Mid-lining: Why Shooting for “OK” Gives You Incredible Results
Pop Quiz: How “good at stuff” do you have to be to double any metric in your business (sales, traffic, etc) that you currently suck at?
- A) A Whole Lot Better
- B) Only A Little Bit Better
If you answered “A,” you failed. Print this article, keep it on your desk and read it every day for 10 days.
If you answered “B,” huzzah. You get 10 cool points, but you still need to print this article, keep it on your desk and read it every day for 10 days.
What They Told Me Every Day Was Dead Wrong
You know the old expression “Jack of all trades, master of none?” It’s stupid, and it’s bad advice. I used to hear it all the time growing up, when I’d dabble in learning something new or figuring out just a little bit about a whole mess of topics. People would pull up that phrase, as if to say that focusing on one single skill to the exclusion of others was the secret to success.
Now, I’m not knocking the idea that focused study will make you a master at something. Can’t be a brain surgeon or rocket scientist without it. But specialized mastery of one subject alone will not boost your chances of growing fast in your business. A healthy dose of generalizing, however, will. (Michael gets this.)
Here’s an example: Jack and Jill are two freelance writers – pretty good ones, too. On a scale of 1 to 10, let’s say their writing skills are about an 8. They are above average, yet both of them are struggling to attract clients because their the traffic to their websites sucks. (On a scale of 1 to 10, their search engine knowledge is at a 1. They know nothing about it.)
Jack kicks himself every day and wishes he understood this “search engine optimization thing” so that he could bring in more business. But all that stuff is BIG and SCARY and he’d have to be REALLY GOOD at it to every make it work. So there he stays at 1.
Jill says, “screw that,” picks up Naomi’s SEO School or Michael’s SEO teleseminar and says “I’m going to spend 5-10 hours or so learning about all this SEO stuff. Jill does, and with 5-10 hours of training she’s now at a 4 on that sliding scale.
Fast forward 6 months and guess what? Jill is eating Jack’s lunch, that’s what. She’s not an expert at SEO by any means, but she now knows enough to stop making stupid mistakes and she knows the bare minimum she needs to in order to make her pages rank better. She’s doubled her traffic by just doing the few things she learned when her skill level went from 0 to 4.
Mid-lining: The Art of Getting To 4 (Or Thereabouts)
There are all kinds of things you can learn to make your business grow: copywriting, SEO, graphic design, negotiation, sales, social media … tons of stuff. Chances are you don’t pursue them because you think you have to get to a 8, 9, or 10 on that sliding scale, and that’s just something you don’t have the time for.
But you don’t have to get to 10 – or even close to it – to get a huge return on investment for your time. Instead, work your way to the midpoint of that line – a 4 or 5 – and let that drive your business forward.
People drastically underestimate the monster advantage that comes with knowing even the basics about something, and they don’t realize that 99% of their competitors are sitting at a 1 on that sliding scale. But mid-lining – just getting to a 4 or 5 – gives you a huge tactical advantage with a minimum of investment.
It Doesn’t Take Long To Get To 4
What does it take to mid-line and get to 4? In a lot of cases, only 5 to 10 hours of study. Seriously. 5 to 10 hours. Sometimes even less, if you have the right mentor / book / course. And getting to that mid-line can double your traffic, or your conversion rates, or your referrals, or whatever – because doubling small numbers is easy.
Think about that. Going from $100 / month in sales to $100,000 / month in sales may require you to go from a 1 to a 10 (tons of work). But going from $100 / month to $200 or $300 / month doesn’t take that much effort at all. And most people tend to be stuck at flat or small growth, so mid-lining would be a huge opportunity for them.
Investing in yourself is one of the best things you can do – and if you’re not doing it, you need to set a budget for it (time and money) immediately. There’s so much power in that 1-to-4 range that could change your business radically if you just took the 5-10 hours to get yourself there.
Decide Right Now To Mid-Line Your Business
What is it about your business that you suck at? SEO? Traffic? Sales? Something else? Where are you feeling the pain because you’re at a 1and think you need to be at 8, 9 or 10? Take ten seconds an think of it now, and then commit to yourself to learning the very basics of that topic – just 5 hours worth – and see where it gets you.
You need mid-lining if you want to grow faster without pouring money into high-priced consultants. (Note: There’s nothing wrong with high-priced consultants. Use them to do the 5-to-10 skill level stuff. Just don’t pay top dollar for 1-through-4 stuff you can do yourself).
Where will you apply mid-lining in the next 30 days? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear it. 
Just call me Jack… (though in your example, Jill kicked Jack’s @$$ – but if I said call me Jill, it just wouldn’t work)
I figure I’m a 10 at one or two things, 6 or so at lots of stuff, and working to be a 4 at a whole lot more.
