What Do You Consider A Proportional Response?

I'm going to try to make some folks think a bit with this one. Ultimately,
the question I am putting to you is this...

"What do you consider a proportional response to your business needs?"

Let me now try to give you an idea of where this is coming from.

If you watched The West Wing, there was an episode called "A Proportional
Response" which was the 3rd episode of the series.

In a nutshell, a US plane was shot down and Bartlett met with the Joint
Chiefs to determine what kind of response to make.

The joint chiefs came up with what they called a proportional response
where they'd knock out some military targets and call it a day.

Bartlett was more or less disgusted with the whole scenario. Essentially
he wanted to send the enemy a message that if you mess with the US,
you get your head handed to you.

Ultimately, he was talked into going with a proportional response because
it was, as Leo put it, merciful.

Now, you're probably wondering what this has to do with Internet marketing.

I'm now getting there...and ultimately it revolves around that dirty word
we call outsourcing.

So...picture this scenario.

You have a project you're working on. It's going to be a limited edition
run, meaning only a few units sold and only a few thousand dollars in
income. Let's say, $3,000 in income for a 3 day launch.

Now, you have everything covered as far a product creation but you
need to graphic and HTML work done. You can do it yourself, but because
it's not your strong point, it will take you some time to do. You'd rather
give it to an outsourcer.

However, after giving the specs to several outsourcers, you discover that
nobody will touch the work for less than $1,500.

That's half your profit gone.

So here's the question.

What's the proportional response here? At what point do you say, "screw
it...I'll do it myself" or give in and spend the money?

Remember, we're talking about 50% of your profits shot in outsourcing
costs when you could easily just bank the whole 3K for a few days of
work.

Yes, I know...ultimately it comes down to what your time is worth to
you versus what the outsourcing is going to cost you.

But where do you draw the line on costs as a percent of income.

10%?

30%?

50%?

Where do you finally say, "It's not worth it...I'll do it myself."

Let's put this in really large proportions.

Let's say you were working on a major product, one that will make you
$1 million in 30 days of release.

It will take you 6 months to complete on your own but then the profit is
100%.

You can outsource enough of it to get it done in 30 days, but those
costs will come to 70% of your $1 million.

Do you settle for a smaller payday of 300K in exchange for getting that
money within 30 days or do you hold out for the whole million, waiting until
you finish the product on your own in 6 months?

I realize that everybody is going to have different priorities and thus, we
will get a whole range of answers here.

And that's why I'm asking. I'm curious as to what the majority of the
people here think, especially those who are making big money. How do
they handle these things?

Hopefully, this can turn into an interesting discussion.