Growing up in rural North Carolina, I was all too familiar with the use of Scarecrows. These figures made of old broomsticks and discarded clothing was placed in the gardens to give the effect of a person being in the garden that would ultimately keep the birds away. A hoax if you will. These sticks, string and discarded clothes were no more than an illusion.
It’s very much like the illusion that many companies create to hopefully save money when in house staff perform many duties such as marketing, accounting or other duties that they are no way skilled for. A common tout of many business owners is, “I’m paying them anyway, why not use the people I have”. The problem is that while the strategy is “cheap” it’s not effective and only serves to prove to the business owner that things like a social media presence or email marketing really doesn’t work. The fact is, it doesn’t work when it’s carried out by SCARECROWS. Just because Suzy spends every free moment as well as some of the company time on Facebook or Twitter doesn’t mean she has a clue about managing a business social media presence. Mike, your next door neighbor’s son that loves computers probably can’t build you an effective website since he has no knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO’s) and the other elements that make a website effective. He only has the ability to download a FREE version of a website design software and follow the steps. But, his dad calls him a website designer and best of all, he’s FREE.
Free is good if you’re sampling cocktail weenies at Sam’s Club, but not when it comes to key parts of your business such as your sales or customer retention. So stop kidding yourself and have a skilled professional manage the important parts of your business where your now have SCARECROWS. If you think it cost too much, you should consider the cost of the missed sales due to having that SCARECROW carry out or attempting to carry out these important task. You would be surprised how affordable it is to outsource many of the tasks that will increase your sales and your profitability. You already outsource many things now such as computer repair or even the heating and air maintenance. You probably would never crack open your lap top and rip out the hard drive and replace it. No, you take to a person that is skilled in that area. The phone call to a company to outsource things like email marketing, web design, even sales itself is free, just like the cocktail weenies at Sam’s Club. And just like those cocktail weenies. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it and you’re out nothing. Many of us are hired and ultimately sell our expertise. If we were as unskilled as these SCARECROWS we would soon find our ourselves out of work due to our lack of effectiveness.
Sweep out the straw with your SCARECROWS and get serious about the things that make you a success.
Scarecrow Questions
1. Is your customer retention and marketing strategies based on cost or effectiveness?
2. Do you assign responsibilities on cost or effectiveness?
3. Do you have a means of measuring your staff’s effectiveness?
4. Have you ever considered “outsourcing certain task like sale and marketing or customer retention?
5. Do you feel you currently have SCARECROWS in your organization?