Bright Ideas # 53 – A Dirty Little Outsourcing Secret Every Entrepreneur Should Know 

Do you always seem to have too much on your plate? If so, you’re not alone. Most entrepreneurs discover that if they want to grow their business, they need help.

That means hiring an employee, outsourcing to agencies or freelancers, or cloning yourself. Since the former can be pricey, and scientists are still working the bugs out of the latter, many savvy business owners end up outsourcing.

Personally, I’ve always tried to outsource as much as possible.

At first I thought outsourcing would be the cure-all for many of my entrepreneurial ills—especially those frustrating battles with QuickBooks. And even though I’d been a manager before, somehow I thought hiring out would be easy.

Boy was I ever naïve…

For some strange reason I had assumed that when someone said they would do something, it would get done. I also made the fatal mistake of assuming I could trust referrals.

So I ended up going through two bookkeepers in less than two years, and spending more than $3000 fixing all the problems they created!

The first one was supposed to set up QuickBooks, then handle monthly expenses and reconciling. Boy was I shocked when I opened my books after a few months and discovered a confusing, partially set up mess.

So with the next bookkeeper, every time I got my books back I spent hours combing through them for errors. And finding plenty.

The worst was when she told me, “Wow, none of my other clients look this closely at their books.” Can you say “fired”?

Lucky for me, bookkeeping is pretty straight-forward. And even though I didn’t know that much about it, it was easy to check for inconsistencies and missing entries.

But it’s not so easy when you hire someone to design a Website, create a logo, or write your new brochure. Because unless you know a good bit about sales and marketing, you have no way of knowing if they’ve done a good job or not…At least not until you’ve spent money on printing or postage, then tracked the results.

And sadly, there is a dirty little secret about hiring “creatives” that most entrepreneurs don’t know…

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Far too many designers and copywriters don’t actually know much about marketing, advertising, branding or sales!
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Sure, it seems logical to think they would—especially since they create brands, logos, advertising, Web sites, brochures, sales letters and more. But you’d be surprised how many technically skilled writers and designers don’t.

I’ve personally had Web designers recommend things that are proven to decrease click-thrus and sales. And I know more than one person who wasted thousands on a site that didn’t help their business.

I’ve heard graphic designers make bad recommendations about postcard mailings. Then, later admit they’ve never studied direct mail or advertising, or even worked in sales.

And don’t get me started on copywriters. I once thought I would grow my business by hiring a team of killer writers.

Unfortunately, I discovered that plenty of writers can create an interesting article or product description. But when it comes to using psychology and proven copywriting techniques to sell on paper, they miss the mark by a mile.

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So, what’s a busy entrepreneur to do?
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You could learn about sales, marketing and advertising yourself. Or, you can hire a marketing consultant to make sure things are on target. Then your creatives just need the skills to make your vision a reality.

The other option is to carefully screen and hire savvy creatives.

How do you do this? By looking at their work and asking these five simple questions…

1) “Who came up with the concepts?” Oftentimes creatives are simply doing what others tell them, which is fine. But you should know this beforehand.

2) If the concept is theirs, ask, “Why did you choose this design format?” Ideally you should hear phrases like: to target a specific market, highlight a USP or benefits, encourage sign-ups, or support the brand promise.

3) “What kind of results has your work produced?” If they can’t answer, chances are good they don’t know much about effective marketing.

4) “Where did you learn about sales, marketing, branding and/or advertising?” It doesn’t matter whether they went to school or are self-taught, but they should be one or the other. And savvy creatives make a point of keeping up with the latest developments in their fields through books, seminars and newsletters.

Remember, pretty doesn’t not always equal effective. And awards are not a sign of sales success. In fact, the big joke in ad agencies is that the ones who win awards are usually fired soon after because their ad campaigns don’t produce results.

©2002-2006 Success Stream. All Rights Reserved. www.success-stream.com

Do you have a marketing, advertising or writing question you’d like to have answered? Email me and you might see the answer in a future edition of Bright Ideas.

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