Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

On the front page of the local paper, at least the way it shows up on my phone, was an article about the cost of a recently selected attorney; $1,000/ hour to save $ Millions on a $ Billion + project.

These are numbers we can’t fathom, both psychologically and from a day-to-day pragmatic perspective. We buy cars that are in the thousands or tens of thousands a few to several times in our lives. We buy homes that are probably in the hundreds of thousands on average a couple times in our lives.

Millions and Billions don’t really register.

If you have to dig a ditch:
•Would you use a spoon because you own one? Probably not.
•Would you buy a shovel? Depends on the size of ditch, right?
•Would you rent a backhoe? Might depend on your ability to operate or your confidence of what’s under the surface.
•Would you hire a large general contractor who has the equipment, operators, expertise, reputation and bonding? If it’s a major project-and a $Billion scope qualifies as major in my book-this is the most likely avenue.

The right tool for the right job.

When is a professional service provider the “right tool”?
Whether it is an accountant preparing financial documents (i.e. tax forms), an engineer preparing bidding documents (i.e. plans and specifications) or an attorney preparing legal documents (deeds, contracts, easements, formalized agreements between entities) and the advice of when to say yes and when to say no…professional services, often times looked at as an expense, might best be considered an investment.

There are new television commercials about a certain tax software that doesn’t require a genius. They are clever, humorous and they imply that all tax filings are made simple by the use of this particular software. My guess is that under most individual filings where they are uncomplicated, you may get by with a software tool. There are also circumstances where you may pay a small fee and miss a big deduction and not even know you left money on the table.

The point? Professional services fees are hardly front page news. You (typically) get what you pay for. Big, complicated issues require special solutions to get it right the first time so you don’t have to do it over or make it more difficult than it should ever have to be.

Have a blessed weekend!