Back when my wife Shelly and I bought our first home back in 2002, I was all into DIY home improvement projects. Over the 6 years we lived at this first home, I put in new laminate floors, toilets, bathroom sinks, closets, and painted the entire house inside and out. For the most part, everything came out decent and I saved a ton of money doing it myself. I learned many lessons in that first home about taking on projects around the house that I utilize in my digital marketing business today.
One DIY project that I struggled with the most was the landscape at that first home. I would go to the home improvement store and nursery to pick out plants and colors to redo a section of the yard. It was typically backbreaking work that often went hand in hand with heat exhaustion. Once I completed a section, I would move on a week or two later to fix the next section. After a couple months’ worth of work I would sit back and scratch my head in frustration. I came to find out that the first section that I worked on was dying and would rush back to water and feed those plants. This continued the entire time I worked on the landscape. It was never right. I tried to do it in sections and without the proper knowledge and experience it was a vicious cycle that spiralled out of control.
I finally decided to reach out and ask for help. One of my neighbor friends who I sometimes played cards with was in the landscape business. He worked for a large outfit that handled commercial properties and fairly large crews. When I pleaded with him for help, he graciously offered to come over and check out my yard situation. Walking around my small property for about an hour, he pointed out so many things my head was spinning. It turns out there are dozens of variables that I didn’t even think about. He mentioned the slope of our property, hardscape, soil, irrigation, and vegetation in terms that completely escaped me at the time. I asked him to give me a ball park number of what it would cost to do the yard correctly and the number was more than I was willing to pay. I asked him if he could help plan it all and he offered to lend me a crew and manage the project at my home. I further asked him if I could break it up into smaller chunks so that I didn’t have to pay it out all at once. He cautioned that if we tried to piece meal everything together it just won’t come out as nice. The plants, hardscape, irrigation, and all of it need to be put in together simultaneously so they all grow and flourish properly. He said we could do the hardscape, grading, and irrigation first and then put the plants in, but that strategy would also cost more money at the end compared to doing it all at the same time. I decided to save up enough cash to bang it out all at once.
The end result was spectacular and exceeded all my expectations. The plants grew up beautifully because they had the right soil and a solid irrigation system to make sure the right amount of water was supplied evenly throughout the seasons. The hardscape and slope insured that any drainage flowed properly through the property. It was a HUGE learning lesson and when I looked back years later with the landscape looking even more amazing than when it was first done, I came away with 2 key lessons that I apply and teach in my business every day.
First, having someone that works day in and day out in a field means that they are more likely an expert who can see things you might not be able to. I work in the digital marketing and advertising space and it is painful to watch business owners try to navigate putting together their own website or managing their own digital marketing. There are so many variables that they don’t truly understand and the learning curve is immense. I’ve spent the past 20 years fine tuning and learning tactics that create the most effective impact and what not to do. It’s hard to explain to someone who is so confident and wants to save some money that yes it’s doable, but the end results won’t be great and most likely won’t last. Similar to my landscape project, a business owner that tries to manage their digital presence ends up putting in an insane amount of time and effort only to end up with a dead end product. Their results fall flat and their business suffers from the lack of focus on their core business. It is a painful scenario that I see time and time again. Hiring a professional digital marketing firm can get the results you need to drive more profits to the bottom line. It’s an investment that pays off for years to come (with the right partner of course).
The second lesson I learned from the landscape fiasco was that you shouldn’t try to piece meal things together when it comes to landscape or digital marketing. Planting without the proper irrigation will only get you dead plants. Starting in one section and waiting too long to work on the next, gets you mismatched growth and crappy results. If you want your online presence to perform in perfect synchronicity like a world class symphony, you need to make it so all the pieces fit together properly.
Having google ads bring your website a bunch of traffic doesn’t do squat if your website sucks or your bringing the wrong people to it. Re-posting other people’s content to social media or not properly managing your businesses’ review sites will only tank the rest of your strategy online. You need to make sure all the pieces fit and rely on a digital marketing agency that can put it all together properly. One that knows when to strike and how to make all the pieces sing. From concept to design to implementation all of it should funnel new business to your door and include the tools to capitalize on opportunities. It’s a tough lesson that I learned in my personal life with the landscape challenge and thankfully was able to avoid that pain in my career. Don’t piece meal your projects if you can help it and get a professional to get it done right.
Today I have for the most part given up on any serious home improvement projects. Not because I don’t enjoy them or don’t care about saving some money, but rather I know now that professionals who do the work day in and day out will insure a better, more polished finished product. My wife agrees 100% and will now only allow me to vacuum the house or pressure wash the concrete…and I’m OK with that.
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MediaTamer
MediaTamer brings a full suite of assets together to seamlessly create a symphony of success. Our service is arguably the best in the industry and each one of our clients ends up being long term partners. MediaTamer only signs partners who want to dominate their industry and keep up with cutting edge technology to win. Our strategies and digital technologies are designed around actual results instead of just pretty wallpaper. Stop paying 5 different fragmented companies for poor to mediocre results. Take your business online to the next level with MediaTamer. For a free consultation and analysis of your business’ digital presence email contact@mediatamer.com