I say this a lot, but what does it mean?
Focus on your business and know your limitations
Sure, we can all do things that aren’t really in the scope of our job description, but are we really putting our business’s best interest first when we spread ourselves too thin doing all the jobs we “can” do?
Here’s an example: Are you a car salesman that is entering all the sales data in a spreadsheet for the regional manager to see what’s going on in your dealership? If you are entering all that data in the spreadsheet…who is out there selling the cars? Is it worth it for you to hire a data entry person so you can make those sales? Of course, it is!
Do what you are good at, and let others do the rest
Running a business, or working for others, requires you to use the skills that you are good at to perform the function you were hired to do. Even if you own your business, your clients are hiring you to do that function. You should be focused on keeping that skill set sharpened and functioning at optimal power. Back to the car analogy: keep that engine tuned and all the parts working properly so you get the best performance. You should be working your skill, learning daily, and becoming the best person that does that skill so your clients get the most for their investment. That also means: let others do the things that are outside your skill set, or the things that will be taking away from your productivity if you were to perform them.
Hire others, and let them do their job
If you need a website for your trinket business, let a website designer create it. Don’t spend 40+ hours learning to create a site, and then months getting it set up. That’s time that could have been spent on selling your trinkets! And you could do things that cause you to harm your business’s reputation if you don’t know what you are doing. You take away from your own income when you try to do everyone else’s job. Spend the money on the website, the logo, setting up your social media, business cards…it will reflect to your customers that you are a professional AND it will take less time and get done right. Your business will benefit from it.
Stay in your own lane!
So, we are back to that statement. It’s very simple to understand if you imagine you are driving your car (selling your trinkets) and your logo designer is in their car in the next lane (creating your logo)*. You stay in your lane and you can get to your goal/destination. Your logo designer stays in their lane and they get to their goal/destination. If you start veering into their lane, they are going to go off course. You also potentially have some damage to fix, and possibly no one will make it to their destination/goal.
Define the driving lanes
Your designer, developer, printer etc. needs your feedback and input. It’s important. So be clear in your needs, and discuss what you would like, but understand that they do this for a living and know what works and what doesn’t. Your information will help each of you to know where you are going, how fast you need to get there, who is responsible for what and where your milestones are. Changing your goals mid-project, or not being clear so they don’t understand your needs is the same as veering into the other lane. It’s going to cause a slow down/stop and put the project off course.
So do the best you can do at your job, and let others do the best they can do at their job…and everyone wins!
*We are in no way endorsing the selling of trinkets or designing of logos while driving. 🙂