“My work speaks for itself”. There’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.
The worst part is that it’s a lie you’re telling yourself.
But it’s not your fault. You’ve been told for years to do good work and people will notice.
This causes most people to plug away with their business, waiting for people to discover them. Waiting for people to find your blog, discover your book, check out your product, and so on.
Waiting isn’t a strategy. Waiting is dangerous to your career. The problem doesn’t come from the waiting itself, you see. Waiting is easy. The problem is that no one is looking for you.
Allow me to give you a difficult pill to swallow:
No one is coming. No one is on their way to make you a success.
That’s why you can’t afford to simply sit back and believe that if you build it, they will come. This isn’t the Field Of Dreams and you’re not Kevin Costner.
You must develop the habit of sharing your work with the world. This habit must be practiced daily. If you’re the best in the world at what you do, but no one knows that you do it, then you are invisible.
Don’t assume people know what you do. Don’t assume they know how you can help them. Don’t assume they know how to do business with you.
What you can safely assume is that they won’t sing your praises until they know you exist.
But let’s not stop there. There’s more to getting the world to know your work than simply promoting yourself. I mean after all, of course you’ll sing your praises…you’re you. What about everyone else? How do you get them to promote your work to their friends and family, time and time again?
Let’s start with where most people go wrong in trying to get people to promote them. They focus on their credentials. They say things like “We’ve worked with so and so” or “I’ve got X years experience” or “We guarantee blah blah blah”. Guess what? No one cares.
Want the secret to getting people to promote you?
Connection.
Connection trumps credibility.
What a wonderful world we would live in if people promoted you simply because you do good work. We support the people we care about. Think about it, people don’t give to a charitable cause until they feel connected. We rave about the books, movies, and music we love because we feel some form of connection to it.
If you want others to spread the word about your work, then you must get the chain started by letting people know about it. However, if you want to build a wave of people talking about what you do, then focus less on impressing people with your credentials and more on connecting with people.
[H/T: ownermag]
