Most of us are good people. Most of us would be happy to do things for other people and that is, of course, a very good thing in many ways. However, when it comes to your business, it can be a deadly sin. What?! I’ll tell you why.
What are you good at? Why? Usually you are good at what you enjoy doing, and enjoy doing what you are good at. The two go together – it’s a kind of a chicken and egg thing. Then you set up a business to do what you are good at. And it is not easy. There are a lot of things to think about and it takes a lot of time to build a business. You are bound to be very conscious of the fact that you need to have an income. This won’t really work if you don’t make any money. So you start to sidestep. The graphic designer who wants to specialise in brand identity does a few pamphlets for a low cost store. The dress maker who wants to do evening dresses takes on a few jobs of fixing suites. The marketing director who loves to work on strategy and branding concedes to assisting with some Facebook marketing and AdWords campaigns.
And what happens?
- You get frustrated because you are doing things you don’t want to be doing.
- You will not do things as well as you would otherwise, because you are not enjoying it. This in turn means you are not doing the best job possible and the customer isn’t as happy. Not to mention how hard it is to have good positive communications with someone who is asking you to do something you don’t want to do.
- You become known for doing loads of things you don’t want to be known for, and it attracts more of those jobs, but not the ones that you do want to be known for.
- You have no time to do what you want to do, you neglect it and one day you realise you haven’t done any of it for a long long time.
- You get known for being a jack of all trades and master of none. And who get’s the dream jobs when they come along? Yep, the master – not Jack.
In my head I have known this for a long time. All the books on marketing and loads of other things keep telling us his. But I am always experiencing it more and more for myself. This is why I focus on marketing strategy and branding, and choosing the right tools to build it.
If you want to know about any of those things, I suggest you click through and check them out ;)
I don’t do teaching or consulting on individual marketing tactics anymore. They take time from what I am best at, and what I love to do. The pull the focus of my brand and weaken it.
People want the master. You can’t be master of everything. Choose your field of mastery, stick to it and I promise, if you stick with it, you will reap what you sow ;)