Don’t do your own dentistry!
Warren Buffet said: “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
Seems like a pretty obvious statement to make, but when it comes to making sensible business decisions, I am frequently surprised by the number of business leaders who opt to save a few bucks in the short term, but end up paying more in the long term. The thinking is along the lines of ‘looks like a pretty simple task to me, how hard can it be?’ I recall thinking the same myself many years ago when it came to laying carpet and I soon found out to my own cost the difference between my poor, cheap attempt versus the result that using a professional can achieve. I am sure you can think of many professions where this rule applies, but I am going to pick on just three where business owners tend to believe that they don’t need to pay for the service since they believe they can do it themselves and why this thinking is usually flawed:
1. Recruitment of staff
I inherently believe that “hiring the right staff is the most important decision a business can make, bar none” Why? Because great staff make your life easier, keep your customers satisfied, and enable your business to grow. Bad staff can be toxic to your organisation, cost a fortune to release and damage staff and customer relationships irrevocably. But how many businesses actually train their staff in recruitment? Sadly this is rare, so when a candidate attends an interview, there is often little understanding of how to verify a candidate’s suitability, technical competency or even portray a professional image of the business itself (even unsuitable candidates should leave wishing that they could have got the role). There is an innate skill here, not only in candidate selection, but also in how to attract the right staff in the first place. With an almost universal shortage of good skills today, getting the right people through your door for an interview can be a significant challenge in itself. Now I am not going to pretend that all recruitment companies are necessarily great, but when you find one that is, you will really notice the difference.
2. Bookkeeping Services
According to LinkedIn, “The Global Bookkeeping Services market is anticipated to rise at a considerable rate during the forecast period, between 2023 and 2030. In 2022, the market is growing at a steady rate and with the rising adoption of strategies by key players, the market is expected to rise over the projected horizon” primarily driven by increasing demand from the SME market which makes up 98% of Australian businesses. Demand is due in part to bookkeepers not just entering in your financial data, they can produce your BAS and IAS returns as well as provide adjacent services such as payroll, bank and credit card reconciliation and records management.
3. Business Mentoring/Coaching
This is also an area of increasing growth since as market sectors become increasingly competitive, business leaders are realising that they typically do not have all the skills necessary to excel in their market space. Price changes and Google rankings alone do not result in automatic business performance increase, these need to be considered as part of an overall business strategy which enables greater focus, operational efficiency and clarity of objectives. Today, it is clear that great leadership skills are now a key differentiator between those businesses that succeed and those that don’t, so engaging external expertise to help build these capabilities can prove invaluable.
Ian Ash ACC, AInstIB
MD OrgMent Talent & OrgMent Business Solutions
www.orgmentbusinesssolutions.com.au & www.omtalent.com.au