The one thing that will hold you back in business no matter how good you are is being arrogant enough to think that you, your product or service, are so good that people will just search you out. This isn’t so! In order to have a successful and satisfying professional career, you’ve got to market yourself. You’ve got to promote your business!
Below are three suggestions for you as you build your business career.
- Find your own market niche. Work to develop a special competency that differentiates you from everyone else. Look for market needs that everyone else may not have considered. Ask yourself: What should be done that isn’t being done?
- Become a world expert. As intimidating as this sounds, achieving serious “world-class” expertise may not be as daunting as you might believe. If you pick a reasonably narrow area of specialization, focus on it, and learn as much as you can, you will start to accumulate immense knowledge within a few years. While you can never become the world authority on everything, you can definitely become a world authority on one thing.
- Build your own brand. Peter Drucker once told me that companies should be able to “put their mission statement on a T-shirt.” The same can be true for you! For example, my own mission is to be the world authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive, lasting change in behavior. Your customers (or employers) will respect you more if you do not pretend to know everything about everything but instead have a unique brand.