Focus

One piece of advice has been coming at me from every direction this week. Despite my best efforts, I can't ignore it anymore. With our WWDB mentors, we have been listening to and reading a training program from John C. Maxwell based on his book, "Talent is Never Enough"



This week's lesson was about focus - something I'm lacking in. I like to do a million things at once. And I frequently move on to new and exciting things before I've finished what I started. So I have half-finished projects all over the place, a half-cleaned house, and the feeling that there is never enough time in a day. Now knowing I have a focus problem and doing something about i may be two very different things. But I'm learning the tools to try.

The last few chapter's in "Duct Tape Marketing"



have been about making sure you know why your in business. Having a narrow market that you're targeting, and getting as specialized as you can. This helps make your marketing efforts more effective, and gives your business more prestige. I can't explain it like the book does - so I guess I just highly recommend reading the book. It helped me come to the decision not to add other types of product lines to my Etsy shop (http://karabu.etsy.com). I wanted to make pet stuff, some zines,and note cards, just to name a few. My zine is what I'm most excited about, and it's almost done. I have two more in the planning stages too. But I think I've done a decent job of creating an image and theme for Karabu's Patchwork Creations and I don't want to muddy it up. So I'm going to open a second shop for my zine, and I'll add other paper products later on. It's called Paper and Words (http://paperandwords.etsy.com). Nothing there yet, but my zine and some cards will show up soon.

I'm also taking an online writing class (did I mention my focus problem?) and the teacher stressed in the last lesson about how much easier it is to be successful if you fine a nitch and specialize versus being a generalist. They recommended that I focus on Pets and Parenting because of my strong knowledge and experience in these areas.

Now, my problem is that I love all the different things I do. I don't want to give anything up to focus on just one thing. As a compromise to start with, I'm trying to work on just one thing at a time and finish it before moving on. May not sound like much - but it's huge for me.