Brett Legree’s last blog post..the thing that should not be.
Excellent post, Dave. Too few of us take the time on self-investing and instead look for quick fixes for our problems like social media (Reddit’d, Stumbled, and Tagged, btw!)
Another monster benefit about dabbling and getting to 4 and 5 is that the creative process is such that it thrives on learning new things and combining the different pursuits. Focusing on getting to the 8-10 level on a few skills is far worse for your creativity than focusing on maintaining an 8 in one area and have a 4-5 skill level in 10 different things.
Given how many of us make our money off of leveraging our creativity, it’s important not to overlook the indirect benefits of being a dabbler.
Charlie’s last blog post..Why You Get Dumped On and What To Do About It
I had never heard this called “mid-lining” before. Interesting term! Brian Clark has said a couple times that if you read 3 – 5 books on a subject, you’re so far above most people’s knowledge of a subject that you’re expert enough.
The way I see it, if you learn enough of a variety of skills, you get to define your own brand of expertise, which becomes part of your unique value proposition.
@Brett –
It’s no coincidence that all of those 4’s and 6’s create most of your opportunities.
@Charlie –
Thanks for the social media love – and you’re dead on. Dabbling has so many indirect benefits it’s not even funny.
@Michael –
Ah, I made it up. Gotta have a term to call my own.
@Michael,
Brian’s point is a good one, isn’t it. I’m not a “blog guru” by any stretch, but slowly I’ve been tinkering with stuff in the background (my own blog theme on a local WAMP & WP server), and it is amazing how fast you can learn.
(which means soon I’ll make some of the little changes that Dave’s kicked me about via email…)
Brett Legree’s last blog post..the thing that should not be.
Great post, I have found this to be absolutely true. I get questions all the time from others who want to start a business – “How did you do it? How do you know about marketing, sales, taxes? I don’t know any of that stuff?”
I tell them that I read books! When I don’t know about something, I just look up which book on that topic is best rated on amazon then check it out of the library. It is SO easy to learn about anything you want to learn about. And I completely agree that reading just 3-5 books can make you expert level (in knowledge anyway, application may be a different story).
Dave,
Just found your blog and this hits HOME with me. I spend WAY too much time trying to achieve “10″ status in everything I do!
Great post! I’m now a subscriber!
Kathy @ Virtual Impax’s last blog post..Best Kept Internet Marketing Strategies Secrets
This is exactly the reason why I hang out at so many writing and marketing blogs. I’ve learned so much in the past year online and off by surrounding myself with all that information.
It’s learning all that stuff that is driving me to go in a different direction than most of my colleagues. I’m not in the ‘animation bubble’ that so many of them are. I’m looking waaaaaay outside of that.
And hopefully it’s going to pay off. Good advice.
But I also believe being *really* good in one area is what will make you truly unique.
Karen JL’s last blog post..Where ‘Igor’ Went Wrong
@Laura –
It doesn’t take much to get “enough” – I hit the library quite regularly myself (right now for boring Linux stuff – got to take that 2 to a 4 real quick).
@Kathy –
Thanks for commenting and subscribing too!
@Karen –
Just to clarify, I’m not knocking the idea of being a 10 in what matters most to you – that’s where you stand out and get that ‘unique’ stuff that makes you, you. The point I’m making (which I think you got) was that it doesn’t take much to get “ok” at enough other things that moving out of that ‘bubble’ (as you put it) becomes MUCH easier.
Thanks for hanging with us at Rock Your Day.
@ Dave – Oh, I never thought you were knocking that. Totally get it.
Karen JL’s last blog post..Where ‘Igor’ Went Wrong
Oh my god, this is so brilliant I have to go lie down.
I am putting some midline mastery tasks on my list RIGHT NOW.
Sonia Simone’s last blog post..Email Marketing: What’s an Autoresponder, and Do I Need One?
This seems like a great idea, and it’s something I’ve been trying to do — part of the problem for me is figuring out how to go from a 0 in Marketing to an anything, with a relatively small budget. I can find a ton of advice, but it all seems to be advice for people who aren’t me — people with an information product, coaches, bloggers, or writers.
So, I’d say that your 5-10 hours estimate is only true if one manages to stumble on the exact right source of information for their need in the first hour of that. Otherwise you can spend months fumbling around looking for someone who can answer your questions instead of the questions of that guy over there, who isn’t quite asking what you need to know.
Damn, Dave, this is HOT.
Love this post, and a big reason I do is because I’m sort of a do-it-yourself snob. I went to official school for all sorts of random things, and learned them “the right way”. It didn’t really hit me until years later that any second of free-time I had while in school, I’d use the time to go and learn stuff that was “hobbyish” and not school-worthy.
