Do It Yourself – or… should you?
By now I’m sure we’ve all seen the ads:
I’ve just built this amazing looking website with [brand]… for FREE!
And you’ve likely found yourself pondering the question, “Why should I pay an agency to do my website when I can do it myself for free?” And the truth is, there are several answers to that question. Let’s go through them.
What is your time worth?
I’m reminded of a line by Jeff Goldblum in the first Jurassic Park movie.
(from Jurassic Park © 1992 Universal Pictures)
Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should. Remember, the time you spend doing one thing is time you don’t have to do something else. Time spent building that DIY website is time you aren’t serving your customers. Think for a second. How long will it take you to build that free website? Doing a quick Google® search, one of the popular site builders of this kind tells us that “A simple 10-15 page [brand] website should take around 3-4 weeks to create.” Now, recognizing that “your mileage may vary”, if you are charging your customers $65 per hour to do what you do, and it takes you 4 weeks to build your website, that free website has cost you over $10,0001.
Cookie Cutters & Rubber Stamps
When you decide to take the plunge and open your own business, being “just like everybody else” is probably the last thing you want to do. You’ve gone into business because you believe that your business, your idea is unique, better than what everybody else is doing. Am I right? Yet, probably one of the biggest problems with a free site is that they are all built around templates. These companies will of course spin this to show its best. Basically that all you have to do is select one of their great-looking templates, fill in the blanks, add your text and a few of your own pictures, and you’ve got an amazing website. They completely neglect to mention, however, that your website winds up looking like every other business that has chosen that same template. Examples of templates – Cookie Cutters, Rubber Stamps, Jigs, and Stencils, just to name a few. Why would I use a Cookie Cutter? Because I want to quickly make a bunch of cookies that look alike. Why would I use a jig? Because I want to quickly make a bunch of — whatever it is that I’m making — and have them all come out the same. Starting to see the problem?
Sears Catalog Houses
Roughly 100 years ago, Sears, Roebuck & Co.® sold Kit houses from their popular catalog.
More than 370 designs in a wide range of architectural styles and sizes were offered over the line’s 34-year history.
Sears Modern Homes offered the latest technology available to house buyers in the early part of the twentieth century. Central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity were all new developments in house design that “Modern Homes” incorporated, although not all of the houses were designed with these conveniences. Primarily shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included most of the materials needed to build a house. Once delivered, many of these houses were assembled by the new homeowner, relatives, friends and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families.2
This was great if you didn’t have a lot of money, and you just wanted a place to live. You just followed the instructions. Everything was pre-cut, ready to go.
But what if, for example, you wanted the window on the north wall, rather than on the east wall?
Footnotes
1 $65 x 4 weeks (160 hours) =$10,400 in lost time. 2 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Modern_Homes