Name the part of the job you won't do

José Caballer has started more things than most people ever finish. When he came on my podcast, he was honest about the part he skips. "If I know that I'm not going to pay attention to the process or to the details, I need to have somebody around me that will do that, or I need to call for it."

That's how a lot of what he started actually got built. He'd show up with the idea, and somebody else would turn it into the thing. When Chris Do took one of José's ideas and put it on YouTube, José stopped seeing that as a failure on his part. That was the arrangement working. "I gotta stop trying to be him," he said.

I know the rule and I still break it

I asked José how to make a living when execution isn't my strength, because it isn't. I can see where a business needs to go. The follow-through is where I slip.

Some of that I've handled. I don't run paid ads myself. I bring in Ryan Blake, who runs ads for a living. But I still do design work myself, and I'm really not skilled in it. Mostly I'm mimicking what I see in the world and what I think fits the strategy. Do I need somebody to hand me a content plan? Probably. Would I follow it? Probably not.

The owner's version

Most of the owners who call me have the same problem with their marketing. They're great at what they do. Then they're expected to be good at social, the website, email, ads and print on top of it. So they fake the parts they're bad at, a little of each, and none of it works.

José's answer works for them too. Say out loud which part you're not going to do well. Then put somebody next to you who will, or ask for help before it costs you. Faking it is the expensive option. It just doesn't send an invoice.

That's a lot of what I do for owners. I take the marketing off their plate, and I bring in specialists when a project needs them, because I'd rather say which part isn't mine than fake it on somebody else's dime.