The $7.50 Value

A must read column written by Maureen Dowd in Sunday’s New York Times OpEd piece (A Penny for my Thoughts) talks about the next wave in outsourcing. She discusses how journalists for the failing newspaper business can be outsourced to India to save money. Think about it. Interviews can be handled by telephone (or webcam). Research can be done on the Internet. It’s a global world. Face-to-face is no longer valued over the dollar savings.

Two separate pointws came to my mind after reading this piece. Both have to do with relationship building.

1. $7.50 for 1,000 words
2. Global relationships

On the value of writing…I’ve been suggesting that everyone write a blog to help connect with their team and prospective business partners. It’s free in terms of creating. Your time, well, that’s a different issue. Apparently, $7.50 for 1,000 words is equivalent to $7.50 a day. It takes me that long to research, think, write, assemble and distribute a bi-weekly ezine (each article is about 1,000 words).

Receiving only $7.50 a day would discourange anyone from making the effort to write a blog post. That point of view is short-sighted. The value of writing a blog is to provide value to the readers. Not your idea of value but what the readers perceive as valuable. Granted, with the global Internet-connected world you have more competition. It means you have to provide more value (in the readers mind) to separate yourself from all the other bloggers in your area of expertise. This does take time, effort, and costs you far more than $7.50/day initially. Initially, you will receive less than $7.50/day in payment for your efforts. Your value will increase (and so willyour paycheck) when your target audience (the business people) chooses to spend their valuable time to continue to read your posts over reading others (located locally or globally). If you provide value to the business community, they will want to do business with you. In other words, writing is just one vehicle for the business community to slowly learn to trust you and believe in you enough to follow your lead.

On the second observation…face-to-face meetings are extremely important. These meetings provide opportunities to connect with the business community on a personal and individual level. They are the basis of building a relationship that will last beyond the project (or article). Journalists (and techies) thrive on their “sources” for valuable information. Sources are based upon an individual relationship that evolves over time and is build upon mutual trust and respect. Sources must LIKE you. Then decided that more often in face-to-face meetings than any other venue.

Can you build a trust-based relationship globally? Yes…but it takes longer and requires more targeted effort on your part. If you do not know how to build this type of relationship with people in your own local work environment, you’ll have a difficult time bulding one in a global environment. In the case of Indian Journalists…they will have a difficult time building relationships with reliable sources.

In the case of you as a techie…look at your past record. If you do not have a relationship with the business community that lasts beyond the project, you do not have a reliable source of continued employment. If you don’t start bulding relationships now…someone (locally or globally) else will! 

Building relationships with the business community through face-to-face meetings and writing 1,000 words for them to read will have more than $7.50 daily impact on your career. Make the effort to build relationships with the business community through both means. If you don’t someone else will.

BTW, this post was less than 500 words…does the idea provide more than $3.75 in value to you?