Put Value on Your Work

Today I’ve learned a lesson. That’s nothing special, actually I hopefully learn lessons every day 😉 But then, today I learned that I don’t value my work enough. I usually learn tons and when I feel that I really know what I do – and that can take me some time – I will offer that service or product to my audience and customers. But this often takes me much too long because I want to be 100% sure that my work is done correctly. So far there is nothing wrong with that, right? 😉

Last week I’ve hired someone to write for one of my German websites, www.karibiklifestyle.com (if you want to check). If you are a regular reader of my site here you know that I write the content here myself but that I often outsource content for some of my other websites. I also use PLR content for them because it is much easier to have a template and start writing than writing things myself from scratch. With good PLR you can simply change the wording and spice things a bit with your own experience and voilà you have a really useful text for your readers.

To make a long story short, the lady wrote me last night that it took her some time to get my articles written, much more than she would have expected and if I would increase the price per word? Actually I agreed because I think a well written text cannot be valued enough. What I loved about her was the application she sent me – it was worded very creatively and packed into a recipe so I was more than happy to hire her and even more than happy to pay her a bit more. Two hours ago I got the texts.

I learned that because I try to do my best to make things 100% correct doesn’t mean that someone else also tries to do that. She sold herself and her work well, so well that I was even willing to pay her more just because she requested and without any proof that it was actually worth it. But the reality is that her work needs to be completely checked by me for spelling and grammar errors. It will take me at least an hour to do so before I can add the content to my website. I also have the option to simply ask her to check her spelling but I feel intimidated to do so. I wonder if that is the best she can deliver and really, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I guess that my behavior is totally wrong. I should ask her to re-check her work because in the end I pay for that – 50% more now than expected.

What I learned is that we all should really value our work more. Doing it myself might take me a bit longer but then it will be done in the way that I do things. It will be what I expect it to be and without teaching someone to do it for me. So I might even save some time.

When you outsource work, make sure that you value the time you spend before (by showing the person what you want) and after (by correcting their errors) their work is done. If you find someone who does 100% what you want, value his work and treat him well. It is seldom.

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