Focus on What You Do Best

You have probably heard the idea that it is more efficient to focus on the work you do best and delegate other tasks to someone else.  That rule of thumb was never more true than last year when we were working on our new website.  Now friends who know me well will probably reply, “Is there anything you are even remotely qualified to do?”, but that’s a topic for another newsletter.

Starting the process, we reviewed colleagues’ websites to see what we liked and disliked, did some research on best practices, and interviewed several companies to determine who could best help implement our design.  All these activities took me far too long because I had never really tried to create a website from scratch.  Our original website from 2012 was more ‘borrowing’ ideas from other advisors rather than trying to create our own identity and message.  So, once we had completed these initial steps, I thought the hard part was done.  Yeah, right.

Many of the steps along the way that I thought would be easy were anything but.  For example, how hard can it be to select pictures for the website?  Once we had selected a general theme, we found some pictures and voila, I thought I could check that task off the ‘to do’ list.  Not quite.  Only about one quarter of the actual picture is actually shown on the banner at the top of the page; so what looks like a great picture didn’t always work out.  So, I would “go away” and a few days later Nora would have a solution.  Brilliant management on my part.  (As a quick aside, if Nora is reading this she is probably breaking out in a cold sweat.) 

And don’t even get me started with icons and symbols.  Nora and I (Tom and Karen were too smart and mysteriously absent for some of this fun) were trying to come up with symbols to help convey our message.  Neither of us could come up with ideas we truly liked.  Lynn Wood, a good friend with an extensive background in advertising and graphic design, and who clearly has a gift for this type of work, graciously offered her services.  Whenever we hit a visual or design roadblock, we would call Lynn and a minute later she would have a solution.  Her suggestions were both obvious and marvelous at the same time; but I’m confident we would have NEVER thought of her ideas.

So our website that you see today is primarily thanks to Nora and Lynn.  I had some ideas for the general message we wanted to convey, but as presentation is critical, we would not have our finished design if it were left to me. 

So what AM I good at?  I’ll get back to you, I’m still working on it.