.png)
business
Read time: 3 mins
Question for you:
What’s the best way to fail at running a business?
Some obvious answers might be:
- Create crappy products that no one wants
- Be rude and annoy all your customers
- Spend more money than you make
These are all true.
But here’s another way that businesses fail that isn't so obvious:
Try to be great at EVERYTHING.
It’s a super simple way to fail, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to do.
We find the most successful owners understand that they can’t (and shouldn’t try to) be great at everything.
What do they do instead?
Here are 3 tricks they use, that you can use too:
3 WAYS TO NOT TO BE GREAT AT EVERYTHING
1. Choose what you’ll be great at
Instead of trying to be great at everything, choose 1 or 2 things you want to be great at and invest the time in truly becoming great.
Maybe it’s being a fantastic leader.
Or a visionary strategic thinker.
Or a finance nerd.
Whatever it is, choose it, and let go of the need to be amazing at everything else.
Work on building a deep skill set over time in your chosen area.
We suggest choosing something you enjoy learning about, and find satisfying & meaningful.
If you hate having to be your own IT guy, don’t choose it.
Then for the technical stuff, go to step 2.
2. Build a great team
In small businesses, it can feel like you NEED to be great at everything because you don’t have a large and capable team around you.
But without the skills and experience of others, it means you need to be:
- A great operator
- A great CFO
- A great head of HR
- A great IT manager
- A great marketer
- A great salesperson
- and the list goes on…
We find the most successful business leaders recognise it’s a waste of their time and energy to play all the roles, and instead find great people to complement and enhance their overall capability.
By the way, this doesn’t mean you have to hire these people directly into your team.
You can outsource, partner with professional services firms, or get a coach or mentor to help you instead.
For that, go to step 3.
3. Get a great coach or mentor
Getting expert advice can be the quickest and cheapest way to achieve big outcomes quickly.
We love working with our coach because they offer a fast track to the answers we need, when the alternative is trying to figure it out ourselves (and wasting time making mistakes or arguing about it 😂.)
Outside advice is SO valuable for knowledge gaps because you get to tap into greatness that others have invested in.
Find people who are really knowledgeable and experienced in their field and bring them in.
That’s what we’re doing this year to succeed in our business - hope it helps you with yours!
Time to get to work!
Thanks for reading and speak soon,
Lynne & Steve
TLDR:
- Business owners can’t be great at everything - and if you try to be, it’s a sure way to fail.
- Instead, choose what you’ll be great at, and get great at it.
- Then, build a team around you and use a coach or mentor to support you.
When you're ready, here's how we can support you further:
▶ Join the Unlock Your Network course
Our free 7-day course will help you learn the strategy, tools, and tactics to build a network that creates opportunities for you.
▶ Work with us
We offer coaching & mentoring to help professionals build impactful careers and businesses. Enquire here .