How To Dig A Ditch

Posted by Pinky Gonzales on Aug 10, 2011 in Blog | 3 comments

It’s really easy… move some dirt from one part of the ground over to another, and voila… a ditch!  So now you can dig your own ditches any time you want, free of charge.  You’re welcome.

I was having lunch with my new Portland pals Rick Turoczy and Jason Glaspey this afternoon, discussing the nature of client expectations, among other things. I regaled them with a story of a prior client of mine that was loathe to pay anyone for marketing, or anything else they felt they could do themselves. And it makes perfect sense! If you believe that the hardest part of marketing is in knowing what to do in the first place, why not just read a few blogs, maybe spring for a $20 book, and do the work yourself?

For the same reason you shouldn’t always dig your own ditches.

There is a time and a place for everything, of course, but too often we make the mistake of discounting the value of services we think we can do ourselves. The next time you snicker when someone describes themselves as a “social media expert,” ask yourself the question, do YOU really want to spend hours a day responding to stupid Facebook posts and entertaining the anonymous masses, or is that something you can put into the hands of a competent professional? Or to put it another way, what is your time worth? Is there anything else you could be doing right now that would be of greater value to your bottom line?

If not… dig a ditch.
If so, hire a ditch-digger.  And pat yourself on the back for having the wisdom to do so.