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Would you hire you?

I needed to get business cards printed up when I struck out as a freelancer, so I went to some of the print shops around town to look at their work and get some prices. One of my first stops was the shop nearest my house, which also happens to be one of the more well-known businesses in the area. I thought they’d be a good bet, but I decided against using them for two reasons, one of which I’ll discuss in this post.

I walked in to the print shop and was immediately struck by all the posters hanging on the walls. There were posters listing services, posters stating policies, posters for procedures. The walls were covered with posters. The abundance of posters isn’t what struck me though. What struck me was the fact that all the posters were hand lettered.

Huh? I was in a print shop and none of the posters in their shop were printed. They were all lettered by hand. I had to wonder why this shop wouldn’t use their own services to print up their posters. Well, if their work wasn’t good enough for them, it wasn’t going to be good enough for me.

I was talking with a web designer at a local networking event. I was interested in looking at some of his work, but when I asked for the address of his website he replied he didn’t have one. What? Nope, no website. And not only did he not have a website, he told me he was going to hire someone to do it.

I was talking to a web designer who was going to hire someone else to do his website. Huh.

Let your business showcase your work.

Sure, it’s possible to be too close to the work and need someone outside to take a look at it. Or maybe business is so good that finding time to mind the store is difficult, and outsourcing might make sense. But be smart about it. A copywriter hiring another copywriter to draw up some boilerplate for letters of agreement is one thing. A web designer wanting to hire someone else to do his web site is something else altogether. The first is offloading tedium to focus on the interesting stuff. The second is just stupid, and misses the primary opportunity show off his own skills.

Instill confidence in your clients and customers. Make sure your customers know you would hire you .