Running a small business means switching jobs dozens of times a day. One hour we’re drafting content, the next we’re chasing invoices, and somewhere in between we’re trying to remember whether we already posted that update on LinkedIn. Extanto, our content company, is no different. We work with publishers and businesses, a rotating cast of contractors, and a small product line in development under our QueryTek banner—so the hat rack fills up fast.
Most weeks, we cycle through the same core hats: finance, production, marketing, operations, product, relationship‑building, and the catch‑all “whatever needs doing” hat. Of course, none of this is unique to us; it’s the reality of keeping a small business moving when there’s no one else to hand things off to.
The Finance Hat
The finance hat shows up early and often. It might be a quick glance at the bank balance over coffee, checking what invoices are about to land and which bills are coming due. It might be an afternoon spent sweeping up production summaries in order to build and send out invoices, following up on late payments, or deciding whether we can afford to bring in another contractor for a project that suddenly grew legs.
This isn’t corporate finance. It’s the basic, unglamorous work of making sure money in is always greater than money out, and that this month’s enthusiasm doesn’t outrun next month’s cash. Other small business owners do the same thing—refresh the bank app, double‑check a spreadsheet, decide whether “nice to have” expenses can wait another month.
The finance hat doesn’t care how excited we are about a new idea. It only cares whether the business can support it right now. That constraint can be frustrating, but it’s also what keeps the rest of the hat rack from toppling over.
The Production Hat
The production hat is usually the one we enjoy the most. It’s the part where we actually do the work people hire us to do: crafting and reviewing content, giving feedback, fixing awkward phrasing, or helping a client think through how their material will land with real readers.
On the calendar, production lives in neat blocks: “Client A – sensitivity review,” “Client B – powerpoint migration,” “Internal – website update.” In reality, those blocks get interrupted. We’ll be deep in a chapter when a contractor pings us about scope, or a client wants to confirm a detail before their meeting. Some days, just getting a full uninterrupted hour of focus feels like winning the lottery.
Like most, we’ve learned that if we don’t defend some stretches of “do the work” time, the week devolves into emails and meetings. The production hat reminds us that busyness and progress are not the same thing.
The Marketing Hat
The marketing hat is easy to ignore when things are busy and impossible to ignore when things are quiet. For us, it might mean updating our site, writing an article (ahem), sharing a case study, or posting something that isn’t just “we’ve been busy.” It can also mean conversations that may turn into future projects months down the line.
Marketing is also where the self‑consciousness kicks in. Most small business owners don’t wake up excited to talk about themselves in public. So instead of constant promotion, we aim for something more modest: share useful ideas, show the kinds of problems we like to solve, and stay visible so that people remember we’re here when they need help.
On good weeks, marketing gets its own time on the calendar. On hectic weeks, it shows up in smaller ways: a quick update to a services page, a short note to a past client, a draft of something we’ll shape into an article later. However it appears, the marketing hat is what keeps the pipeline from drying up three months from now.
The Operations Hat
Then there’s the operations hat: the quiet, invisible work that makes everything else less painful. Answering email. Assessing and updating office and production tools. Keeping track of who is doing what on which project. Making sure contractors have the information they need. Filing documents where we might actually find them again.
This is the hat that’s easiest to underestimate. When operations are smooth, nobody notices. When they’re not, everybody feels it. Deadlines sneak up. Files go missing. Two people accidentally fix the same problem. A simple approval gets lost in a crowded inbox and holds up a whole project.
We don’t pretend to have a perfectly tuned system, but we know that a few small operational habits—clear file names, simple checklists, weekly check‑ins—save us from bigger headaches later. The operations hat is rarely the most exciting, but it quietly determines how hard every other hat has to work.
The Product Hat
QueryTek adds another hat to the rack: the product hat. This is the part of our week where we try to think beyond the next project and ask, “What can we build once that will help many times?” Sometimes that looks like designing a reusable framework or tool. Other times it’s documenting a process we’ve used repeatedly so it can eventually become a standalone product.
Many service‑based businesses have a version of this running in the background—a course, a toolkit, a template library, a small app. The tricky part is always the same: making enough space for product work without neglecting the work that actually pays the bills.
The product hat shares a complicated relationship with the finance hat. Finance wants to know what we’re investing, what we expect in return, and when. Product wants room to build and experiment. Somewhere between those two, we try to build small, low‑risk experiments that move us forward without betting the company.
The Relationship Hat
Another hat that rarely makes it into job descriptions is the relationship hat. This is the time we spend checking in with clients, talking to contractors, answering “quick questions,” and generally trying to be decent, reliable people to work with.
For a small business, this matters as much as technical skill. People remember who made their lives easier, who responded when something went sideways, and who communicated clearly when timelines changed. We can’t always be instantly available, but we can be consistent, honest, and clear.
The relationship hat shows up in small ways: a follow‑up email after a project wraps, a thoughtful reply to a contractor’s concern, a simple “here’s what we know and what we’re doing next” update when a deadline moves. None of this is flashy, but over time it’s what turns one‑off projects into ongoing partnerships.
The “Whatever-Needs-Doing” Hat
Finally, there is the catch‑all hat that every small business owner knows too well: whatever needs doing right now. The broken link on the website. The software renewal that sneaks up at 4:45 p.m. The sudden need to learn a new tool because the old one is no longer supported. The last‑minute change to a file format you didn’t plan for.
None of this appears in any business plan, but it fills more hours than we like to admit. This is the part of small business life that looks chaotic from the outside and feels normal from the inside. You learn to accept that some portion of your week will be spent doing tasks you didn’t know existed when you wrote your “ideal week” schedule.
The “whatever needs doing” hat isn’t glamorous, but it’s often what keeps everything else functioning. Fixing the small stuff prevents it from becoming big stuff later.
Living with the Hat Rack
We don’t have a perfect system for juggling these roles, and we’re suspicious of anyone who claims they do. What we do have are a few simple ideas that keep us from dropping too many hats at once:
- Try not to wear all the hats in a single hour. Group similar work together when possible.
- Give each hat at least a little attention every week, especially the ones that are easy to postpone, like finance and marketing.
- Accept that some days will belong mostly to production, and others will vanish into operations and “whatever needs doing.”
If there’s any comfort in the many‑hats reality, it’s that almost every small business owner is doing the same wardrobe change all week long. We just happen to do it with a lot of words, a couple of products in the works, and a hat rack that probably looks a lot like everyone else’s. And, luckily, we look pretty good in hats.
