If you’ve visited the Arsenal Events website over the past few years, you may have noticed that it’s changed a time or two.
Actually…three times.
The first version was built by me (Ken). It wasn’t terrible. It functioned. People could find races, register, and get the information they needed. Success, right?
Naturally, I decided I could do even better.
So I built a second one.
It was…better. Cleaner. More polished. I had learned a lot about websites, Wix templates, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and all the little things that make a website work. But there was one problem: I was slowly becoming an average website developer.
That wasn’t exactly the career goal I had in mind.
Like a lot of small business owners, I fell into the trap of thinking, “How hard can it be?” After all, every dollar you don’t spend is another dollar you keep in the business. It sounds like good financial sense.
And sometimes it is.
But sometimes the most expensive thing you can spend is your time.
Every hour I spent trying to figure out website layouts, fonts, mobile responsiveness, and search engine optimization was an hour I wasn’t spending improving our timing systems, training our staff, or finding ways to make race day better for our customers.
Eventually, I had to admit something that, in hindsight, should have been obvious.
I don’t need to become great at building websites.
I need to become better at running Arsenal Events.
So this time, we hired professionals.
Within a short time, our new website looked better than anything I had managed to create after countless hours of trial and error. That wasn’t frustrating.
It was freeing.
Because the designer wasn’t starting from scratch. They had already spent years learning what works, what doesn’t, and how to create something that not only looks good but functions well for the people using it. They brought experience that simply can’t be learned from watching a few YouTube videos after dinner.
That experience is worth something.
As I thought about it, I realized this isn’t just a lesson about websites. It’s a lesson about race directing.
We’ve had the opportunity to work with race directors who seem capable of doing just about everything. They’re coordinating volunteers, answering participant emails, working with sponsors, designing shirts and medals, managing registration, arranging police support, scheduling vendors, updating social media, and somehow still trying to smile on race morning. It’s a tremendous amount to juggle, and after watching so many events come together, we’ve noticed that almost every race director eventually runs into the same temptation: “Maybe I can handle one more thing myself.”
Sometimes that “one more thing” is timing the race. Sometimes it’s providing the music, taking the photographs, building the website, designing the promotional materials, or producing the race video afterward. None of those tasks are impossible to learn. In fact, with enough time, most of us could probably become reasonably good at all of them.
But that’s the problem.
Becoming reasonably good at everything often prevents us from becoming exceptional at the things that matter most.
The professionals you hire aren’t valuable simply because they own equipment. A photographer brings much more than a camera. A DJ brings much more than speakers. A website designer brings much more than an eye for colors and fonts. The same is true for a timing company. What you’re really hiring is years of experience, countless lessons learned, and the ability to solve problems you may never even know existed because they’re handled before they ever become your problem.
That’s the real value of working with professionals. They allow you to spend your time doing the things that only you can do, while they quietly take care of the things they’ve spent years learning to do well.
Launching this new website feels a little like closing one chapter and starting another. The lesson wasn’t that I couldn’t build a website—I could, and I did. The lesson was that my time is simply more valuable elsewhere.
We’d rather spend our evenings dreaming up new ideas for race day, writing articles like this, and finding ways to give our race directors and runners a better experience. Those are the things that make Arsenal Events better, and they’re the things we’re most excited to keep building.
There’s nothing wrong with being hands-on. In fact, I think every business owner should understand the basics of the services around them. But there’s also wisdom in recognizing when someone else can do something faster, better, and with a level of expertise that would take you years to develop on your own.
Sometimes spending a little more doesn’t cost you money.
It buys you time.
And time is usually the more valuable resource.
So if you’re planning a race, don’t feel like you have to become an expert at everything. Surround yourself with people who are already experts in what they do. Trust them to do their job while you focus on yours.
In the end, everyone wins. The runners have a better experience, your event feels more polished and professional, and you might even get to enjoy race day for a change.
As for our website, we’re excited to finally share it. Take a look around, explore what we offer, and hopefully you’ll see what we saw – that sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is simply: let the pros be pros.
Thank you, Andrew and Shannon, from Meza LLC for building our new beautiful website!
But we will miss seeing this little guy every now and then. Iykyk – and we know that some of you know!
