Biggest Mistake #3 - Trying to do Your Own Product Duplication and Fulfillment
If you’re an information marketer and your business is up and going at all, you can quickly find yourself wearing any or all of these hats:
- Marketer of Your Information Products
- Public Speaker
- Marketer of Your Speaking Services
- Information Product Developer
- Shipping Clerk
- CD/DVD Duplicator
- Binder Assembler
- Customer Service Manager
- Order Taker
- Travel Planner
So you’ve got to ask yourself which of these hats you should be wearing. Where should you be applying your time and efforts to maximize your information marketing business?
When you’re starting out, you probably should do it all yourself. You need to have an understanding of what is involved in producing and delivering your products to your customers.
But, if your business is growing, you’ll quickly find out that too much of your time is being spent on the mundane tasks — copying binders (or running down to the local quick print shop), duplicating CDs and labeling them one at a time, packaging things together, putting things in boxes, running down to the post office or UPS, etc. This means you’re probably not spending your time where you get the biggest bang for your buck — marketing your products and services and creating additional products.
When is the right time to outsource your duplication and fulfillment requirements? Ultimately, you’ll have to decide when that time is for yourself. But what do you value your time at? $100 per hour, $200 per hour, more? Then how long does it make sense for you to be spending your time doing $10 or $20 per hour tasks?
If you’re spending an hour per day running products to the post office that’s an hour you’re not investing in your real bread and butter. And what is your opportunity cost? The time you’re spending on $10 an hour tasks is time that’s lost forever.
When you’re spending time working in your business rather than working on your business then opportunities will slip by without you even noticing them.There is a time when outsourcing your duplication and fulfillment needs makes perfect sense — both from a time management and a financial standpoint.
When is that time right for you?