How can thinking like a marksman help your business?

The entrepreneur’s paradox affects all of us. Have you ever said yes to doing something you probably shouldn't have and regretted it later? I've never met a business owner that had not, so just nod your head yes, then we can move on. We all see it in every business every day. Even the best businesses venture outside of their zone on occasion. If you are doing it to save a customer, that may be acceptable however you should try to avoid it because it isn't going to be cheap.

I like to pick on attorneys a little bit because I have a lot of great friends that are attorneys. If you crack open the Yellow Pages to the attorney section I bet you can find at least one attorney's office that has more than 10 fields or specialties of law listed. And yet all of them can tell you that the attorneys that make the most money practice one specialty. I have a friend that has a personal injury law firm, and at one time they ventured out of the bubble and brought in an attorney who was a specialist in a different area. That relationship lasted through one major case and the outside specialist moved on.

In another case, a law firm that I worked with started off practicing several different types of financial law. As the economy began to have trouble they noticed the number of bankruptcy requests were climbing. The two senior partners quickly got smart and changed their business focus to bankruptcy filing only. They were able to quadruple their business while reducing their workload 10%.

Doctors are another area where specialization can make significant income differences. I'm even going to talk about a specialty of a specialty. One of my friends is a plastic surgeon.  For years his business struggled while he operated on all kinds of patients, handling all kinds of corrective and cosmetic surgeries. He did some very nice work on my knee cleaning up a pretty severe scar. Today he will not do that kind of work. He found one very specific niche with one very specific surgery / procedure to perform. He happened to be pretty good at it and then one day he decided that that was all he was going to do. On his own, without any coaching, he figured out that he would make the same amount of money working two days a week with this one procedure than he was making by working five days a week taking care of everybody.

My friend handled it very smart, he left the broad-based plastic surgeon Yellow Pages ad and set up a referral service. Any time somebody called in for skin grafts, he had a guy who was only a skin graft guy. Anytime someone called in for liposuction he had a guy who was a liposuction specialist. Now he's not doing skin grafts or liposuction. The great lesson with the three guys is that they all work less and make more than they ever have. It happened because they specialized.

In the fourth century BC there is a quote attributed to Plato which I will say is translated to read like this: "All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gift, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else."

I find it amazing that 1600 years ago someone already understood this principle of success and yet everyone tries to become a Renaissance man and wonders why they are broke. When I lived out in the ranch area of southeast Texas, the “Jack of all trades” or  “Mr. fix-it guy” usually lived in a trailer home at the end of the block.  He was the guy with no driveway and the satellite dish tied to an old rusted car. If you want to find success in your life find your natural gift and focus on that gift. If you don't know what the gift is start with the book So, Now What?

Even in my marketing business, success through focus holds true.  Having been a  military marksman at one point in my life I found this quote from Scott Ginsberg at DG networks quite interesting. He said "the ad industry is the most exciting is ever been. We just keep getting more rifle-shot-specific torwards customers."  When I work with customers, the first thing I do is try to make their niche crystal clear.  In that niche we identify the perfect customer. Only then can we begin marketing for that business properly and achieve the results they are looking for.

It doesn't matter whether you're an employee or employer, knowing what you do best and doing it is a major factor in success. Finding your niche is like finding that lens that helps you see your path to success.