Doing It Yourself vs. Hiring Professionals

OBSERVATION

Today's Internet is stocked with fantastic low-cost or free tools for managing ones own web presence. From content management systems like Drupal to the Blogger (the tool I'm using now to write this entry). If you take a few moments to search, you can find free do-it-yourself tools to do most anything.

In some sectors of business that I consult in, there is a growing pressure among small business peers to do things internally under the premise that it is "smarter save money by doing things yourself." I have pondered this for some time now and have considered whether this is warranted.

KEY COMPARISON

When I was in high school, my guitar player from my band used to drive us to school in an enormous Ford Galaxy. Between band practices, the guys in the band and I used to love to work on that car. We did small jobs like changing the oil and working on the brakes, as well large jobs such as changing the timing chain. We became pretty decent young mechanics, and wouldn't have ever dreamed of taking that car anywhere to have it worked on.

Today, my guitar player pilots a C-130 in the U.S. air force and I run a software company. He spends much of his time overseas, and I'm in the prime of my career, so I'm seldom too far from my office. I don't think either of us have worked on a car in years, we pay to have work done on our vehicles today. Why? We are simply utilizing our time in other ways. One can spend an entire day working on a car, especially when it's yours--some days we'd get started and never stop.

You can spend an entire day on your website too--especially when it's yours. And an advantage over working on cars is that your hands don't appear to get as dirty and your arms don't get tired from holding a wrench or holding your body over the fender to reach a bolt.

CONCLUSION

I conclude that for the hobbyist, novice, and even the part-time self-employed micro business owner, the do-it-yourself toolset is the way to go. One saves money in this scenario while being creative, doing something fun, and learning new things.

For the full-time self-employed business person, or the small business looking to grow, do-it-yourself may still actually be the way to go, but if you are one of these, I would consider asking yourself a few questions:

• Am I or the people in my own organization actually savvy enough in the first place to create a professional product? (If you're not sure, you may want to sit down with a consultant who will give you a complimentary Q&A on this, I actually offer this service myself, drop me a line if you're in the Tucson or Phoenix area)
• Could my time developing my website be spent more effectively doing something else--like helping customers or filling orders for business?
• What is my time worth on an hourly basis, and from that, can I/should I budget a weekly or monthly allotment of time to allot to working on my own web presence?
• Are some parts of my website or content better written by someone else? Sometimes having someone else tell your story is both easier and more compelling to visitors than trying to do it yourself, and this might be worth paying for.
• Can I find a company that has a professional consulting presence that can guide me and strike a balance between developing the important parts but giving me the ability to manage/update key content, current events, and industry news (this is another area we are very complementary in, we love to be of service if you're in the Tucson or Phoenix area)

So striking that balance between doing it yourself verses hiring a tech professional is key when considering our time and resource management as business owners. When this balance is right, the Internet is an area of infinite possibilities in terms of helping business customers find out about what we do and how we can help them solve their respective business problems.

If you liked this blog, here are some other sites that might interest you:

• Connect with my business partner, Andrew Hollamon at LinkedIn
• Andrew Hollamon's Blog
• Did you know we make our own accounting product? See PiAccounting.Com
  

Do you know anyone who has a technical project--large or small, such as a website, software project, or network setup that is stalled or half complete? I'm never too busy for a referral, so if you think I could help--feel free to drop us an inquiry by clicking here...