Reward Is There When You Invest Time

If we invest time and effort to be good at something, it feels much more rewarding than someone else doing it.

The capacity for businesses to effectively become their own media companies means that control and ownership is within the business itself, as opposed to a third party.

The Recipe In My House

The world is now full of suppliers who can do the job for you, from a company who will tweet for you (but how many ‘inspirational quotes’ can one handle in a week) to updating your website on your behalf (when a bit of training on a platform such as WordPress can reap the rewards).

Lets put it into context of something that many can associate with. My wife is a brilliant cook who will spend time perfecting a recipe, until she is happy. Whilst I am more than happy with a ‘toad in the hole’ her ventures into dishes from Asia and elsewhere involves time and effort of making sure she is happy with how everything comes together and presented.

The Emphasis On The Need To Invest Time

The word I’m looking to emphasise here is ‘time.’ We have to be patient to accomplish what we want to achieve and then stand back and say, ‘ that is superb.’ With cooking, you cannot cut corners or miss an ingredient that gets to the final plate, it can affect the taste or how everything finally looks. It’s a bit like anything else in this world, we can pay someone else to do the job for us (namely phoning one of the Thai restaurants in town to deliver) or if the time is taken to outdo the restaurant, it becomes a rewarding and fulfilling experience.

When we put this into a business context, if we look to grow our skill sets and areas that we know we can become more competent in (and I’m not saying here buying the latest 4K camera makes you a videographer or learning InDesign from scratch makes you a designer, it takes years of learning) with passion, interest and commitment we can look to grow our expertise.

Lets Live ‘In The Now’

I’m not a fan of getting in a ‘hired gun’ approach to look after someone else’s social media. We have to be present and ‘in the now’ to respond, communicate and engage with people, not other people pretending to be us. Whilst it is tempting to get in an outside agency to tweet for you, this isn’t a sustainable long-term option.

The reality of everything is that to be good at something can take a lot of time, but with the platforms and channels that are freely available to us, time to become more accomplished is our biggest investment in today’s society. The world is now a relatively level playing field, for instance Vine has only been in existence for just over a year. With enthusiasm and dedication to continually learn, we can achieve to be better at something than the competition.

Whilst my wife loves discovering new dishes, as her targeted audience I hope it never stops!

Be good to hear of new platforms that you are becoming more competent in and also enjoying the experience, whereas 12 months ago, it would have been unheard of.