October 18, 2024

Decide what not to do

It’s no secret that I think specializing (in combination with value-based pricing) is the surest way to dramatically increase your profits.

But, I know that specializing is counter-intuitive to the majority of folks. They resist if for a number of seemingly rational reasons.

In my quest to change your mind about this, I’d like to share this definition of the word strategy from Michael Porter of Harvard Business School:

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

Strategy is focus.

Doing everything for everyone is not a strategy. It’s indecisive. It’s lazy. It’s unremarkable.

If your revenue growth is stuck in neutral, I promise you that the solution is to embrace a strategy.

To give yourself a framework for deciding what opportunities are a good fit and which are actually distractions.

To differentiate yourself from your competitors so thoroughly that you’re virtually in a class by yourself.

Once you make this leap, you’ll wonder how you ever landed a project before.

Yours,

—J

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