If you chase two rabbits, you probably won’t catch either of them.
That’s one of those “common sense” business lessons I’ve heard for a long time. Of course, I don’t follow it. My husband and I own a liquor store and a cattle ranch, I speak and write about small business, and I co-founded Tourism Currents to teach social media marketing for tourism. Apparently, I’m chasing a lot of rabbits.
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| How many rabbits are you chasing? |
I think chasing lots of business “rabbits” is partially a small town trait: we develop multiple lines of income because one business may not be enough to support us in a small town. And we use it to even out risk, the way farmers use multiple crops to even out the ups and downs of commodity prices.
Theoretically, if you could find your one “most profitable” business, you ought to focus on that, and maximize your profits. Of course, that maximizes risk, too, if anything should happen to that business. One of the best posts I’ve read about focusing is Jonathan Fields, “Are you Building a Body of Work or a Cornucopia of Chaos?”
Here’s how I resolved this. I have a central mission. I help small town entrepreneurs prosper, so they can help their communities prosper. Every business I listed is part of that.
Every project that someone asks me to take on, I run through the filter of whether it helps me to support small town entrepreneurs. Yes or no. Very simple. That is the body of work I’m building.
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
Becky:
Your post got me thinking. My mission is to spread better ideas regarding business philosophy and new media. I am a renaissance man and digital nomad. My long-range goal is to spread the good word on a global scale, that is why I am a globe-trotter in training :)
All the Best,
Martin
“Globetrotter in training” is a byline I LOVE!
I had a friend who gave me a great and similar piece of advice when I worked Capital One: “You’re trying to carry a thousand marbles up the mountain, and you’re moving them one inch at a time. Take one marble, carry it up the mountain, and then go get another.”
I admit, the thousand marbles is more intuitively appealing due to my attraction to shiny objects – if you’ve ever seen the movie “Up” then you’ll recognize my reaction to someone yelling “squirrel!” – but much less effective than hunting one rabbit at a time and using mixed metaphors.
The way I keep focused is to provide myself with small rewards for each completed task. Since I like to hop on Twitter and Facebook, that’s my reward for finishing a task I know I need to do. 55 minutes of work, 5 minutes of reward.
It works most of the time.
Until someone yells “squirrel!”