shortness.
Hard work is often the easy work you did not do
at the proper time.
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1. Figure out the average hourly wage you need to hit your annual earning target. Desired annual income divided by # of hours you want to work in a year = target hourly wage. Find three tasks that regularly take up your time that fall below this threshold. Whatcha gonna do?
2. Identify at least one business-related task that you do because it feeds your soul and not your pocketbook. What does that tell you about yourself? What helps you rejuvenate or relax?
3. Do one thing to increase your marketing or financial acumen. Read a book, visit a web site, sign up for a seminar, or schedule lunch with a mentor. It's your business! Own it!
Back to Table of Contents Featured Resources for Uncertain Outsourcers 1. Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton of the Gallup Group.
The authors explain that we are at our most effective when we identify and
use our strengths, rather than spending all our time trying to shore up our
weaknesses. It's a very common-sense and totally liberating read. It comes
with a free online assessment. Get it by clicking
here. Get comfortable as a marketer. People delegate this aspect of their business not because they think it's a good idea, but because they literally don't know the first thing to do. Why not download 2 free chapters of Leads into Gold and learn the basics of direct response marketing for yourself? Click here to download 2 Free Chapters of Leads into Gold. Third, before you hire a marketing consultant, download, print and read my "Shoppers Guide," The Nine Deadly Mistakes Small Business Owners Make When Hiring Marketing Help. (Right-click on the above link.)4. How to Get Maximum Results from Minimum Advertising Spend Before you buy advertising from a media rep, download, print and read my short manual, How to Get Maximum Results from Minimum Advertising Spend. (Again, right-click to download.) It could save you a lot of money and aggravation.5. The Internet Marketing System Seminar f you're like most people, you're wondering about how to do your business using the internet. Should you learn to program web sites, or just hire someone. Can you be sure they know how to create a web site that will help your business, or just look pretty and suck money? I highly recommend that you visit http://system.motivatedmarketing.com and read the sales letter for the System III internet marketing seminar taking place in Cleveland in June. Sign up to receive his free email lessons - they're a valuable education in and of themselves. I attended System II in September, and it totally changed the way I use the web and email to market myself and my clients. This investment will give you incredible amount of control over your internet marketing, even if you outsource all the technical execution. Full disclosure: I'm an affiliate of this program, so I get some bucks if you sign up. I'm also going to System III, because it's about twice the content of System II and a great networking opportunity. If you sign up, let me know and I'll buy you lunch. The Motivated Marketing Letter Details The Motivated Marketing Letter is published whenever I feel like it (these days it seems to be coming out twice a month), and is a copyrighted feature of howieconnect. For down-to-earth, ethical, and easy-to-follow marketing guidance, visit www.howieconnect.com. I work with businesses and solo practitioners who are great at what they do, and not so great at telling the world about it. What would you like to read about in future issues of the Motivated Marketing Letter? Email me topics and questions, and save me the trouble of guessing. To unsubscribe with no hard feelings, click on the link at the bottom of this email. If you would like to subscribe to the Motivated Marketing Letter, fill out your name and email and click "submit": I build my business through referral - I'd be grateful if you would forward this email to any associates who would be glad to receive it. Thanks. Bonus Quotes
A child of five could understand this.
Somebody get me a child of five.
Everywhere is walking distance if you have the
time. Time is an illusion, lunchtime
doubly so.
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Until next time, all the best, |
The Leads into Gold™
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own business effectively on the web and with email, and helping clients use
web sites and email to dramatically increase leads and decrease cost per
lead, I've also gotten thousands of dollars in business as a direct result
of the people I met there. I signed up for the June 2003 seminar as
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Letter, but no more. I've already delayed sending out this notice to
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if you sign up, and I'll buy you dinner in Cleveland! |
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