[00:03] On this episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I want to talk about one of my absolute all-time heroes when it comes to business, life, entrepreneurship, fatherhood—just everything. One of my absolute heroes, and that is, of course, Homer J. Simpson.
And this particular instance is to do with an episode from Season 9, Episode 22 of The Simpsons, back in the early stages of The Simpsons, back in Season 9, where Homer ran to be in charge of the waste disposal in Springfield.
[00:51] “Can’t Someone Else Do It?”
Homer ran with the slogan, “Can’t someone else do it?” Any dirty job that somebody didn’t want to do in Springfield, it was, “Can’t someone else do it?”
Moe had to clean something out from the toilets, I think it was, in Moe’s Tavern. “Can’t someone else do it?” Clean out a dirty cat’s litter tray? “Can’t someone else do it?”
And Homer ran with this slogan to prey on the fact that people in Springfield were inherently very lazy. They didn’t want to do any of the dirty jobs, anything they didn’t like the look of. “Can’t someone else do it?”
Homer said, “Yes, the garbage man can.” And there was a great song in The Simpsons—The Garbage Man Can.
[01:32] It all ended really badly because Homer blew the entire year’s budget in about a day. But we won’t go into that.
The concept of what Homer was talking about—“Can’t someone else do it?”—is genius. And it is the essence of outsourcing.
[02:01] So as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as somebody that wants to make money in their life, in their business, and be successful, you should be thinking about what Homer Simpson was talking about. “Can’t someone else do it?”
And I’m actually putting together right now a talk that I’m going to be doing in the next week or so on time management, procrastination, goal setting, and making sure you achieve the tasks that you’re meant to achieve.
[02:26] A big part of that is cutting out the stuff in your working life, in your business life, that you shouldn’t be doing. Those tasks that somebody else should be doing. Tasks that are either low-value or repetitive—tasks you can procedurise and get someone else to do. Or tasks someone else is better than you at, or cheaper than you, or faster than you.
You should only be doing the high-value, fee-earning tasks that only you can do—so you’re working on your business, not in your business. Getting other people to do the tasks you shouldn’t be doing.
[03:06] This all makes perfect sense. However, this is the nub of the problem. This is what tends to piss me off.
So many people in business are preoccupied with saving a couple of quid. Or they think they’re the best person in their business—or around them—that can do anything, so they’re scared to use someone else.
They’re scared to outsource. They’re scared to give the control to someone else. They’re scared to pay money for someone else to do something because they think they can do it better than anybody else.
[03:34] And this is absolutely… I cannot stress how many times I have seen a business owner—it might be one of our clients, it might be one of our prospective clients, it might be someone in a networking group, someone I’ve just met—who has tried to design their own logo.
They’ve decided they’re going to have a logo for their business. They can do it themselves. They don’t need a graphic designer. They don’t need a branding company. How hard can it be?
They make an absolute pig’s ear of it. It’s amateurish. It’s the kind of thing a 9-year-old would do in school and the teacher would say, “Oh, well done, Johnny, you’ve had a good go at that. But let’s see what someone else in the class has done.”
Yet they think it’s great. They’ll show it to their mum, and their mum will say, “Oh, that looks really great, sweetheart, well done.” And all their friends will say, “Oh, that looks brilliant, well done.” And all the people in their networking group will say, “Oh, that looks really good. Well done.”
Nobody will say, “Hang on. That’s shit.” Because they did it themselves. They didn’t want to pay someone else. They wanted to spend the time, the agony, the stress, and have a crack at it. And they’ve just made their business look amateurish.
[05:01] And nobody will tell them. Apart from me. And I’m the bad guy for saying this.
Then they’ll make their own website. They’ll go on something like Wix, or they’ll have a crack at Squarespace or WordPress.com. They’ll have a go at creating a theme or installing something, trying to do it themselves because it looks easy.
Anybody can actually make a website. It’s not difficult. The trick is in making one that’s any bloody good. One that actually works. One that doesn’t have any one of a million different, specific and very niche, very nuanced mistakes you can put in—mistakes that, unless you’ve been doing this for 15 or 20 years, you’re not going to bloody know about.
And they’ll put the website out: “Oh yeah, look how good that looks!” And their friends will go, “Yeah, that looks really good.” And their family will go, “Yeah, that looks really good.”
When in reality, it’s crap. And nobody will tell them.
[06:11] And what’s going to happen is, they’re not going to get any business from it. Because it’s crap.
Yet they’ve spent their time and done it themselves because that’s what they think they should be doing—rather than paying someone else to do it.
And then they’ll write their content. “Oh, I need blogs on my website. I need content. I need pages because I’ve heard that’s the right thing to do for SEO, for search.” That’s what they’ve been told.
Not going to use a copywriter. Not going to use a freelance writer. “I’ll do it myself because I’m the best person to do it.”
And they’ll copy and paste from one of their competitors. Slap it onto their site. Not realising that that’s garbage. Duplicate content. It won’t work.
Or they’ll go to ChatGPT and say, “Write 10 blogs for my accountant’s website on submitting your VAT return.” And boom, it’ll write it out and they’ll slap it on their site.
AI-generated content. The most generic bollocks imaginable. That’s going to do nothing for them. But it’s fine, because they saved themselves some money by not hiring someone who actually knows what they’re doing.
[07:09] “Can’t someone else do it?”
Stop trying to do these things yourself. Because it’s not something you can do.
I’ve been in SEO. I’ve been in the digital marketing world since the late ‘90s. I was the web designer at GAME back in 2000. I’ve been doing this for over 26 years. I still don’t know everything. I still have to learn. I still have to keep up.
You think you can learn this in two weeks? Have a go yourself? “How hard can it be?”
I’m not going to operate on my own dog because I watched a YouTube video.
I’m not going to do my own dentures. I’m not going to do my own brain surgery. I’m not even going to make my own bloody clothes—I’ve got no clue how.
I don’t even do my own bloody garden design. I got an expert in to do that.
[08:05] If someone’s better than you, use them. If someone’s cheaper or faster than you, use them.
Your time is not free. When you’re twatting about trying to make a website, or you’re pissing about writing content, or you’re trying to learn SEO because you don’t want to spend a few quid, you’re wasting the time you should be using to grow your business.
[08:43] Remember what Homer Simpson said: “Can’t someone else do it?”
Homer was a very wise man. Again, ignore what happened at the end of the episode. It all fell apart for him. But it was all working up to that point.
“Can’t someone else do it?”
Don’t think your time is free. Don’t think you are the best person to do everything. You’re not.
Use people who have been doing it longer. Who have more experience. Who have more talent. More connections. People who know how to do it better than you.
Leverage their ability to outperform your competitors. Because I guarantee, your competitors—the ones who are winning—they’re not pissing about trying to do it all themselves.
They’re using people who know what they’re doing.
That’s why their logos look better. Their websites work better. They rank better. They get more business. They win more clients.
Because they aren’t trying to be the expert in everything.
[09:25] And breathe.
“Can’t someone else do it?”
Please, for the love of all that is holy, listen to Homer Simpson.
“Can’t someone else do it?”
And I will catch you on the next podcast.
