There are times you can do things yourself, and there are times you need to call in a pro. If you scrape your knee, you can probably bandage it up yourself and care for the wound at home. But if you break your leg, it’s time to call in a pro.
Back in early August, I started having hip pain. I didn’t injure myself that I was aware of – it just started hurting. Thinking I pulled a muscle at the gym, I backed off the intensity and waited for it to heal.
It didn’t. After a couple of weeks, I could barely walk due to the pain. I started searching Dr. Google for an explanation of, and solution to, the problem. According to Google, potential causes could be anything from a minor muscle strain to a serious injury like a torn labrum.
Dr. Google returned all kinds of exercise and therapy regimens. I tried a few. At best, they did nothing; a few made the pain worse. I finally decided to see a doctor.
The doctor said I had bursitis, and referred me to physical therapy. I’ve been going to therapy for a month now. It’s made a world of difference.
Am I completely healed? No. Do I know what I need to do to heal? I do now.
The PT is pretty sure the whole issue stemmed from an earlier injury. In late June, I went for what I thought was a short bike ride – just 6 miles. I hadn’t ridden in a long time and wanted to get back into it over the summer.
Halfway through the ride, my tailbone started hurting. And I was 3 miles from home. I had to tough it out and ride back. By the time I got home, it was killing me.
That tailbone still hurts, 4 months later. I bruised the bone. And in compensating for the pain, I threw off the whole mechanism in my body for sitting and walking. Using muscles for purposes other than what they were intended is what caused the hip pain. I would never have figured this out on my own, nor realized that the two were connected.
What’s the point of my physical tale of woe, and what does it have to do with PPC? The point is this: People hire professionals for difficult problems they can’t solve on their own, due to lack of knowledge or expertise. I had no idea why my hip was hurting. I knew my tailbone hurt, and there was nothing I could do about it. I never connected the two, nor did I know how to fix the problem.
Think about small business owners trying to do DIY PPC. Things might go well for a time, and then suddenly performance falls off. They’re spending money and they don’t understand why the results aren’t there. They start tinkering around and make things worse. Finally, they give up in economic pain and frustration and call a professional PPC manager.
Or at least we hope they do. Like the muscles and joints of our body, PPC is complicated. One issue, such as a bad landing page or irrelevant keyword, can throw your whole account into a tailspin. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’ll never be able to fix it. Like me trying to find the answer to my hip pain by Googling it, you’re lost as to how to fix your PPC account.
Don’t let this happen to you. Hire a professional PPC manager to rehabilitate your account. Your proverbial hip muscles will thank you.
One of my former partners used to say “Sure – you can cut your own hair… if you’re sure you *want* to…”
Haha, right! I know that’d be disastrous in my hands for sure. 🙂
Sorry to hear of your woes!
In addition to everything you mentioned, there is also a lot of bad, incorrect or conflicting information out there too that can put the DIY PPC person at an even further disadvantage. Without the expertise professionals have, it can be difficult, if not impossible, for a business person to differentiate between good PPC advice/strategy/practices and bad.
Yes! Just like there is bad health info out there, bad PPC advice abounds. Thanks for your comments and kind words!
I also think it’s key to remember that, like PT, fixing issues in a PPC account can take some time. If you hire a professional and expect that overnight your account will be “healed” then you’re going to be unhappy with the results. A good PPC pro will get you there but it takes some diagnosis and time to get an account right.
Great read.
Thanks Mark and an excellent point. I just finished 5 weeks of PT – injury is much better, but by no means healed. That’s why they give you home exercises to do. It’s an ongoing process, just like PPC. Thanks for reading!
I’m sorry to hear about your injury. But you really have a good point here. What’s really the point of owning a business especially if it’s an online business if you only know a little about it and everything that concerns about your business. I would also go for hiring a professional who will work for me especially if I know for a fact that I have no idea how the online business runs and works. It’s a necessity for me to hire one who really understands it well. On the other hand, hiring one is a bit complicated because you really need to choose the right one for the job. Anyway, thanks for an opening every marketers’ mind about this topic. Good job!