This was once posted on my Facebook page: "What is your best golden nugget of advice for sales & marketing success?" While many things rushed through my mind, I responded with this: "Invest in your own business the way you want others to invest in you. If you don't want your customers to take a DIY approach and pass over using you, the professional, then you shouldn't think you can do a better job than the pros you need (such as website & graphic designers).”

Help me!

I meet lots and lots of wedding and event pros every year. Some are just getting started, while others have been in their business, or the industry, for decades. The one consistent theme for the most successful people I meet is their willingness to seek out and invest in the best resources for their businesses. They’ve learned, whether through personal experience, or education, that there are some things they’re very good at, and others they’re not.

I’ve launched multiple websites and I hired professionals to make most of them… and I wrote a book on websites! My specialty isn’t building sites, it’s seeing and understanding how to design the look and functionality for the best user experience, for you and your customers. That doesn’t qualify me to program or write code. And, most importantly, my time is better spent working with my current clients, and finding new ones, than trying to learn how to build sites.

So, what are you doing now that you should be outsourcing to people with more expertise? Are you designing your own business cards, brochures, logos, price sheets, emails and more? Are you making your own website? The question is not how much it will cost to outsource? The better question is how much more you can earn by having a better website, better graphic design and better marketing? These days prospects make their decisions very quickly on whether or not to keep you on their list of possibilities. If they don’t like your website, they’re probably going to leave, in seconds, and they’re not going to give you another chance. If they think your business card seems cheap (thin paper, stock images, poorly designed), they’ll toss it and move on. You’ve done it. I’ve done it. Expect that your prospects will as well.