If you haven’t read Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson yet – go buy a copy, it’s simple and brilliant and has made me significantly rethink a lot of the way I do business. Page 70 Rework of says “Build half a product, not a half assed Product.”

I love this statement and the simple truth around doing a smaller portion of work well rather than trying to be everything to everyone. It’s the reason our real estate agency Elephant Property does one thing – residential property management – instead of trying to do commercial and sales and 5 other things half assedly.

It’s the reason ReallySold just helps real estate agents write better ads. The original concept that spawned ReallySold started as a website that offered about 60 different training and assistance features to real estate agents. As I was going through the planning stages for my behemoth real estate training site, the component that helped agents write awesome ads was the 1 in the 60 that I was the most excited about. It could also be implemented quickly and done well. In that instance I built 1/60th of a product – but it was the right choice.

Are you trying to do too much? What’s are you best at? What can you astoud and wow people by doing? What can you be a rock star at?

By Kirsty Dunphey with No comments

Taboo Topics

My husband and I were playing a lively game of Taboo last night with his parents. For those of you who don’t know the game, you’re given a key word and without using certain related words your job is to get your partner in the game to guess the key word. (ie: if the word is “shower” you couldn’t say “rain”, “wash”, “bath”, “water” or “gifts”).

The great thing about Taboo is that it forces you to think really quickly and you often end up saying amusing things. Like the time a friend’s clue to her partner was “what I would get done if I was going to have any work”. The answer (correctly) – “Nose Job”.

After much giggling at some of the terrible hints we were all giving, my father in law Bob, paired with my husband picked the word “property”. Bob’s initial clue was a great one – “Kirsty deals primarily with this”. My husband’s guesses fired out in machine gun like manner “Business... Complaints… People”.

Eventually they got to “property” – but I was a bit taken back at what my husband thinks I primarily deal with!

Business and people – no worries there. Complaints though! Later I asked him – why did complaints feature so highly on his list. They certainly wouldn’t feature highly on the list I’d create for myself in terms of what I primarily dealt with.

Do I deal with complaints? Absolutely – property management comprises a lot of conflict resolution. But even though they’re not a large component of my day, it was apparent from my husband’s front of mind that they’re what causes me grief outside of work. As it turns out – complaints are what I bring home from work.

As excited as I might be about the new record rental price we’ve received, what I talk about at home instead is the tenant who is unhappy that their rental property is going to be marketed for sale. Rather than talking about how delighted I am at a staff member’s result on an exam, I’ll bring up an unflattering review.

It was a pretty startling realisation for me that:

a) I’m not focussing enough on our successes

b) That I might be a bit myopic when it comes to focussing on any perceived conflict or complaint

A great lesson for me and a hopefully my husband will answer the question differently in the future with a change of perspective from me.

By Kirsty Dunphey with 2 comments

Thanks Steve

I took a moment to pause early on the 6th of October (Australian time) to thank Steve Jobs. I was so saddened to hear of his passing.

Fittingly I thought, my next steps were to tweet about it on my iphone before sitting down to type this blog on my MacBook Pro.

That said: it’s not just the “things” I’ve been playing with for 20 years that I’m thankful for.

Here was a man who showed us all how something functional could be gorgeous and designed to make us marvel.

Here was a lifelong learner who showed us that you don’t always need a formal education to succeed (Steve dropped out of Reed college).

Here was a flexible creator who also brought us Woody and Buzz from Toy Story.

Here was a business leader who showed us how to build a company with such a culture and verve.

Here was a tenacious character who showed us that it’s never too late if you love it when he clawed his way back into Apple after being fired.

Thank you thank you thank you and farewell.

By Kirsty Dunphey with No comments