Often, you can do something you're not
knowledgeable about or skilled at yourself. But at what cost? There's a time
trade-off. That time could have been invested in some highest and best use,
yielding far more in profit than the money saved by the do-it-yourself activity
you are ill-prepared for.
You can get everything done by whoever is most
conveniently available, who offers the cheapest price—but at what cost? Having
to micro-manage an untrustworthy provider or oversee getting something
attempted three times before it's done right has a time cost and, if your time
has value, is a false bargain.
Or you can seek out the best available expert,
pay his price or fee, and get the best advice or service, get the task done
right the first time, and be free of worry, stress or battles so you can
concentrate on the highest and best use of your time. I have long sought access
and support from the best provider I could find in any and every category as a
means of buying time by buying expertise and reliability, and I have always
been prepared to “overpay” in order to be their client, customer, or patient. I
began this practice when it was a financial hardship, and I know it was more
difficult then than now, when money is no longer an issue. I also know that the
habit of choosing false bargains can forever prohibit you from getting to the
level of successful accomplishment where money is no longer an issue!
It may surprise you to know that there are
coaches for just about everything. Highly successful people are not at all
unwilling to buy coaching—in fact, they are more prone to do so, at significant
fees, than the average person. It's not at all uncommon for entrepreneurs to
have a private coach who acts as sounding board, confidante, advisor, creative
muse, quasi-therapist and accountability proctor. The money you spend for this
can be a bargain because a small amount of time given to very focused
discussion with an exceptionally knowledgeable coach can sharply raise the
value of all your other time.
When you're going to hire an advisor, consultant
coach, or other expert, it's important to accurately assess their expertise.
Here are four questions to consider.
1. Has the expert actually done the thing he is
advising you about? Or is he an academic theorist giving book reports? You
can’t rule the latter kind of advisor out entirely. But generally speaking, I
want my financial advisor to be a successful investor. I don’t want a fat
doctor who smokes. You can waste a lot of time on self-appointed experts eager
to spend somebody else’s money.
2. Is the expert current? There are a lot of
“former” and “ex” folks who hang out the expert advisor shingle after exiting
the game, and are soon advising from waning memory rather than practical
experience.
3. Does the expert have satisfied clients? A
good, general, time-saving, disaster-preventing litmus test that entrepreneurs
should apply to anybody they're considering relying on for advice is: Are there
at least three other successful entrepreneurs who have done more than one deal
with them? Are there at least three other successful entrepreneurs who have
relied on them over a lengthy period of time or repeatedly?
4. Do you understand what your chosen expert is
doing and how he does it? A poser can make off with a lot money from people who
should have known better and were more victims of their own greed and willful
blindness than of him. Never blindly delegate to mystics. If you can’t
understand how the investment makes money, how the sales strategy works, how
the expert’s advice about anything works—run.
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