{"id":753,"date":"2016-01-06T17:45:15","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T08:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/n8finch.com\/?p=753"},"modified":"2016-08-25T11:03:53","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T02:03:53","slug":"bosi-index-moving-towards-specialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/n8finch2024.local\/bosi-index-moving-towards-specialist\/","title":{"rendered":"BOSI Index: Moving Towards Specialist"},"content":{"rendered":"
For\u00a0the first two years we lived in South Korea, I was working for an e-commerce start-up, The Arrival Store. They were really big on investing in the team, growing people professionaly, and making sure that we were working in areas of strength.<\/p>\n
While with them, I took two assessments: the Strengths Finder 2.0<\/a><\/strong>, and the BOSI Index<\/a><\/strong> (discussed more int he book\u00a0Entrepreneurial DNA<\/a><\/strong>). I’ll probably talk about the Strengths Finder results later, but right now my mind is on the BOSI results.<\/p>\n BOSI<\/strong> is an acronym for:<\/p>\n These are identified by the author as four different dispositions of entrepreneurs (yes, there are more, yes, this is a self assessment, yes there’s plenty to debate about here). For me, while working for the company, I scored high in Building and had the supporting trait of Specialist. This basically meant I could come in and help create better systems, grow things, and leave the company better than I found it. It lined up well with my MBIT and Strengths Finder results as well.<\/p>\n When I started freelancing, I took the assessment again, this time as a solo-preneur. I scored higher in Specializing and even added Innovating as a supporting characteristic.<\/p>\n Now, I’m not here to say that this is an amazing revelation. Actually, going solo and staying solo<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0means that I have to be good at something specific. People shouldn’t hire me to do all of their tasks (unless I’m their mom, which I’m not).<\/p>\n People need to know what they’re hiring me for, and I need to be able to deliver specific results for them in a specific area for a specific pain. These areas can be fairly large with different sub areas as well.<\/p>\n Take “WordPress Development” for example. This could mean that I work on just the front end (HTML, CSS, JS) or it could mean that I specialize in the back end functionality (PHP and MySQL), or it could mean I know it all deeply (full-stack developer). It could mean that I specialize in building themes for the front end or plug-ins for the back end. It could also mean that work on SEO for sites or that I try to improve site speed.<\/p>\n Actually, I’ve done and continue to do a little bit of all of that.<\/p>\n But, I feel like I’m moving into a moment when I will say, “Umm, I don’t really do that.”<\/p>\n And that’s the nature of specialization: the ability to say “no” to say “yes” to other things. Choosing to not do something in order to do something else.<\/p>\n\n