The Dangers of DIYing Your Business

Let me ask you a question. It’s a simple one, but hard to answer honestly: Why are you DIYing your business?

Follow-up questions:

Are you DIYing because you’ll get the best results?

Are you DIYing because you’ll save time?

Are you DIYing because you’ll make things easier?

Are you DIYing because you know the way better than others?

I’m not a clairvoyant, but I’m guessing the last three answers are probably “no”…

I want you to really think about the first question. Why are you DIYing your business? (I’ll wait. Seriously, stop reading this and think about it…)

4 Reasons Going It Alone May Backfire

Your clients come to you because you know they can’t do what you can do. Well, they could try, but you know it wouldn’t turn out well.

How many times have we heard couples talk about doing some part of the wedding on their own and you think to yourself, “good luck with that…” We’ve all heard the story of the sister who’s going to help plan the wedding. Or the uncle who’s really into photography and has a nice camera, so he’s going to photograph the wedding. Or the cousin who loves flowers and won at the county fair for her dahlias, so she’s going to do your receptions arrangements.

Sure, the family and friends can help put on a wedding, and the couple can do some of the heavy lifting. But you know they’re going to run into any number of problems sooner or later.

Like your clients, here are some common challenges you might run into if you DIY your business.

• Too much information to sort through. Where do you begin and how do you know it’s right for you? Good advice is like a needle in a haystack.
• Information that’s too general. You read a book by your favorite author and then try to find ways to shape the advice to your business.
• No accountability. Getting started is easy - you make fast progress and see immediate results. Then, things get tough or you get bored. And that’s when things start to fall away and you go back to your old ways, or try something different.
• Bad direction. One of the biggest challenges to making improvements is finding the right problems to solve. All the answers are out there for you to learn, but knowing which questions to ask is hard.
• Too theoretical. Out-of-the-box advice is great for learning new concepts. But you need the right tactics and correct way to apply them. Step-by-step is way faster than wandering around. 

So, back to our original question: Why are you DIYing your business?

You wouldn’t recommend that your couples plan their own wedding. Or cook their own reception dinner. Or make all their floral arrangements. Or calligraph their own invitations. 

But you keep on doing that with your business. I mean, it’s only your livelihood…