Keep the knowledge, buy the execution
Nobody will understand your customers, your products or your margins better than you do. That knowledge should stay in the business, and it should drive every brief you give.
The execution — writing the code, taking the photographs, managing the campaigns — is specialist work that is frequently better bought.
Worth buying
- Development, for anything beyond configuration
- Photography, at least for your best sellers
- Advertising management, if the spend justifies it
- Copywriting, if writing is genuinely not your strength
- Accounting, always
Worth keeping
- Deciding what to sell and at what price
- Talking to customers, particularly the unhappy ones
- Deciding what to fix and in what order
- Understanding your own margins
- Choosing suppliers
Outsourcing the decisions rather than the execution is how businesses end up paying for work that does not fit them.
Brief with a diagnosis
“Improve our conversion rate” is an objective. “Shoppers drop between cart and checkout, we think because delivery cost appears too late” is a brief, and it produces much better work.
Do your own diagnosis first — the funnel, the support contacts, buying from your own store on a phone. Then buy the fix.
Judge the work by the questions
| Good sign | Warning sign |
|---|---|
| Asks about your margins | Talks only about traffic |
| Asks what your customers ask | Proposes a rebuild immediately |
| Wants to see the funnel | Quotes without seeing the store |
| Says what they would not do | Agrees with everything |
| Gives you the accounts | Holds accounts in their name |