WARNING: I'm writing this with a nasty toothache that needs a root canal so I may wander and ramble a bit.
I'm off to see my dentist in a few minutes and he will diagnose my nasty toothache.
The first time I needed a root canal, he did it himself.
The second time I needed a root canal, he sent me to a specialist.
The endodontist does nothing but root canals, all day every day.
I prefer going to someone who does nothing but root canals.
When my mother broke her hip, the surgeon told me he does 10-12 hip surgeries every day.
He said his surgeries average 23 minutes.
I told him to take his time with my mother's hip.
I'm glad a hip specialist helped my mother instead of a general surgeon.
We live in a world of specialists.
My wife Ellen was an OB/GYN Nurse Practitioner for over 30 years.
She had a very specialized area of expertise (imagine seeing 15-20 women a day for 30 years).
Ellen is an expert in women's health.
In yesterday's email, I talked about being a jack of all trades master of none.
Marketing is hard.
It takes years to master a skill like copywriting, email marketing, or Google ads.
Sure, you can learn the basics of a marketing skill, but you won't get the same results an expert would get.
When I learned Google Adwords from Perry Marshall, Google Adwords is all he did.
For a while, I focused on Google Adwords and got pretty good at them.
Over time, my expertise evolved in social media and LinkedIn.
I've been doing social media and LinkedIn marketing for over 10 years, and I consider myself pretty good.
John Carlton has been a copywriter for over 30 years.
He doesn't do Google Adwords or Facebook ads.
He writes copy for his clients (he's also a great copywriting teacher).
He's one of the best copywriters ever.
I learned copywriting from one of the best.
You can post videos on YouTube and get some views.
If you want to generate business from your videos, you need to immerse yourself in learning the ins and outs of YouTube.
My friend Brian G. Johnson used to make a great living doing affiliate marketing.
A few years ago, he decided he wanted to learn YouTube.
Brian's the kind of guy who goes all in when he wants to learn something.
For the past five years, he has done nothing but learn the ins and outs of YouTube.
Today, he's one of the top YouTube experts I know.
He even got the attention of YouTube, and they complimented him on his videos and his YouTube channels.
If you are a coach, consultant, or entrepreneur, you are good at what you do (I hope you are good if you're asking people to pay you for year expertise. That's a whole separate conversation).
You have a unique skill or expertise that's probably not related to marketing.
You need to focus on your expertise and leave the marketing to the experts.
When I pivoted from the IT world to coaching, I quickly realized I needed to market my coaching practice if I wanted to succeed.
I invested in a ton of marketing books, courses, and conferences.
I was excited to learn new skills, but I was completely overwhelmed.
Learning how to become a great coach is a lot of work.
Learning how to become a great marketer is even harder.
Looking back, learning how to market my coaching practice at the same time I was learning to become a coach was not the best use of my time.
I was trying to replace my six-figure salary as quickly as I could, but I was spending too much time learning and not enough time implementing what I learned.
While I was learning marketing, I wish I would've focused on mastering one skill at a time.
If I would've focused on mastering one marketing skill, I believe I could have replaced my salary in a few months.
Turns out, it took a few years to replace and exceed my IT salary.
Trying to learn everything about marketing in one year cost me a lot of time and money.
Are you trying to learn how to market your business while trying to be an expert in your area of expertise?
How's that going?
If you had to focus on just one thing to become more successful, what would it be?
