All things to All People...Really?

I discovered through working for other people who were focused on how much they could make if they “did it themselves” that trying to be a “Jack-of-all-trades” isn’t the smartest thing. With that kind of thinking it is easy to spread yourself too thin and not give detailed attention to any one project creating mediocrity instead of excellence. Sure you might have a good amount of business but at what cost? Running yourself into the ground and having no balance in life isn’t the path I wanted for myself and certainly not for my business when I became a business owner.   My desire was to work smarter not harder. Seems logical and yet putting it into practice is a whole different thing. I willingly admit that it is not easy to turn away business or even refer them to someone else especially when it is something you know you could do yourself. It’s almost impossible when your finances are leaning toward the red and to be fair just as hard when your finances are in the black. It seems so easy to just do “this or that thing” this one time, for this one client. Of course we can do project A even though we specialize in project D. The fact that we are giving up our time and energy to do something that isn’t the true heart of our passion gets often overlooked and often to our mental, physical and emotional detriment. From experience, inevitably, when I or my team take on a project that we know isn’t where our skills should be focused we find that the end results are always mediocre to our personal standards. I wouldn’t say that our client’s think that but we do and we intrinsically know it wasn’t a project we should have taken on. Often times the process to get the project done is frustrating, never goes smoothly and we wish the entire time we had just said no. The humorous or not so humorous part is that often those project A’s refer you to others and the next thing you know you are spending more time on project A’s than your specialty niche and making less money doing it. Again, what happened to working smarter not harder? However, when we focus on what we do best we excel at it every single time and find great joy in the process. I’ve come to the realization that if I focus on what I do best and utilize other people for what they do best then everyone is much happier and much better off in the long run.  It’s a win-win-win for everyone. A win for the vendor I use to provide a service, a win for me and a win for my client. Even if I just refer the business on I come out ahead by having less stress, less energy sucking tasks and less inner turmoil. I think that is far better than a few more dollars in the bank. Creating the mindset that you have a specialty, a niche in this world to fill is what being an entrepreneur is about. Don’t let yourself get trapped in the mindset that you can do it all, be it all to everyone you come in contact with. Believe me it just might not be the best thing for everyone involved. My recommendation is to use BizNik or other networking opportunities to develop a great referral base so you can confidently refer business to others and smiling go about your business of excelling at what you do best. 2008-09-16T20:50:43Z

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all-things-to-all-peoplereally

2008-09-17T18:35:40Z

Ever been in the rut of trying to do it all, be it all, only to discover that not only is it impossible but instead of excelling at one thing you are mediocre at a lot of things?