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Diversify, that’s what my old financial adviser told me. And I used to believe it and go with the herd mentality until I met a different kind of adviser who showed me the truth about diversifying your assets and got me into some much better investments.

But this post is not about finance and investing. This post is about internet marketing.

For years I did the same thing on the internet. I made money in about a dozen different ways, some ways made more than others. But it was a major pain in the ass trying to keep track of everything. I was truly the “Jack of all trades master of none” and it was really taking it’s toll on me.

Now over the last several months you’ve heard Rich Schefren talking about how you need to focus on one thing and do it well instead of trying to do several things and doing none of them particularly well. I’ve even heard the legendary John Reese start talking about this lately, even though he is the king of doing a million different things. In fact, not so long ago John was promoting what he called “Virtual Real Estate Empire” or VRE. Which was in essence having a ton of sites making you money. So his change in thinking is significant. (Or maybe it’s ironic?)

The point is, just like my financial adviser told me, diversification is not all it’s cracked up to be. It can leave you spread too thinly, with too much work, not enough time, and bottom line…with less money in your pocket.

In my business I’ve cut out many things since adopting this new mindset. I’ve let several web sites lapse, I’ve stopped using some software, I’ve unsubscribed to many, many, email lists. In short, I’ve taken stock of the businesses I have, which are profitable, which are not profitable, plans for new sites, and almost every different part of my business.

I’ve pared down all the different things that I used to do (some not so well) into fewer things that I can do well.
I’m not completely focused on ONLY one thing like Rich talks about, but I’m getting closer. I’m not even sure that I will ever get down to doing ONLY one thing, but heading in that direction definitely helps.

This new mindset has even given me more motivation to outsource more work. I’ve been able to completely outsource some businesses so that I don’t have to do any of the work anymore but I still get the profits. Yes the profits may be less than they were when I did it all myself, but this gives me more TIME which is more valuable than money.

So how are you doing in your business? Are you trying to do 126 different things a day and doing none of them particularly well? Then maybe you should also look into de-diversifying (I don’t even know it that’s a word) and getting more focus so that you can do one thing well instead of doing many things not so well.

Diversity might be good for some things, but in business it’s generally not all it’s cracked up to be. What do you think?

Good luck with it!

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