Sometimes life moves at a crazy pace for the better, though that sort of activity can be detrimental to your life and health if you don’t have a plan. Thankfully, I have a plan! Ever since we made the decision to team up with Mason James’ team at The WP Valet, I’ve been forced to make plans.
- What work will I be doing for PMG now?
- What work will I be doing for WPV?
- How will we structure compensation?
- What does the future look like?
For too long, I’ve been working IN my business instead of working ON my business. Sure, I have days or weekends – like every WordCamp – that makes me think outside of my very limiting box. But then life gets back into stride when the next week begins (or the week after that because of the funk of data-induced paralysis). I’ll implement a new service, remove a batch of clients, or change some major tool. But unless I did work, work didn’t get done. Money didn’t come in. I owned my job.
When I started having CEO lunches with Mason, I still remember his personal shift about 3 lunches in. He started to think about strategy, writing posts, and delegate more duties. There I was, a proud solopreneur sitting on the other side of the booth thinking to myself, “that part of having a team sure must be nice… time to think while others work.” I wondered what I could do for my business if I wasn’t wearing 30 hats.
What if my work was ONLY what I was great at?
What is work?
Since that lunch, I’ve ruminated on that and formed a new view of work and business. It’s confession time, but you’re used to that by now with me. I’m not the best developer. I’m not even close to being the best developer for Genesis. What I do do with extreme passion and ability is to pick a client who wants to work with a professional-grade business to get what they need, especially when what they want isn’t what they need.
Most people want someone to tell them when their idea sucks. Gently. You can tweet that if you want.
More and more, with the scope of my projects, I’ve been gathering an advanced developer or two to do tricky parts going into a plan to avoid a freak-out.
Enter: team skills. Oh. My. Wow!
What happens when you have a good plan, a solid foundation, and then bring in another expert or two to do all of the coding? You become a project manager and strategist. I have no issue in giving mad props to someone who comes up beside me and does what they do better than I can. That’s THEIR specialty. I have become a developer by necessity the same way you become a landlord when you own two houses because your job got transferred.
Once I started to tap dedicated coders, I had to figure out what I was going to do with my days. I wasn’t coding. It took about an hour to realize some changes to make to future-proof things and some new areas to start throwing spaghetti at to see what stuck.
Now I’m busier than ever again.
Remember: Know Thyself
Look at my WordCamp Slide 001 – if you don’t know yourself, you don’t really know anything. I know that I stand for integrity and quality. My grandpa lived by that for over 80 years and I aim to keep that legacy going.
I don’t have to code to provide that. I now have a close network of people who do that 5x better than I ever will, so I am shifting my focus to the skills that my friends don’t have.
I expect that means I’ll be pasting code into Gists for hints about where I went wrong a LOT less now.
And that’s a good thing. For everyone.
So ask yourself today: am I working IN my business or ON my business?
Good one! Integrity and quality are words to live by. Congrats on letting other people wear some of those hats!
I’ve got lots of hats to pass around. 🙂
“I’m not the best developer. I’m not even close to being the best developer. What I do do with extreme passion and ability is to pick a client who wants to work with a professional-grade business to get what they need, especially when what they want isn’t what they need.”
You said it buddy. You said it.