Using web marketing to bring leads and sales to your business can easily be a full-time job for three or four people, let alone you by yourself. Even the most cutting-edge online strategies won’t move forward until you turn the keys in the ignition.
Answer these questions to help you decide how much you want to be involved with the day-to-day operations of a website strategy:
What are you really, really good at?
Which skills make sense for you to improve, and for what tasks should you hire someone who already has the necessary skill set?
What do you enjoy doing that you could do all day long and not require payment?
What type of work do you absolutely despise?
Use the following exercise to rate your ability and willingness to perform the following functions (rank from 1–5, where 1 = low and 5 = high). Then add each line for your total.
| Task Description | Ability | Interest | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website design | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Programming | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Web server administration | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Content writing | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Customer service | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Technical support | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Copywriting | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Social networking | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Publicity | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Accounting | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Sales | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Training | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| Research | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1 2 3 4 5 | _____ |
| TOTAL | _____ |
For any task where your total is less than 6, it would likely be in your best interest of time to pay someone to perform that role for you. Anything for which you score an 8 or higher, you might find total enjoyment from performing that task on your own. The middle ground offers opportunity for learning and growth.
Nearly everyone who’s truly successful on the Internet has a team of people who bring special skills to the table. The web changes so quickly that any one person keeping up with everything is impossible, especially after you have a successful selling product or service on your hands.
Start now to be open to the idea of building your own team of helpers or paying an existing team to handle the tasks you do not want to deal with.
