Some people say to focus on your strengths and forget your weaknesses.

Others give the opposite advice: If you don’t focus on your weaknesses they will soon overshadow your strengths.

I realize there may be some subtle differences if you are in corporate America, but for entrepreneurs who want to grow amazingly successful businesses, I say 100% focus on your strengths and build a support team to “care” for what you’re not good at.

Let me give you a couple examples to support my recommendation.

One of my core strengths is marketing, creating great brands, and messaging that gets small business owners noticed.

Another strength is my ability to see past the fog of your current situation and spot both opportunities to grow your income, and the fastest way to get there.

I’m not sure why that is… perhaps just the way I am wired.

These skills have made me successful as an entrepreneur, coach, and as an author of several books.

Now, for sure, one my weaknesses is my ability to occasionally mangle the English language, in speech and in written word.

My mind goes too fast for my “two finger” typing method to keep up, and what usually shows up on the page is full of spelling and grammar errors.

If I wanted to focus on my weakness, I could go back to school and study English, composition, and perhaps even take a class in Psychology and learn to slow down my thoughts and speak slower and more deliberately.

Heck, I could even take a typing class and learn to use more than two fingers!

But why would I do that, and how much time would that take away from running my business, working with my Dream Business Coaching Members, and my writing?

Instead, I learned to hire people with strengths that support my weaknesses.

When I wrote my first book in 2009, I thought it was a literary masterpiece.

Not really, but I was quite proud of the manuscript and the information I shared.

I decided to hire an editor just to proofread it for spelling and grammar.

She came back to me and said,

“Jim, I could do that, but if you want to be taken seriously as an author, and have your book actually work for you – meaning – have your book bring you more clients – then the information needs to be completely restructured.”

My editor then said something I will never forget.

“Jim, your thoughts, ideas, and the strategies you describe in the book are really good, they are simply all out of order!”

From that moment on, I dismissed the idea (which I never really contemplated) about going back to school, learning how to type – and more importantly, how to write a book that gets read and gets you clients.

Instead, with all my subsequent books, I wrote as fast as my two fingers would go, sharing what I believed to be great business-building content (my strength) and I then turned my manuscript over to my super-talented editor.

Whenever I speak to a group, I always tell my audience about Ann, my super-talented editor of more than 12 years.

I tell the audience,

“With all of my books, Ann takes my concepts, strategies, and business-building ideas, and she makes me sound like I passed 6th grade English!”

This usually gets a chuckle, but it is 100% true.

I’ll give you one more example, just in case you’re still holding on to the thought of working on your weaknesses.

I consider myself a pretty handy person and I am tenacious at figuring stuff out.

As an early homeowner with four kids, we didn’t have a lot of money, so it was imperative that I use my handyman skills as much as possible and learn to repair whatever broke around the house.

This skill also served me well when we lived on Floating Home for 5 years as mechanics usually charge about $125/hour!

Now, as good as I am at figuring stuff out, I do not know how to broadcast an email to my list!

I am good at writing engaging emails and other sales copy, but I do not know how to update a page on my website, nor can I send out a broadcast email.

(WHAT?!! It’s true.)

I could fix this by taking a course and learning more about how websites are built and how to send emails to a list, but instead, I choose to focus the time I have using my strengths, and write great copy for myself and for some of my VIP clients.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful team of virtual assistants that update my websites and send my emails for me.

So, what are you spending hours, weeks or longer trying to get better at?

What weakness are you trying to fix, at the expense of actually moving your business forward by focusing on your strengths?

Is the time and money you’re investing likely to produce the same ROI if you were instead focused more on what your gifts and talents truly are?

To me, it’s NOT about raising my arms in victory and declaring that finally, I am now a skilled website creator.

And it’s NOT about me one day saying, finally, I know how to both write and structure a great business book that will help a lot of entrepreneurs.

Instead, for me, it’s more about how do I maximize the time I have helping the most amount of people with my gifts, talents, and strengths.

And bonus; how do I also provide an income for some really nice folks who use THEIR gifts, talents, and strengths supporting me and my business!

Focus on your strengths.