The Hard Work Fallacy

As Americans we are conditioned to view hard work as the ultimate character trait. Hard work is proven by Long hours, late nights, callused hands, dirty clothes, sore muscles. But this unfortunately is a false hope. 

The single flaw in this thinking is WHAT you choose to work hard on. Business owners tend to think working hard on anything on their business justifies praise and should be viewed as valuable. 

The reality is most people are working hard on the wrong things.

 WHAT you choose to work on is every bit as important as how hard you work on it. 

For me, the best way to gut check where I am  “working hard” is to ask myself the Gary Keller “ONE THING question”:

 “What is the ONE THING I can be doing that such by doing it makes everything else easier or unimportant?”.

Let’s look at some examples...

Scenario 1

Option A - you could put in 12 hours this Saturday by yourself and do a small one-time job that nets your $800 in your pocket. Option A gets you immediate satisfaction, a few extra  bucks in your pocket and makes you feel like you accomplished something. It includes short-term thinking and focuses on operational, tangible results that are more closely aligned with what’s in your comfort zone. 

      -OR-

Option B- you could spend that same time documenting your sales estimating process with video, photos and descriptions so you can begin to train one of your promising young foreman how to eventually grow into a sales role. Option B, while boring and unnatural, creates a repeatable system that can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars in perpetuity AND will eventually save you countless hours of your own time each week.

Scenario 2

Option 1 - you could have every phone call routed to your personal cell phone because you know how to talk to customers and how to enter the notes in your software faster than teaching someone else. Option 1- gets you immediate satisfaction, keeps you tied into the day to day intimately. 

Option 2 - you could contract an answering service, or hire a full/part time office help to take over appointment setting and customer care. Option 2- empowers someone else to take on the workload. Getting the phone out of your hands has many more long lasting benefits like establishing working boundaries with your customers as well limiting distractions when you are focusing on higher value activities.

Scenario 3

Option 1 - you could continue writing estimates on carbon copies, taking quick short hand notes then going back to the office and emailing a formal quote over to your clients 1-2 days later. Option 1, allows you to feel “efficient” with your time. You feel you are writing faster than you are typing even though you are rewriting the same things time and time again. You take comfort in being able to go back to the office at the end of the day and muscle through 10 estimates. It makes you feel like you accomplished something and are moving the needle for your business.

Option 2 - you could spend that same time and financial investment into adopting a cloud-based software program that allows you to build estimate templates to reduce the estimate creation process. Option 2, allows you to double down on the “efficiency” mindset, creating that same estimate you would otherwise wait to send out at the office but right there on the spot. Cloud-based software provides a high level of perceived value for your customers and can even allow you to capture an electronic signature right on the spot to lock up the sale. While the upfront labor and cost of the software is apparent, the long term benefits of the system are evergreen and abundant.



With any of these scenarios, hard work comes down to a decision. The decision as to what the return on investment (ROI) is with WHICH/WHAT activity you choose to work hard on. As with any investment, those who focus and make choices for the long term typically make out best. With each of the scenarios above, there is an obvious choice between what will give you immediate satisfaction and relief versus decisions that are made in the long term future of your company.

The brilliance in the “ONE THING QUESTION” is that it forces you to look objectively at the responsibilities in your business and evaluate true importance. Taking out short term gains, and putting your ego aside, you can get to the root cause of the activities that will propel your organization forward.