Congratulations, you’re an information marketer. Maybe it’s your first product or maybe you’ve been on the scene for quite a while. But unless you’re a high-priced for a fee speakers, the only way you’re going to make any real money is from product sales.
Appearance fee engagements for speakers are great – if you can get them. Unfortunately, that’s not the reality for most speakers. The Colin Powells, Norman Schwartzkoffs, and Bill Clinton’s of the speaking world are few and far between.
Which means your ability to make money is almost entirely predicated on your ability to sell your products and/or services.
If you’re approaching your business the correct way you’re continually building your own information products empire in your area of expertise
That means you’re producing books or manuals, or audio and video-based training materials.
Maybe it’s CDs or DVDs. Doesn’t matter. The important thing is you’ve got a number of products you can promote via speaking engagements, through your website, by joint venturing, or by any other number of methods.
Now let’s ask the tough question. If you’re having any degree of success your now wearing all of these hats (and more):
public speaker
marketer of your speaking services
information product developer
shipping clerk
CD or tape duplicator
binder assembler
customer service manager
order taker
travel planner
So you’ve got to ask yourself which of these hats should you be wearing? Where should you be applying your time and efforts to maximize your business?
When you’re first starting out you probably should do it all yourself. You need to have an understanding of what is involved in producing and delivering your products to your customers.
But if your business is growing you’ll quickly find out that too much of your time is being spent on the mundane tasks – copying binders (or running to Kinko’s), duplicating CDs and labeling them, packaging things together, putting products in boxes, running down to the post office or UPS, etc.
Which means you’re not spending your time where you get the biggest bang for your buck -developing and marketing your products.
When is the right time to outsource your duplication and fulfillment
requirements? Ultimately, you’ll have to decide when that time is for
yourself. But what do you value your time at? $100 per hour, $200 per hour, more? Then how long does it make sense for you to be spending your time doing $10 or $20 per hour tasks? If you’re spending an hour per day running products to the post office that’s an hour you’re not investing in your real bread and butter.
And what is your opportunity cost?
When you’re spending time working in your business rather than working on your business then opportunities will slip by without you even noticing them. There is a time when outsourcing your product duplication and fulfillment requirements makes sense -both from a time management and a financial standpoint. When is that time right for you?