I’ve been thinking lately about the PR implications for you of trying many different markets and methods as opposed to narrowing down all your efforts into one core niche in which you are an expert.

There are good arguments for each approach. Setup costs for Internet businesses are relatively low and so there is something to be said for failing quickly and moving on until you find something that works for you. With each failure, you learn something more that you can bring to the next project. Also, you know that most businesses fail and by coming to terms with this fact of life and not investing too many resources in the early stages, you are keeping your options open and allowing yourself more flexibility.

However, there are PR implications when you are perceived by the public as an opportunist without the resolve to follow an idea through to its conclusion. Your clients like to see you developing an idea until it works well and provides them with a useful service or product. Moreover, it can take a surprising amount of time to refine your thoughts until you have a working system that potential customers will regard as valuable to them.

Many entrepreneurs move on to something else before they have allowed their project to grow and flourish. A sapling will not turn into a tree unless it is given the time and space to reach maturity. It needs to be fed and watered and allowed to put down roots. And in PR terms, you build trust slowly, one partner, employee and customer at a time. If you chop down the tree too quickly, before you have allowed relationships to form and roots to grow, you will not have given your seed business a chance.

Then there is the question of passion. Yes. You may be good at multi-tasking. You may be able to turn your hand to anything. But you probably have a passion too. You have an area of skill and enthusiasm in one walk of life that few others can match. If so, you should probably be working away at your passion until it becomes a good business and not move on to something else that you care little about. In this one area, your work will be joyful to you. You don’t mind working 18 hours a day in that area because this is what you like to do anyway. And, in PR terms, your associates and clients will know almost immediately and by instinct that you love what you do. Would you like to give your business to a plumber for whom work is a chore or to a plumber who lives and breathes his work? If you are plumber and you cannot wait to finish work in order to play basketball, then you should be coaching basketball, not fixing pipes!

So perhaps there is a happy compromise for you in all this. You should always follow your passion. But within this area of passion and expertise, be prepared to test everything and fail quickly. Try different approaches and different ways of working. If your customers require one thing of you at the moment, then be prepared to engage with them at that point. Once you have met their present needs, then you can help them to see what they really need of you and show them where you can excel for them. Regard each failure as a stepping stone to your eventual success but never lose sight of the big picture and the niche that you wish to inhabit and make your own.

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