We all do this right? We get a little place in the world to tell people what we do, and then we try to sell everything that we can do–not necessarily what we do best. Here we see that Fox’s serves Pizza, Bread, Salads, Wings, Stromboli, Hoagies/Wedgies, and lest you miss it, Frozen Yogurt.

If you make the best Stromboli in the city, then it doesn’t matter whether you can make yogurt at all. Every new item or service that we offer has a cost associated with it: actual, opportunity or education. Yogurt, for example, has costs associated with the machine, inventory, operating education and opportunity of NOT selling Strombolis, yet businesses routinely tell their clients everything that they can do.

Here are the reasons to tout all of your possible “products:”

• Increase top line revenue
• Crowd out competition
• Respond to customer demand
• Appeal to “some” customer interest
• Never learned to say no
• Fear that you’re not the best in the world

Now, I’m not really picking on this poor pizza joint. This frequently occurs in businesses. In my own marketing business, we are asked on a regular basis to do things outside our sphere of core competency, and how do you think we answer? You guessed it, with a resounding “yes.” It’s really hard to say NO to money.

But, here’s the thing, when you do NOT start with why, you end up with a bunch of WHATS. Without a solid constitution of your purpose to be on this earth (or in your business), you are increasingly susceptible to following the dollar wherever that may lead–selling yogurt instead of Strombolis.