After doing some research and gathering referrals, you’ve finally decided on the expert you want to take over the design/web development/email campaigns/social media/SEO/marketing aspect of your business.
Good call! But keep in mind why you did this in the first place.
Most likely it’s because you know this area is not your forte and you’ve been muddling through it for long enough. You’ve been spending your “spare” time reading everything you can get your hands on regarding the subject and you’ve tried to emulate others’ success, but it just isn’t working for you.
Or maybe it did for a while, but we all know the only thing about technology that stays the same is that it’s always changing and it’s just too darn hard to keep up with those changes on top of everything else you do.
If you’re going to go through the trouble of hiring an expert to take something over for you then please listen to the suggestions and recommendations offered by the person you’ve hired to give you advice.
Don’t pretend you know everything and tell this person how you want things done when you’ve hired them for their expertise. You’re paying for that expert’s authority in her field for a reason so don’t jeopardize your end result by micromanaging and being overbearing. In a few months when you don’t see any results, you blame the service provider, and then move on to the next one…only to repeat your same mistakes over and over.
Don’t make this your story! This has happened to me time and time again when someone has contacted me with a horror story from their experience with a different service provider. I mean, I really have heard it all…from the high school or college students who couldn’t get the client’s website to work the way it should, to their 6-week web project that is now in month 10 of development, to the SEO expert who couldn’t get them anywhere near the top 10 on Google in a month, etc.
The thing is that while some stories I hear are legitimate, many of them are a product of having too many cooks in the kitchen. The head chef, with years of schooling and experience in top rated restaurants is working alongside the self-proclaimed chef whose family and friends always brag about their macaroni & cheese casserole. How do you think it goes over when this self-proclaimed chef is spewing out cooking tips to that head chef?
Your expert is an expert because they’ve been performing and perfecting their methods for a long time. They get results and they come highly recommended. So why waste time and money telling them the way you want something done – in many cases the same way you’ve been doing all along and getting nowhere? You’re pretty much setting yourself up for failure, aren’t you?
Do your business a favor. Listen to your expert and their recommendations. Have trust in them. Let them map out a new plan of action and then sit back and let them do all the work. Monitor their progress of course, but don’t interfere. Ask questions, ask why they’re doing something this way…go ahead, ask away, but let them do their thing. See where you are after a month and unless something is just horribly wrong, you must give it at least a couple of months to measure the success.
If you’re tired of the broth you keep ending up with, trust the person you hire to make it better and stay out of the kitchen.
