How My Near Food Poisoning Can Be a Lesson for All Entrepreneurs
When I was a young girl my Dad, unwittingly of course, tried to poison our family.
We lived on a small hobby farm and when we first moved there, we had a wide assortment of animals ranging from chickens and rabbits to sheep and cows.
I came to realize at that young age that Dad was a practical man.
It simply wasn't practical (or frugal) to pay someone to do something if he could "easily" do it himself.
Or so he thought.
Did I mention we all came from the city when we moved to the farm? The problem is he didn't know what he didn't know.
For instance, he didn't know that one couldn't safely butcher a calf and cure the meat while hanging in the basement.
(Back then, our basement was un-finished with a dirt floor.
) It sounded like a good idea at the time I'm sure.
And he most definitely saved money by not sending the calf to the slaughter house to have the curing done properly.
But he also almost wiped out his family from food poisoning.
Sadly, I see the same thing happen at lot with entrepreneurs.
Well, not to the extent where they are risking lives, but definitely risking the success of their business...
especially when it comes to their branding and marketing.
Specifically how much they are (un)willing to invest in their website.
I hear about it all the time...
how much they struggle with having no time to get everything done but at the same time they emphatically believe they can't afford to hire anyone to help.
Or worse, feel that they should already know how to do it themselves.
Many entrepreneurs think they are saving so much money by doing their website and marketing work themselves but the truth is, they are going backwards in many ways such as: Stopping potential clients in their tracks.
An amateurish-looking website turns off many potential clients and negatively affects their perception of credibility, value and trust.
For them, a cheap looking website translates into cheap product or service offerings.
Wasting a LOT of precious time and energy trying to learn a whole new profession.
(Would you learn to be a lawyer in order to avoid hiring one??) Instead, their time could be better spent on building their business.
After all, our time is the only non-renewable resource we have.
Killing their search engine optimization that could have come with a properly built website.
There's a lot of skill and know-how involved in building an SEO friendly website and it's tough to get anywhere near the top of the search engines without one.
Thwarting their USP (Unique Selling Position) that would properly convey their professional positioning in their industry.
Without having a unique and professional design done, the DIY site will look and feel just like everyone else's, giving potential clients no reason to choose them over a competitor.
Sales are then lost when people don't get a feeling that they can know, like and trust the business behind the website.
I urge you to take a moment the next time you want to save money by doing your own website and graphic design work, and think about what you'll be losing in exchange for saving a few dollars.
And as for my childhood traumatic experience, to this day, I still can't eat veal.
Just thinking about it brings back memories of that raunchy smell that Mom valiantly tried to mask through various sauces and cooking techniques.
Lucky for us, Dad's practicality also meant not harming his family so the meat was thrown away before we could be stricken with anything.
So I encourage you to not be like my Dad and not let your business be poisoned by your over-zealous desire to save money.
Yes, be practical and ensure you thoroughly research the people you hire, but make solid investment choices that will build and enhance your business like having your brand design, website, marketing and other imperative services done by a professional that knows what you don't know.
Is there any part of your business that you could be getting someone else to help with? Instead of thinking it's going to cost money, think in terms of how much you will gain when you can free up your time and energy to work on your business and getting more clients.
To your continued success, Susan Friesen
We lived on a small hobby farm and when we first moved there, we had a wide assortment of animals ranging from chickens and rabbits to sheep and cows.
I came to realize at that young age that Dad was a practical man.
It simply wasn't practical (or frugal) to pay someone to do something if he could "easily" do it himself.
Or so he thought.
Did I mention we all came from the city when we moved to the farm? The problem is he didn't know what he didn't know.
For instance, he didn't know that one couldn't safely butcher a calf and cure the meat while hanging in the basement.
(Back then, our basement was un-finished with a dirt floor.
) It sounded like a good idea at the time I'm sure.
And he most definitely saved money by not sending the calf to the slaughter house to have the curing done properly.
But he also almost wiped out his family from food poisoning.
Sadly, I see the same thing happen at lot with entrepreneurs.
Well, not to the extent where they are risking lives, but definitely risking the success of their business...
especially when it comes to their branding and marketing.
Specifically how much they are (un)willing to invest in their website.
I hear about it all the time...
how much they struggle with having no time to get everything done but at the same time they emphatically believe they can't afford to hire anyone to help.
Or worse, feel that they should already know how to do it themselves.
Many entrepreneurs think they are saving so much money by doing their website and marketing work themselves but the truth is, they are going backwards in many ways such as: Stopping potential clients in their tracks.
An amateurish-looking website turns off many potential clients and negatively affects their perception of credibility, value and trust.
For them, a cheap looking website translates into cheap product or service offerings.
Wasting a LOT of precious time and energy trying to learn a whole new profession.
(Would you learn to be a lawyer in order to avoid hiring one??) Instead, their time could be better spent on building their business.
After all, our time is the only non-renewable resource we have.
Killing their search engine optimization that could have come with a properly built website.
There's a lot of skill and know-how involved in building an SEO friendly website and it's tough to get anywhere near the top of the search engines without one.
Thwarting their USP (Unique Selling Position) that would properly convey their professional positioning in their industry.
Without having a unique and professional design done, the DIY site will look and feel just like everyone else's, giving potential clients no reason to choose them over a competitor.
Sales are then lost when people don't get a feeling that they can know, like and trust the business behind the website.
I urge you to take a moment the next time you want to save money by doing your own website and graphic design work, and think about what you'll be losing in exchange for saving a few dollars.
And as for my childhood traumatic experience, to this day, I still can't eat veal.
Just thinking about it brings back memories of that raunchy smell that Mom valiantly tried to mask through various sauces and cooking techniques.
Lucky for us, Dad's practicality also meant not harming his family so the meat was thrown away before we could be stricken with anything.
So I encourage you to not be like my Dad and not let your business be poisoned by your over-zealous desire to save money.
Yes, be practical and ensure you thoroughly research the people you hire, but make solid investment choices that will build and enhance your business like having your brand design, website, marketing and other imperative services done by a professional that knows what you don't know.
Is there any part of your business that you could be getting someone else to help with? Instead of thinking it's going to cost money, think in terms of how much you will gain when you can free up your time and energy to work on your business and getting more clients.
To your continued success, Susan Friesen
Source...