Take Your Saturdays Back
When my wife and I first bought our house, I was determined to mow my lawn. I thought, hey, this is our property, and we are responsible for the regular upkeep and maintenance. And for a while, that’s exactly what I did.
I bought a push lawnmower and weed trimmer, and I would change the oil and get the equipment serviced every year. Every Saturday morning, you’d find me pushing my mower and trimming weeds for an hour. But after a few years of this, I began to realize something. Maybe this wasn’t the best use of my time.
To begin with, I guess you can say I was OK at mowing my lawn. But I wasn’t an expert at it, by any means. Since our property sits on a hill, I would invariably slip and fall at least once every mowing season. Embarrassing, to say the least, and more than a little dangerous. Sometimes, if the grass was wetter than I realized, the mower would get stuck on the hill and leave deep trenches or divots in the lawn. Not the most polished look!
Then, after a few seasons, my equipment started to break down. I had to bring my lawn mower in for repairs and maintenance a bit more often, whether to fix a broken starter cable or change out the spark plug. The expenses began piling up.
Perhaps most importantly, I began to realize that instead of spending an hour doing yard work each Saturday morning, I could have used that same time to finish a work project on deadline. Better yet, I could have spent that hour with my kids at the park or in the pool.
Long story short, I eventually decided to outsource this task to a local lawn care service. For a reasonable set price, they come by every week to mow and trim my lawn. These professionals are fast, efficient, and adept at what they do. They even have one of those cool, top-of-the-line 360-degree turn rider mowers to do the job right. My lawn is now properly maintained, and my stress levels have decreased since taking this one chore off my plate.
When it comes to marketing your business through high-quality content like client success stories and blogs, are you trying to do it all yourself? Considering your business’ stage of maturity and your own levels of comfort and expertise, that may be the right choice—for now. But at some point, you may want to think about whether marketing falls within your “zone of genius.”
Coined by Gay Hendricks, the term “zone of genius” refers to those tasks that you are both exceptional at doing, and you love to do. As a business leader, the best way to maximize your time and the value you bring to your organization is to only perform those activities that fall squarely within your zone of genius. You should outsource—or forgo—everything else.
It took me a few years, but I finally realized that lawn care is most certainly not within my zone of genius. And now, I have my Saturdays back.