Be a Jack of All Trades and You Will Fail?

Jack of all trades, master of none,though ofttimes better than master of one.

"Jack of all trades, master of none" is a figure of speech used in reference to a Generalist, a person, that is competent with many skills but is not outstanding in any particular one. Generalist tries to do and learn everything, but falls short of doing any of those really well. A specialist picks one or two things and learns those things inside out and tries to execute those things to the perfection.

Can a jack of all trades Internet marketer succeed? Is a generalist blog destined to fail?

Generalist Does a Lot, But Achieves Very Little

If you are a generalist, you will be in a substantial disadvantage versus the specialists of the areas you try to grasp. You will be the decathlon athletic running a 1500 metres versus the other who have specialized in running. You will finish the run, but you cannot win. So is it better to be the specialist?

Not necessarily. Being a generalist has advantages of getting results from many fields, and as those results add up, you might overcome the results of being a specialist. On the other hand, being a specialist, you can focus all your efforts on the thing and crush the competition, become the expert and teach others (other aspiring specialists and the generalists) about your field of expertise.

Can Jack of All Trades Survive?

Can a generalist succeed? Sure, to some degree, but as I see it, to truly succeed, you must specialize. Otherwise you run into danger of trying all things and burning yourself out if you don't get anything to work. For example, at Internet marketing, the jack of all trades approach is great for beginners, but staying on that path too long, and you end up with nothing and just give up. If you go after each and every "new opportunity that will change your life", it's quite possible that you see no result, because there are too many specialists reaping the rewards of the method or technique.

Business world, Internet marketing and blogging are not that much different from this perspective. Too generic approach won't work in the long run, unless you somehow manage to grow it huge - but that will be difficult, if not impossible to achieve. The biggest companies in the world have become more and more focused during the years and they are putting all their effort on these "core businesses" of their. And I think that's what bloggers and Internet marketers must do too.

A blog has to have a specific enough topic to make it interesting - try to please everybody and you will get nobody. And with too much to cover you'll not only burn out if you try to do it yourself, and even with help, it's very likely that you'll have hard time attracting an audience.

Is There Room for the Generalists?

This is a hard one. I'm one of those who like to learn a lot about various topics, so kind of extreme generalist. Or to be more clear, I like to learn a lot of things before I choose what I should specialize in. But the problem is, there's always new things to learn which "might be better than these old ones". So even generalist has to make choices, it's just impossible to learn and do everything, even the new amazing idea and method to do this and that.

Of course, it's a bit different to be enthusiastic about learning and be the jack of all trades student of life, than it is to be a generalist business owner. Lifetime learning and is something where generalist is at home, learning new skills and languages, knowing bits and pieces about a lot of things. But when it becomes to business, blogging and Internet marketing - you need to focus your efforts.

Specialized Jack of All Trades, Is It Possible?

Maybe there's a middle road on this, a specialist who really knows her stuff about one or two things, but also a whole lot of other things, but still focuses her efforts on the things she's the best at. This way, our specialized generalist knows what's going around her, but still can get results with the specialized skills. Or even better, get others to help her with the things she knows about, but doesn't want or need to focus on. Perhaps outsource and get specialists to help with things, so one can focus on what really matters? Run a business instead of being the business and all that?

Not the most easy topic to get into one single "correct answer", perhaps because there is none..

Are you a specialist? Or more jack of all trades kind of person?

How does that show in your blogging/business/Internet marketing/something else you do?

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