A few years back, I took a trip to Las Vegas. I don’t gamble, so I went for the shows and the food. One thing that stuck with me was the number of restaurants with tiny menus. Not “we have a few options.” I mean truly tiny.
One of the best meals I had came from a little fish and chips place that offered exactly two items:
Fish & Chips, or Chicken & Chips.
That’s it.
They weren’t trying to impress anyone with variety. They were trying to impress you with execution. And it worked.
Now compare that to the other side of the spectrum. You’ve seen it before: a restaurant with a menu the size of a short novel. Three hundred items, twelve cuisines, and the quiet promise that at least half of it came out of a freezer.
It’s overwhelming, and it’s a red flag. Because if you do everything, something is going to suffer. Usually everything.
Small Business Has the Same Problem
This is especially true for solopreneurs and small teams. When you’re starting out, it’s easy to look at the market and think:
“I should offer that too.”
More services equals more revenue, right?
That’s what I thought when I started Tallack Media Corp.
Web design includes graphics, so obviously I should offer graphic design. Then logos. Then brochures. Then everything else that falls under “design.”
Then there’s social media. If I’m writing content and making graphics, why not do social media too? And if I’m doing social media, I should do Facebook ads. And if I’m doing Facebook ads, I might as well do Google Ads.
You can see where this goes.
Technically, I could do those things. The problem was I didn’t enjoy many of them, and that showed in the work. Worse, it pulled time away from what I actually wanted to be great at. Instead of doing the work I loved, I was spending most of my energy on the work I tolerated.
That’s how good businesses become average businesses.
The Ron Swanson Rule Applies
In the immortal words of Ron Swanson:
“Don’t half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”
It took time, but I eventually realized I’d wandered too far from what we actually do best. I started scaling back. Standalone graphic design went first. We still use design tools all the time, but only in service of the websites we build. Social media went out the door entirely. We narrowed our focus to web design and copywriting.
Even our approach to SEO changed. Instead of treating it like something you bolt on after a site is built, we started treating it as part of the foundation. That meant better results and better efficiency, but it also meant saying no to certain types of SEO work. If a site needed to be rebuilt properly, we said that. Sometimes doing it right means starting from scratch.
Focus Isn’t Just About Services
This also showed up in the behind-the-scenes side of the business. There are a lot of tasks that are necessary, but not worth doing yourself, especially if you’re not good at them or they drain your energy.
For me, hiring a bookkeeper and an assistant was a turning point. It freed me up to focus on higher-value work, and it saved money in the long run because the right people can do those tasks faster and better than I can.
Letting Go Isn’t Failure
To be clear, I don’t regret dabbling in all those tangential services. It helped us learn what we’re good at, what we enjoy, and what we should never offer again no matter how much someone asks.
That’s a normal part of growth.
But once you figure out what you do best, and what you actually want to be known for, don’t be afraid to let things go.
Your business will run better. Your work will improve. And your mental health will thank you for it.
