Everyone tells you to focus. Be a master of one thing, not a jack-of-all-trades. I’m in that choir, singing that same hymn. You know we’re right and you want to focus. But on what?
Which practice area? Which target market? Which strategy?
Which project should you work on? Which task should you get done today?
Nobody has the answer for you. You have to decide for yourself. But how?
Should you use logic? Trust your gut?
Should you do what nobody else is doing?
Should you do what others do but do it better?
There’s really only one definitive way to figure out where you should focus and that is to try lots of things.
Look at 100 ideas. Get rid of 90 that don’t make sense or that don’t inspire you. Out of the ten that are left, run with the top three. That’s what Steve Jobs did and those three ideas became the company’s focus over the next year.
Experiment constantly. Test lots of variables. Don’t try one or two headlines or email subjects, try fifty. Don’t try five keywords, try 105.
Talk to more people, write more articles, give more talks.
When you find something that works well and feels right to you, make that your focus. At least for now. What works this year may not work next year. Something new may work even better.
Keep learning, keep trying new ideas and different ways of implementing them. And always, keep your eyes on the market. It will tell you what it wants and how much it will pay.
The formula for building a successful practiceÂ