Of course, anything you do in your free-time is probably something you love, right? Duh. So all those hours I put in learning a little bit here and there on the side paid off and that’s what I do for a living now. The one thing I DON’T study up on anymore or make any money with is what I went to school with. Go figure, eh?
Charfish Charlie’s last blog post..Current State of Charfish Affairs
@Sonia –
Glad you liked. Get to it and punchpunchpunchpunchpunch.
@Amy –
My suggestion? Find a few top marketers whose style you like and get any free eCourse they have. Sonia Simone at Remarkable Communication is a good example. And save yourself some time by asking questions on Twitter, people can be very helpful there.
@Charfish -
Funny how school works out (or doesn’t, sometimes!)
Super glad you liked.
@Amy Crook – try asking the people who’s advice seems to be a little off. Sometimes they’re focussing on one area because that’s what they were asked about but they’d actually really prefer to talk to you about your problem because it’s so much more interesting to them.
This comes from a real life situation – I’m not just making this up.
Email someone and see what happens – good luck!
@Karen/Dave – whilst being a 10 gives you the expertise level that people will feel so much more confident with, I think being unique can actually come from the unique combination of 6’s that you have. At least that’s what I’m banking on, I guess – how many Dancing Geek’s do you know?!
Hey, that was pretty good – like the others, I had never heard of “mid-lining” things. Very interesting.
It’s true that if you just expend just a little extra time in learning something new, you could improve the bottom line appreciably. You’re right that many of us (myself included) assume that we have to be “experts” to take our business or whatever it is we’re doing to the next highest level when nothing could be further from the truth.
Granted, it does take a little extra time but like you said, most of us don’t expend that extra time and energy to learn something new because our minds think we have to be incredible experts so we do nothing.
The example you gave was a very common one. Everyone has experienced what they did (or didn’t do) at one time or another. Even me.
An example would be when I was blogging at Blogger.com. I stayed there for a year and a half until I began feeling the itch to move up to Wordpress. For the longest time, I was aghast at the prospect of making such major changes and learning a few things along the way. So what did I do?
I stayed at Blogger.com for a little while longer – until the day I made a firm decision to do it. That’s when it all changed. I’m grateful I finally forced myself to learn a bit more about WP themes, platform choices, FTP choices, etc. Looking back I see that it was all worth it.
Thanks for an inspiring post! You certainly rock my friend.
Stephen Hopson’s last blog post..How I Will NOT Lose 20 lbs. in 30 Days: Follow Up Week #4
This is a good reminder for folks like me who tend to struggle with perfectionism at times
Another benefit of getting to know the basics of something is that you’ll get more out of it when you do hire an “expert”. You’ll be able to talk to them with more ease, learn more in the process, and have a better spidey sense of whether they actually know their stuff, than if you knew absolutely nothing about it.
Tzaddi’s last blog post..Kenaxis Software for Composers
@Amy, I’ve got one more recommendation for you (and thank you, Dave!), go to http://ittybiz.com and find the link for Marketing School, and copy all those posts into a Word doc. (She’ll be taking them down some time soon, so don’t delay.) There’s a whole bunch of great free advice there. I can also recommend Dan Kennedy’s book The Ultimate Marketing Plan. (But don’t buy his other more expensive stuff yet, you’re a ways from being able to profit from it. 90% of the value is in the $14 book.)
Sonia Simone’s last blog post..The Top 10 Writing Blogs for 2008/2009
“It doesn’t take long to get to a 4.” Yes! That’s what I’m talking about. We get tied down by what we think is a big deal when in reality we just spend 5 – 10 hours on SEO and bam we have double the traffic.
I’ll admit that I’ve been guilty of this, but I’m working on changing these habits, by taking baby steps. I’ve slowly incorporated social media in to my life and now I get a good deal of my traffic from it for my blog.
I’m taking Dave’s advice and going to learn a little more about SEO to help my site out. Thanks Dave!
Karl Staib – Work Happy Now’s last blog post..Pig-Headed Determination and Discipline
Good post, a thought though . . .
Going from a “2″ to a “3″ may just take a small amount of work, as going from a “3″ to a “4″ may also.
Yet as you progress up the scale, and get closer in altitude to an “8″ or a “9″ the effort required to make the same step as “3″ to “4″ is much greater.
Using an example of climbing Everest (which I have not personal done, but have read a lot about), the effort to go from 15,000 feet to 20,000 feet ( a 5000 feet rise in elevation) pales in comparison to the effort required to go from 28,000 feet to 28,5000 (a 500 foot rise in elevation).
Seems like the closer you get to the top, the more effort it takes for the last remaining steps.
Mike Davenport’s last blog post..Buying A Shell in Tough Economic Times
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