Success secret from my former boss

My former boss was quite successful in launching and running her company. So naturally, I memorized the piece of advice she gave me in 2000, when I decided to launch my marketing communications firm.

She said: "Focus on what you do best and knock on every door."

Obviously, the "focus on what you do best" refers to maximizing one's profit margin by thoroughly exploiting what strategy guru Gary Hamel calls a company's "core competency."

The "knock on every door" refers to velocity (or sales / assets). In short, offer your product or service to EVERY SINGLE BUYING ENTITY in your target market.

Strangely enough, I never heard a better piece of business advice, even during my 3 years in business school (unless I skipped class the day they talked about it!).

Interestingly, her advice applies also to careerists, and not just entrepreneurs. In fact, in today's global economy where the Internet allows knowledge workers from foreign countries to compete directly with workers in North America, it is more critical than ever to "focus on what you do best."

After all, isn't that exactly what China is doing, by focusing on manufacturing? Isn't that precisely what India is doing, by focusing on IT services?