Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Recently I was able to put into words a behavior or pattern I noticed about myself.

I left my previous career/work in June 2020 and started learning to code. While I was doing that I was working a part-time job. In January I got my first full-time developer job. I got my 2nd job in June of this year.

All that to say, all three of these jobs hired me to do a very specific task/job. But at all three of these jobs, while doing my job, I longed more and more to be doing something different because the job that I was hired to do, from my perspective, was not the job that needed to be done. Why? Because there are bigger issues and I am just a body. As helpful as I may be in being another body to try to solve an issue, there are underlying problems that would be worth solving first.

So how is this about business? For all of my life and for a lot of recent history, if you were hired to do a job, do that job or move on. That is the way we have lived. Business school has taught us that there is a very specific way of ‘succeeding’.

But, to be honest, I hate traditional business. I hate traditional marketing.

Traditional Business/Marketing says, “I have what you need and if you don’t get it you will miss out.” Traditional Business/Marketing is manipulative. Traditional Business/Marketing has the ‘success’ (i.e. more money) of the business itself in mind.

Business/Marketing, as it should be, “We do this (the business or the people the marketers are trying to reach) and if this aligns with what you want and what would be best for your business, then we can work together.” Don’t waste anyone’s time. Don’t waste your own time.

Seth Godin says this often, “If you are for everyone, you are for no one.” In our day and age specializing in something and offering it as a service is more approachable than ever before because you can connect with more people than ever before. But because you can connect with more people than ever before means that you will likewise find more people than ever before who you/and your business/company/product is not for.

And that is ok. Maybe you need to hear that today. That it is ok to not be ‘for’ everyone. That does not mean you hate others. That simply means you know who you are trying to serve and who does not want your service. If you try to please everyone, you will please no one and you will run yourself into the ground.

Do Less by Focusing on ‘Who You Are For’ with your business & product.