Why should you become known for one thing?
I’ll let you in on a loosely-held secret.
I really struggle with my own positioning.
The more I learn about branding, growth, and the attention economy we all find ourselves in, the more I struggle to apply the same advice I give my clients to the “Justin Sarris” brand.
Because the truth is, I’m not just a positioning and messaging consultant.
And I don’t mean that in the sense that “my work doesn’t define me” as a father, husband, and 36-year-old lover of rock n’ roll, Muppets, and hockey.
I mean that even in my work, I am a generalist (gasp!).
That’s right. It’s true. I don’t spend 100% of my time studying April Dunford, facilitating positioning workshops and writing boilerplate brand messaging.
I also:
Manage Google Ads
Update WordPress plugins
Book-keep and financial-plan
Build websites
Brief designers
Write copy
Automate email flows
I’ve developed a generalist toolkit because a) it suits me, and b) that’s what my customers need. The <$5M/year service-based businesses I serve aren’t looking to hire four different consultants, each focused on a different part of their marketing.
They need a ‘whole product solution,’ so that’s what I give them.
But when it comes to building an identity as a business or a person, you can’t scale a generalist.
At least, not at first.
There's a metaphor I picked up from personal brand expert Rory Vaden, which he calls Sheehan’s Wall.
Sheehan’s Wall is an invisible wall that separates the known from the unknown.
To become ‘known’ — to scale an identity — we need to break through this wall.
But the wall is strong. You can’t penetrate it with scattershot. Talking about Google Ads one day, performing a piece of music the next and then breaking down a playoff loss is not going to build any ‘unknown’ person a following.
No, you break through by focusing all of your energy on one (ideally unique) thing — one clear, concise, easily communicable identity.
And you hammer that thing at the wall with all your might.
Then, once you’re through — and you’ve become ‘known’ — you can fan out and add more things to your public or professional identity.
As Vaden writes, “When you have diluted focus, you get diluted results.”
Of course, this brings us back to positioning (in case there’s any doubt, I do legitimately love positioning).
Look around at your environment. Look at the potential ‘markets’ (self-referencing groups of people) you can serve. Is there a problem that isn’t being solved right now? Or one you can solve better than the current state?
Is there a problem or identity that you could own, even if it’s not the only thing you ever want to define you?
And even if the market for your solution is very, very niche?
And if you succeed in claiming that identity for yourself, could it serve as a jumping-off point to the other things you want in life?
If so, you’ve found something special.
The question is: Will you have the discipline to make it your identity?
The Specialist’s Trap (and how to escape it)
Shout out to Kathy for recommending the book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein.
Reading it helped me make sense of this constant tug-of-war in my head: wanting to have my hands in everything while also being known for ‘something.’
For most of my career, I’ve bounced between disciplines — live sound, project management, musician, copywriter, positioning consultant, fractional CMO...
The upside is I’ve been someone who can step into a whole range of different projects, pull ideas from totally different places, and put together a plan that works really well given the context. That’s been a huge advantage.
In Range, Epstein talks about how the most creative breakthroughs don’t usually come from people who’ve spent their whole lives in one narrow field. They come from people who’ve bounced between different experiences, picking up patterns and ideas along the way.
That hit home for me. But at the same time, I’ve spent the last few years going deep on digital marketing — and even deeper on ‘positioning,’ which is all about creating a concise, strategic identity that can be scaled for maximum impact in the market environment.
And while I love the work (not just the positioning work, but all of it), I can’t help but wonder: Am I doing too much? Do I really need to focus on just one thing?
Reading Range gave me clarity: The answer isn’t about picking a side. It’s about applying both specialization and generalization at the right time.
We’re told to specialize early and go as deep as possible — we hear stories of Tiger Woods golfing at age two. In my world, Amy and I feel our kids are being pushed into a development soccer league at the expense of other activities they like.
For some career paths, specialization makes sense — medicine, engineering, law. But in today’s environment, going too deep in a single niche can be a liability.
A lot of specialists fall into the trap of over-optimizing for a narrow skill set, only to find that the market environment moves on without them. Look at AI; how many careers were once considered safe that are now being replaced by chatbots?
That’s why hyperspecialization is risky. In a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) — or, if you prefer the even scarier update: brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible (BANI) — rigid career paths are becoming obsolete.
To succeed, we must be agile.
This is true for individuals and businesses alike.
If you’re a small business, do you really want to hire three different specialists when what you actually need is one generalist who can see the whole picture and get you across the finish line?
If you’re a solopreneur, do you want to bet your future on one ultra-niche skill that might be irrelevant in five years?
The Power of T-Shaped Skills
I believe the best approach — for most individuals and businesses — isn’t to specialize in one thing but to develop what’s called a T-shaped skill set.
A T-shaped person has broad knowledge across multiple areas (the horizontal part of the “T”) while going deep in one or two areas of expertise (the vertical part).
This is what allows you to:
Stay adaptable. If one skill becomes obsolete, you have other strengths to fall back on.
Solve problems creatively. The best ideas often come from connecting dots across different fields.
Communicate effectively. Even if you’re an expert in one thing, you need to understand other domains to work well with teams, clients, and stakeholders.
Scale an identity. Branding benefits from focus, so while you may be skilled in many things, specializing in one helps people remember you.
For me, that means going deep on positioning and messaging while still drawing on everything I’ve learned about creativity, technology, and business to bring fresh ideas and get things done.
For you, it might mean something different. But if you’ve been feeling pressure to “pick a lane” or specialize further, ask yourself:
Are you making yourself more resilient, or are you boxing yourself in?
I’d love to hear your take. Have you ever felt pressure to specialize more than you’d like?
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