Do You Know This? By Craig Ballantyne (your one key skill)

Do You Know This?

By Craig Ballantyne

Last week my Ipad crashed and required a trip back to the Apple store. I paid one of my assistants to take it. If it sounds a little like laziness, it isn’t.

I wasn’t at home watching TV while my assistant went to the Apple store. Instead, I was filming workout videos. It was grueling work, and I completed another three-hour session yesterday while I paid an assistant to run more errands.

Could I have taken my Ipad to the store? Yes.

Could anyone in my organization – or even my industry – created and filmed the workouts? No.

Teaching fitness and breaking down complex fat burning science into easy to understand lessons is one of my unique skills that no one else in my organization, let alone industry, can do as well as I can. Doing this, and then selling these fitness programs to people all over the world are my unique skills. They are what drive my business, bring in the money, and allow me to grow my company and employ several people full-time.

Understanding that you have a unique skill, and that you must ruthlessly protect and plan your time to work almost exclusively on your unique skill, is a mindset that will help set you apart from other business owners, salespeople, and skilled workers who struggle financially or with time management.

You simply cannot do every little task that comes up in a day if you want to move your business or career forward, because every little task that takes away from time spent on your unique skill – your most profitable work – also takes you away from progress.

Dan Sullivan, creator of The Strategic Coach program, developed the philosophy of working on your Unique Ability after decades of coaching business owners and executives. As a member of his coaching program for the last year, I learned to identify my unique skill and plan and protect my daily work schedule to give myself more time each workday to dedicate to what I do best.

As a business owner or top employee, it really is your responsibility to spend more of your time on your unique skill. It is what drives your business and allows you to bring in revenue for your investors and employees. If you’re an employee, this is what you were hired for. That’s why you should have no shame in delegating any task that cuts into your time spent on your most valuable skill.

Identifying your unique skill should come easy. Again, it’s simply the most valuable task that you do that you do better than anyone else. For my main fitness business, my unique skill is the creation and selling of advanced fitness routines that are efficient and effective. I am an industry leader in this area. For my Internet Independence and Early to Rise businesses, my unique skill is creating a large volume of short to medium length essays inspiring entrepreneurs to take action. I spend almost all of my working day on these few tasks, and delegate all else to my assistants.

If you aren’t quite sure of or able to identify your unique skill, Sullivan recommends asking people around you for their thoughts on what you contribute best to your business. When I first learned of the concept, I surveyed members of a Mastermind group that I belonged to, including our leader, Yanik Silver. It was their input that allowed me to define my best abilities and begin to re-arrange my workday to maximize my time spent on this unique skill, therefore making bigger breakthroughs in my business.

Identifying a unique skill doesn’t just stop with you. Eventually, if you are building a team or a business, your ultimate goal is to have everyone working on their unique skill.

For example, in my Turbulence Training fitness business, each member of our team works in a role suited to their unique skill. This includes our customer service team that is staffed by Lesa who has the unique skill to calm down and communicate kindly with even the most frustrated customers. The end result is that not only do we get testimonials on how well our products work, but also on how well – and fast – our customer service team fixed their problem.

Your next step is to set aside an hour this week to identify your unique skill and begin to plan your workday around maximizing the time you spend working on projects that utilize your unique skills and expertise. Buy the book, “Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want," written by members of Dan’s organization and use the instructions in it to ask others in your organization and network to help you identify your unique skill.