I just finished reading John Jantch’s Duct Tape Marketing post entitled Go Ahead, Dream Small, where he makes the following statement:

But when it comes to marketing your small business I
would trade big dreams and pages of killer ideas for one little
strategy brilliantly and consistently executed. Small business owners
get so caught up in the “web 3.0 idea of the day” that they never get
around to doing the sometime overlooked blue collar work that actually
makes a difference – you know, networking with peers, writing an
article, calling up strategic partners, making one more sales call,
taking a journalist out for coffee. It’s the sum total of these
seemingly small actions that create the big dream and not really the
other way around. The key is to understand the work that makes a
difference, remained focused and plug away. Chasing the new new thing
will drive you crazy and never allow you feel what momentum does for a
small business.

That made me think of when my son was about 12 years old and playing
Pop Warner football.  I wanted to spend time with him, so I signed on
as assistant coach.  The head coach was a true student of football.  He
knew every play and every formation from every team in the NFL.  He
drew up a playbook even I couldn’t understand, then proceeded to try
and get the kids to execute it.  Of course they couldn’t.  So that
prompted him to bring on even more exotic and difficult “pro-sets” and
all the meanwhile we were getting killed.

One day I took the coach to lunch and asked if maybe we weren’t
asking too much of kids this age.  When he asked what I was driving at,
I told him, “We need four or five plays — simple plays — we execute
flawlessly.  Absolutely flawlessly.  We need one additional play — kind
of like a trick play — we use sparingly, in critical situations.  If we
can do that, we’ll win games.”  That philosophy turned out to be just
what our team needed.

I think that’s what John Jantch is trying to say.  Let’s do what we
do, and do it better than anyone else, and not get distracted by a
million other things we could do.  There’s no substitute for being the
best.  You never need excuses when you’re the best.  You never need to
apologize when you’re the best.  You just go about reaping the
rewards.  Don’t try to be all things to all people.  Just do what you
do better than anyone else.  There really is no substitute for a job
well done.