Do(n't) it yourself.

There's an article in today's New York Times about consumers in this economy looking to save money by doing it themselves. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us/17blunders.html?hp

The article is basically a litany of people who have ruined their bathrooms by installing their own toilet, or infecting their privates by waxing their own bikini, or coming out spotted by bleaching their own hair. That incident concluded this way: “We had to go in and do corrective color,” Ms. Brewer continued. “I charge by the hour, and I worked on her for four hours. So by the time it was over, she ended up spending close to $1,000 to have her hair corrected when it could have been $175.”

In every case the lesson is the same and is found in the article's title: "Even to Save Cash, Don’t Try This Stuff at Home."

I think about this because I've noticed more and more clients looking to do things themselves or more and more agencies doing the same. Clients choose to write copy. Or agencies volunteer to do things they used to hire, say, directors for.

Behaving in such a way may not cost money but it could cost success. Hiring the right people brings two things to a project, an outside perspective (an avoidance of group think) and professionalism. In the end those two things add value and are worth the money.