Shop Talk Tuesday: You Are Not Scalable

Our theme this week is reuse and recycling, or using things for more than one purpose.  This theme fits nicely with what we do here at A Fresh Bunch, licensing our designers’ work on to many different products and mediums, preferably the same design on many different things.  Take the pattern above – this would make fantastic kitchen towels, potholders and table linens, not to mention plates, mugs, bowls and all kinds of serving pieces.  Design the pattern once, and it’s ready to go on almost anything.  That’s scalable.

You, on the other hand, are not scalable.  What do I mean by that?  Maybe you’ve got some kind of expertise that you think you can offer to others that they’ll pay for.  Great!  But think about this: there are only so many hours in the day when you can offer this expertise, and there is only one of you.  Out of the gate, your earning potential is inherently limited.

But wait – consultants and lawyers earn money by charging an hourly rate for their expertise, right?  Right, but they charge a premium for the scarcity of their time, so unless you are able to charge enough for your time that it makes it worth being limited to the number of you (1) and the number of hours you can work in a day (8? 10? 12?), it’s not an equation that makes sense in many cases.   There’s a reason lawyers start at $300 an hour plus expenses.

The notion of you not being scalable also applies to your personal life – if you want more personal time, then think about how you can limit any activity that requires effort from you and cuts into that time (work, volunteering, cleaning, laundry, grocery, cooking).  What activities you’re left with is highly personal as each person’s definition of what’s “worth it” will differ, but the bottom line is that you cannot do it all, nor should you try.  You’re not scalable, so figure out how to use your talents on something that is.