Diners. Gotta love ’em. Open 24/7 and at any time of the day or night you can order a grilled cheese or grilled shrimp, fried fish or french toast.

But really, is EVERYTHING good? Can they really excel at making waffles, stuffed clams AND chicken marsala? And, when was the last time someone ordered the stuffed flounder? How can everything be fresh, everyday, all day.

C’mon, something has to be frozen, right? And how about those huge slices of cake sitting in the display cases. When was the last time you saw someone order one of those 364,758 calorie indulgences?

The same is true with our businesses. Can we possibly be simply fabulous at everything, a veritable “jack of all trades” regardless of the endeavor? Of course not.

But in this era of economic uncertainty it seems to be so. Copywriter, sure, and also art director, coach, web developer, outsourced CFO, you name it, we can do it.

Or can we?  Not.

Yes I know about the model of assembling a team of resources. That’s a very effective strategy and heck, I even do it myself. But attempting to actually execute all by yourself, well, that’s just professional suicide.

And yet, in the quest to hold onto the billings, I’ve seen people do just that.  And, it just doesn’t work.

So:

• Stick to your core competencies. Promote them, leverage them and derive your revenue from deploying them.
• Be transparent about your team. Don’t let your client “guess” that there are others involved in their project. There’s nothing wrong with bringing in experts and if you feel that the client will “dump” you in favor of them, well then, you need to closely examine your relationship with both the client and the other resource/s.
• Don’t be greedy. It’s easy to think you can do another person’s job but the execution is often much more difficult than you ever imagined.

In this era of specialization, it is ever more difficult to be a business diner (aka “jack of all trades”). It’s better to hone your specific skills and be an expert at one thing versus mediocre at all.