When Is It Worth Hiring an Expert?

April 26, 2013

Within the last month or two, I’ve had to travel (for work) to cities that I have never visited before. And, I wasn’t quite sure which airlines served some of the smaller airports or what hotels looked better online than in real life. As someone who is accustomed to being on unfamiliar turf and living from a suitcase for a bit, it still never hurts to have a conversation with someone who knows the area.

That’s when I call my coworker Linda! She has been to every town I can think of and has a memory that’s amazing when it comes to hotels, restaurants and anything travel related.  (You can read her blogs here.)

Any time I need advice on travel, Linda is my first call.  When I need advice on medical issues, I have friends who are nurses and physicians so I call them. When I have a car issue, my brother has forgotten more about car repairs than most people have ever known. So, as you can see, I’m a big fan of having subject matter experts as a resource.

I often hear questions from people about the cost of experts though. So, I thought that would be something to explore. When does it make sense to pay for the advice of an expert?

I think that’s been a question that we’ve all asked ourselves at various times. If money were an unlimited resource, we’d have experts in every area of our lives. What should I wear on a date?  Call my designer. What should I order at dinner? My nutritionist will be there to help me. When I want to work off that high calorie dinner? Of course, my personal trainer can take me through a tough workout. For every decision we make, we could hire an expert to walk us through the choices and help guide us to the right answer.  But, who has that kind of time and/or money?

So, we must make a lot of decisions on our own without expert guidance, or find our own internal experts. But, that has limitations. While Linda is my travel expert, she actually has a real job and isn’t getting paid as my travel expert. There are times in my life when I’ve written a check to pay for advice. What made me do that?

My thought process for deciding when to use a “free” expert vs. paying for one comes down to the question of potential bad outcomes. If I were getting sued or going through a divorce (which I have….), I’d hire an attorney to represent me. While hiring one comes at a price, in a contentious divorce it could cost significantly more over the long term. When your car is doing something that it shouldn’t do, you can ignore it and hope it goes away or take it to your expert/mechanic. Sometimes, it’s a minor issue that if not fixed right away will cause no harm. Other times, it’s something that if not fixed today at a low cost, could result in a huge bill or a new car being required a little bit later.

If I had a medical issue, I could always go to WebMD to do some research, call a friend who is a nurse, or call a friend who is a doctor, but without sitting down in a doctor’s office and running any appropriate tests, it’s all guesswork. It could be X or it might be Y or it could just be nothing. The only way to know for sure is to talk to the expert and let them do what they do best. If you don’t, the consequences could be devastating.

I just heard about a famous guy who didn’t like doctors, wasn’t feeling great and just tried to grind it out and work through it.  This went on for years. It kept getting worse but he never did anything about it. He finally felt so lousy that he got himself into a doctor’s office only to be told that he has 3-6 months to live because his cancer is so widespread now. Had he come into the office 3-4 years ago when he started being symptomatic, he could have had some treatments and lived to tell about it.

Sometimes we are very self reliant.  Sometimes that is a detriment.  Think about the areas of your life where you think that an expert’s help might make sense. What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t use one? If it’s minor, like ordering a meal that isn’t exactly the best from a menu, then you might want to save the money you’d spend on that expert for a time when it might be needed. If the worst case scenario is pretty serious like needing a new car, like death (I’d call that one pretty serious), like not having healthcare directives in place in the event of a serious illness (or anything where the worst case scenario has a significantly higher cost than the cost of the expert advice), that’s when it’s time to take action and hire your expert.