It's Okay! Hire an Expert!

Dear Cyber Surfer,

Okay. First I'll admit to the world that I'm cheap. I would rather do anything and everything myself than pay someone else to do it. Even if it means not doing it at all for lack of time, skill, materials, or brains. I'm just like my father in that way, maybe, who has always taken pride in doing everything himself. That is, until he fell off a ladder while trimming trees and broke some ribs. He didn't complain much after the fall; he just said the pain was tolerable unless he coughed, sneezed, laughed, hiccupped, or burped. Now, needless to say, the task of tree trimming is hired out, as it should be.

So, one of my New Year's Resolutions for 2006 will be to relax a bit and allow others to do certain things that I really know nothing about or do very poorly on my own or have no business doing at all and should be paying an expert to do.

One thing that's nice to let others do is flower delivery. Think about it. You could stop at the grocery store on the way home from work and pick up a loaf of bread and a bunch of carnations (you might think they are roses but you're not quite sure). You then walk into the house and thrust them at your sweetheart, saying "Oh, here, these are for you." She mumbles, "Uh, thanks, (what are these for?)" as she dries her hands and drops whatever she is doing. Now she fumbles around in search of an appropriate vase and the pruning shears. She removes the wrapping from the flowers and cuts off all of the stem tips for prolonged life, making a huge mess on the counter. Then she fills the vase with tepid water and that little packet of white granular stuff to make them last longer. She rearranges the flowers, stands back, and rearranges them again. Then she places the vase on the center of the table, cleans up the mess, wipes down the counter, sweeps and mops the floor, and tries to remember what she was doing before you and the flowers walked through the door.

OR, you could go online, select and order the perfect floral arrangement, and have an official-looking delivery person deliver it right to your sweety's door. Surprise! The flowers are fresh, lovely, and perfectly displayed in gorgeous vase! Now doesn't she feel special!

Now picture this: The family automobile has been making funny noises and the oil is looking a bit muddy. You hear a sort of grinding sound whenever you press on the brake pedal, and there's a growing puddle of something under the car that you notice whenever you back out. What should you do? If you are a certified auto mechanic, this would be a no brainer. Figure out what's wrong with the car and fix it. Logically speaking, however, it is likely that you are not a certified auto mechanic or you wouldn't have these kinds of problems, at least not all at once. Or, you never drive this car OR you are very, very lazy. In any case, the logical answer for most ordinary folks is: take it to the shop!

Let's assume, now, that you have built a website for your company. So there it is. Up there. Online. And nobody is finding it. You know there are things you can do to build traffic. You've heard about search engine optimization (SEO). But, doggone it; it took forever to build this dang website, and it's a good one! You thought you were finished! Now, what with "key word analysis" and "meta tags" and "page rank" and "link swapping," well, it just goes on and on!!! Why not let experts take care of your Internet Marketing needs? They know what they're doing, they'll bring traffic to your door, and they'll make you look GOOD.

The lesson here, folks, is: Leave some things to the experts... and relax.