4 Reasons We Should Focus on Creating More Value

My mom loves Sonic. The drive-in, not the hedgehog. If you asked her 12 years ago, she'd have told you that she earned her PhD while sitting at Sonic.

She used to sit in her car, reading, writing, studying and everything else doctoral candidates do to earn their degree. If I ever asked my sister where our mother was, there was a decent chance her reply would have been, “She's at Sonic.”

It was her love of diet cherry Cokes, with extra cherry syrup and easy-ice, that got me my first job. I worked at Sonic for almost two and a half years while in high school and some of the things that I learned while working there still influence what I do today.

While reading Jon Acuff's book Quitter this morning over coffee, I read something that inspired me to write this article and share my experiences with you. Acuff said that “[His] years were not wasted… those years became fodder for my dream job, the raw materials of life.” What I've shared below are some of my “raw materials of life, an expanded version of a story that I've shared with many friends and co-workers over the past several years. I hope you enjoy reading my story, but more importantly, I hope you can learn from my experiences.

4 Reasons We Should Focus on Creating More Value:

1: Stay busy or you go home

When I was 16, my work-ethic wasn't what it is today. When I was done with one thing, I'd wait around to be told the next thing to do. Chalk that up to youth or minimum wage work, but I wasn't hired for my ability to think or my desire to revolutionize the way fast food was made.

For that matter, I wasn't paid to stand around between orders either.

But the same goes for me today, it's just the stakes are higher. If I'm not busy doing something today, I don't get sent home from my $6.25 an hour job, I get sent home from my ability to pay my mortgage. I learned at an early age that I needed to be creating value by staying busy or I'd be sent home.

2: There is always something you could be doing

There was a brief time in high school where I had two jobs. While making hamburgers and shakes, I also worked in the local mall at the new clothing store in town. I traded smelling like a tater-tot after work to spending all my money on discounted clothes.

While working retail I learned another valuable lesson. I learned that there was always something else that needed to be done. The jeans could be straightened, the shirts could be folded, or the clearance wrack could be refilled.

When all of that was done, surely I could relax!

Right?

Wrong.

After being sent home early a few times, I quickly learned that I needed to be creating value all the time so that I would still be able to afford the new line of jeans. I learned to find the broom and sweep, I learned to organize behind the counter and clear out the dressing rooms.

Today, I can be more proactive, I can coach people in my department or I can work on other tasks. There is always something I could be doing to be creating value for myself.

3: If you're not creating value, someone else will

The funny thing about me getting sent home from the clothing store is that someone else got to stay and make money. Both of us weren't sent home.

The guy who stayed was the one who had learned a little faster than me and had already picked up the broom and had already started tidying the dressing rooms. He was creating value while I wasn't.

In today's market, where outsourcing is a way to do business, many people are worried that someone could do their job cheaper, faster or better. Whichever the case, we have to continuously and constantly be creating value for ourselves.

Create a new process or a new way of doing things; do something only you can do in a way only you can do it. Prove why you're better than “younger and cheaper”. You do have unique talents, you are worth something. You just have to know Your True Worth and be able to show it.

4: “That's not my job” doesn't cut it anymore

A few years ago I worked with a guy who constantly said, “I don't do that.” He didn't think it was his job to quote a certain line of business at our IT company because it was too basic and his time was more valuable than to be spent doing something so menial, so basic.

I had just been laid off by another company and I could hardly stomach someone refusing to do something that they were getting paid to do. I knew about 16,000 other people who'd just been let go from a company who would have given almost anything to have had the ability to quote something, especially something that this guy wouldn't stoop so low as to do himself.

In a time when companies are looking for ways to save money, looking for ways to reduce expenditures and prove their worth to the marketplace, saying “That's not my job” or “I don't get paid to do that” simply won't cut it anymore.

In this type of economic environment, I want more work to do, not less. I want more opportunity to create value for myself, for my peers and my company, not less.

Finally, all of this applies to working with customers too. Whether you're buying or selling, people have to see the value in what you and I bring to the table if they're ever going to do business with us. It doesn't matter if you're applying for a job, bidding on a project, or selling widgets, we need to illustrate how we're creating value where others aren't.

I want to focus on creating the most value for myself as possible. What are some ways that you're creating value for yourself where you work? What are you doing to set yourself apart? Share your tips and tricks with me in the comments below!