Agency vs Freelance vs DIY (& my $15,000 costly mistake! ?)

When it comes to launching and growing your e-commerce brand, other than your cost of goods, the two biggest expenses of operating your business will be fulfillment and marketing.

Now, we all know very well that no courier or postal service will ship our orders out for free. So we’re well trained to expect to pay for that service! 

But on the marketing side, the options (and fees involved) for marketing and advertising exist on a very wide spectrum, from crowdsourcing advice in free Facebook groups to expensive external agencies.

I know a lot of business owners have lost money, either due to getting poor results from their efforts or being burned by dodgy service providers. And it’s because they simply don’t have the knowledge or skills to know what they SHOULD be doing. 

And they don’t have that knowledge because, like me in my early days as an entrepreneur, they felt intimidated by things, believing they couldn’t do it, fearful of stuffing things up and losing money, and therefore defer to an expert.

In this episode, I share a rather embarrassing story about the time I made a REALLY bad choice with outsourcing that ultimately cost me more than $15,000! But also turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons I’ve had in business. 

If you’ve had a bad experience or not gotten the result you want with an agency or program, OR you are just starting out – you probably need to learn how to do some stuff that’s a bit tricky and hard.  

And by listening to this episode, this is your opportunity to learn from my hard-won experience and avoid making the same kind of costly error yourself!