Episode 487： The Best Time To Specialize Or To Generalize
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
186.87909
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the best time to specialize vs. generalize in your business, and why it's important to know the difference between the two. Amazon, Nike, Uber, and Uber are examples of companies that specialize, but there are many more.
Transcript
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I'm Patrick Bader, your host of Value Tim, and today we're going to talk about the best
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time to specialize or the best time to generalize.
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We're going to talk about Amazon, Nike, and Uber, but prior to doing that, I'll explain
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why phases matter when it comes down to the topic of generalization or specialization
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Look, for me, when you think about getting involved with my business, I got into financial
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services the day before 9-11 with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
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I got my Series 7 license, which allows me to sell stocks, bonds, mutual funds, money
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I got my 66, 31, which allows you to sell futures and commodities, and then 26, which allows
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me to manage it, and a life and health, which allows me to sell insurance, health insurance,
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So when I first went to Morgan, I was selling a ton of different products.
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Then I went to Trans, I still was selling a lot of different products, many different products.
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So you had to learn how to sell mutual funds, how to fill out paperwork here, and it's at
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When I started my own insurance company, till today, I'm still licensed with all of these
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licenses, till today, but I decided to specifically focus on specialization for the following reason.
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One mistake we made at one point is we brought in merchant accounts, saying, hey, merchant account
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I noticed my agents who were trying to learn how to sell annuities, and were trying to learn
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how to sell insurance, were spending way too much time selling merchant accounts.
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There was complications for $38 a month, for $59 a month, and created so many headaches
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So I eliminated this, I eliminated loans, I eliminated real estate, no auto insurance,
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no modifications, no health insurance, nothing.
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There's few phases you go through as a company.
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You got survival phase, you got formulation phase, you're putting the pieces together,
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you got momentum phase, then at a point you're going to plateau, okay?
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When you're during the survival phase, you can't afford to do a lot of different products.
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You can't afford to sell a lot of different products, because focus is the key, and it's
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When you're going to momentum, and now you grow, and now you've developed leaders, now
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you've developed independent machines that are running by themselves, then you can consider
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You can't say that if you're at this phase, because you confuse people.
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You can say that when you're Amazon at the last phase, not at the beginning phase.
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But can you imagine if they try to go get Washington Post here, Amazon Prime here, how hosting?
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Then they said, why don't we make our own shoes?
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What about if we really put some money into this Michael guy?
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You know, he didn't like his Converse because Converse is being ran with Magic Johnson, Larry
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He really likes Adidas, but their presentation wasn't good and they couldn't afford to pay Michael
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Then Nike went from importing shoes, making running shoes, basketball, soccer, and then
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look at what conglomerate Nike's turned into because they went from specializing to then
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If you go to a Nike store today, you can do basketball, track, running, baseball, cleats.
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Passengers in one small city, then a state, then a region, then a country, then another
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country, then Uber Eats, then Uber Transportation Freight, then Uber.
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If they would have tried to do move number 19 at move number one, they would have gone out
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This is why I wrote the book, Your Next Five Moves, because everything is about sequencing.
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This, because Amazon's sequence of doing business was right, that's why they're a behemoth today.
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Because Jeff Bezos gets credit for knowing what moves came next.
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You don't think he thought about what he was eventually going to do?
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You don't think when he's sitting by himself realizing how many books he's selling, he's
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You think Netflix is done doing what they're doing right now?
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You don't think there's additional things that Netflix is going to be coming out with?
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So for many people out there that read books, oh my gosh, multiple streams of income.
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And for so many gurus out there that are saying, look at what Amazon's doing.
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They are selling everything under the sun in their industry, but they're doing it at
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This is why I wrote the book, Your Next Five Moves.
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Going back to it, if you're a startup, if you're barely doing your business, if you're just
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one year, two years, three years, five years, make a list of all the products you sell and
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One by one by one by one by one eliminating them.
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Then go wide with a ton of market share of what you're doing with those two, three products
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Don't do it all simultaneously or else you will lose momentum and you may never make it
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to this phase because you may go out of business here or here if you try to do everything too
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.