I saw a website of a public relations firm that said, in so many ways, that they are good at everything. The list of services included just about everything under the marketing umbrella. I stumbled upon the website because there was overlap in SEM and SEO. And I thought, do we want to claim we are good at everything under the marketing umbrella?

There are a lot of marketing firms that claim the same thing. They are jack-of-all-trades types.

No. I think serious business people understand that specialization is more productive. Specialization is the defining principal of the modern age kicked off by Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”.

But let us entertain how this “Good at Everything” ecosystem plays out in service businesses such as marketing, which is not capital intensive, its labor intensive – as in talent. If I tried to include every service under the marketing umbrella and actually be good at each, I would need a very large organization of top talent. I would have to pay top dollar for the talent required in each service area. That equates to a lot of expensive mouths to feed and hands to keep busy. Some hands will inevitably be idle at times but I still have to pay them. And even if I could assemble such a machine, some of the top talent would go independent (especially if they are not kept satisfied and well paid). Some will seek jobs with the client. (and those same businesses would find it more efficient to hire my top talent). In that case I need to fill that position with another top talent. The resulting total cost that I would have to pass onto the client would only be affordable to the largest businesses. And I would then try to right-size my operations accordingly. But my services would be out of the reach of most businesses.

Or I can fulfill those all-encompassing services with mediocre talent that I can pay less and they won’t be hired away and probably won’t leave. That might require more time spent doing the customer service to convince the client that we are doing “top quality work” – while not really.

Or we can just not claim to be good at everything. We can specialize in the few things we know we are truly good at. We can charge less because we don’t have a lot of mouths to feed.