In my day job, I have to know a lot of things about a lot of things in order to provide clients with the best solutions for their business. My history, both in work and in play, helps with this. I’ve done design, front end development, CMS architecture, worked with a wide range of SaaS platforms, integrated a range of systems via APIs and middleware tools, helped clients decide on payment gateways, managed projects small and large, and through it all had to keep that “I know what I’m doing here” face on; even in times when I clearly didn’t.

I’m a Jack of Many Trades, aka a generalist; specialist in few. Our clients expect that I am a specialist in everything they require of us in our work because I’m the first phase client’s go through before we begin design and development. I wasn’t always comfortable with this. It’s taken me years to build the confidence needed to work through discussions where I may not have the deepest knowledge client’s are looking for.

I’ve always worked on very small teams, or by myself. This has forced me to be resourceful in learning, and to be a really good note taker. If I don’t know the answer to something, it won’t typically take me long to get to the root of it and understand it well enough to help explain it.

When I started at Trellis, it was by far the largest team I had worked with in my career. My first year in as Solution Strategist, I stuck with my old ways of doing things. I did most everything myself. By the end of that first year, it was beginning to be clear that this wasn’t sustainable. And it was very much not in the best interests of my coworkers.

Now, when presented with topics that I feel I may be lacking in the right amount of knowledge to speak to, I don’t hesitate to ask for help. I got to thinking about this today, when I had to rewrite a section of a proposal to fit a project. The section was about design and UX. It laid out how our teams work through this process very clearly. It had been written by the design teams, so it was spot on. This particular proposal requires us to provide design feedback, where the client would be providing designs.

I took the paragraphs and rewrote them based on my understanding of how we’d done this in the past. I then jumped into our creative team’s slack channel and pasted in the paragraphs asking for help. The team came back with a rewording of what I wrote that was 100x better, and more concise, than I could have written. No AI was used.

I love the fact that I now am supported by so many smart, talented, wonderful people at work. This past year we’ve made great efforts to nurture cross-department collaboration, and it has really paid off. I know for myself, I get a great sense of pride knowing that the work we do isn’t based on 1 or 2 people, but by teams of amazing people all working together.

Ask for help. It feels good for you, and for those who step up to help you.