Lack of tech skills? (part 2)

In the last issue, I talked about many people’s outright refusal to hire anybody to handle technical issues that are holding your blog and business back. My only goal there was to perhaps change your viewpoint a bit on it. Because, it really is funny how we hire people in our regular lives for so many things, but somehow consider this online thing a whole different animal. 🙂

But, surely, sometimes you just wanna do things yourself. But, there’s a big mistake I see people make too often when they’re trying the do-it-yourself option…

They’re re-inventing the wheel.

And they’re doing it badly.

What I mean by this is that they’re trying to build something themselves without spending a dime, but the result is a total piece of crap that isn’t going to work.

Example: A landing page or squeeze page.

Now, your best option is to invest a paltry amount (in the scheme of things) into a dedicated tool like Thrive Architect. This tool is super easy to use for non-coders, has a ton of templates and page elements built right into it. Even if you have no graphics skills and no coding skills, you can make nice looking landing pages quickly and easily with this tool. And while I fully recommend their Thrive Membership so that you can access all of their tools, you can pick up just Thrive Architect alone for only $67.

Now, $67. This amount could easily be spent on one dinner in a restaurant for a couple of people. And, not to get too graphic, but you basically poop it out the next morning. 😉

On the other hand, you could get a tool like Architect which will remove a massive constraint when it comes to making nice pages on your site.

Because trust me, I’ve seen a LOT of people try to avoid buying something like Architect. Instead, they’ll sit there and try to hand-code their damn landing page. Or, they’ll “design” some horrible looking page using their main blog theme and it just looks like garbage. They’re literally sabotaging their conversion rate on the page all because of some dumb attempt to avoid spending $67.

Now, I’m all about Thrive Architect, but the same idea could be applied to any tool.

A tool is designed to allow you to DIY something, but yet speed things up and make it radically easier.

Hell, just last week, I began working on a new setup for all of the Lab content. I wanted a way to sort and search it. It would have taken me forever to code something, even though I have the skills. Then I found a tool called FacetWP that did it. Yes, it cost me $99 to buy the tool, but it saved me needless hours of work all to make something which wouldn’t have been as well done. It was a no-brainer.

So, my point is…

Don’t re-invent the wheel.

Don’t sit there and avoid buying tools that are expressly designed for the job you need to get done… all in a short-sighted attempt to avoid spending any money whatsoever.

When you hamper the growth of your online business because of trying to avoid spending such small amounts of money, it isn’t smart.

And yes, I know to some people, $67 might not be a small amount of money. I get it. However, again I just offer the perspective of all the things in your life you probably do spend $67 or more on. For those things, it is considered normal. Why is something like building a BUSINESS something one considers to be totally different?

– David