No Small Business is an Island
A couple of weeks ago Toni and I met with a really bright young guy here in town to pick his brain about servers. Toni has this idea that she would like to run the server for our sites right out of our own office so we talked to a teenager who does just that.
Of course there’s a vast difference between the sites he runs on his server and ours but the basics are the same so we talked to him. That gave him the chance to ask for some advice on setting up his own small web design business and we talked last night.
I’m sure I gave him plenty to think about - especially when it comes to charging for his work. He was going to charge such a low rate for his time that he would never have covered his costs.
He also asked why Toni and I seemed to do so little when it came to our business. He wasn’t being rude but he wondered why I talked about using a graphic designer and a guy to write the scripts that run in the background on some of the websites that we build for people.
His idea was that he could do all those things and so he would be the one who did all those things in his business. That gave me the chance to explain that most successful small business people concentrate on what they do best and get others to cover the work that they are not so good at.
For example, I provide great text for websites that encourage people to buy what the website is selling but I’m very slow when it comes to producing attractive graphics for those sites so I don’t even try. By saving that time I then have more time to devote to writing and that then puts more money in my pocket.
And that’s the way it is for just about every small business. If you want to use your time effectively and efficiently then concentrate on what you do best and buy the services of other people to do all the other things for you.
