Ways to Take It to the Next Level No matter
what you’re doing, there comes a time when you are going to want to take things
up a notch. Maybe it’s your career -- even if things are going along fine right
now, ultimately you’d like to get a promotion, increase your client base, or
reach a larger audience. Or maybe it’s a hobby that you think you’d like to turn
into a career. Getting started with anything can be a struggle,
but once you reach a certain level of success, it can be hard to figure out how
to make whatever it is you do truly remarkable. The things we do have a way of
developing their own inertia, and if we’re not careful, we get carried along in
the routine without ever realizing the full potential of what we and our lives
can be. How can you shake things up a bit What do you have to
do to take your project, your career, your product, or your life to the next
level Read on... 1. Build Your Brand The strength of
your brand is how well you are associated with whatever you do. When people hear
the word" lifehack", they think of personal productivity, and when they hear"
personal productivity" they think of lifehack. It’s a pretty strong brand. Some
people have equally strong brands: when you hear about permission marketing,
chances are you think of Seth Godin. How strongly is your name
linked with what you do What could you do to link them more strongly Some
things to consider: · Traditional marketing: Commercials,
print ads, billboards, bus wraps -- anything that gets your name and message in
people’s faces. There are a few problems, though: people might mistake your
message, linking you with the wrong specialty; people tend to tune out a lot of
advertising as a survival mechanism; people often respond negatively to blatant
(炫耀的) branding efforts; it’s quite expensive. · blogging:
A blog is a conversation with your audience, and can help build up a loyal
following that actually cares about what you do. ·
Word-of-mouth: Hard to create and hard to fake, but very effective. Seek out
people with a great deal of influence and focus on convincing them of your
value. If Seth Godin wrote on his blog that you were the best web writer he knew
of, we can bet that within the day your career would be at the next level (maybe
the level after that, even!). 2. Build Your Audience
Make a concerted effort to increase the number of people who know about
you. Branding is part of this, but it’s not all of it. Give something away, find
a new outlet, tell everyone you meet what you do, hand out cards wherever you
go, show up at conferences and exhibitions, go to your kids’ class rooms and
talk about what you do (and make it interesting enough that they tell their
parents). Make yourself useful so people have a compelling reason to pay
attention. 3. Increase Your Output Give your audience,
whoever that is, more of what they expect from you. Double, triple, or sextuple
your output. If you’re a writer, write twice as much. If you’re an actor, get
into more plays. If you’re a filmmaker, pledge to produce four short films this
year instead of one. Make a painting a day. Aim to top your sales quotas by 50%
every month. Do whatever it takes to make yourself more productive. Learn to do
whatever you do in half the time -- then halve it again. 4. Improve Your
Output Make whatever you make twice as well. Improve the
quality of your work until people have no choice but to stop and gape (目瞪口呆).
Create standards for your output, and aim to top them every single time. Take
classes, read book, follow a mentor, practice twice as much, commit yourself to
doing what it takes to master your craft or profession. 5. Expand Your
Niche (合适的位置、职业) Do what you do now but with a wider
outlook. If you write about dogs, start writing about pets in general. If you
sell widgets, get into the widget case business. If you’re a musician, learn how
to produce. Think about the people whose needs you aren’t meeting, and figure
out how to meet them. Don’t try to create a new niche altogether, just look for
ways to complement and leverage (影响)the work you’re already doing. 6.
Restrict Your Niche Or, do the opposite. Focus yourself on a
narrow part of your niche until you’re the only one doing it. If you write about
sports, write about baseball, then write about left-handed pitchers. If you make
household appliances, make appliances for college students (and then for
left-handed college students, maybe). If you paint landscapes, paint trees. If
you do marketing consulting, offer viral marketing techniques that work with
teenage boys. Become the person people have to go to when they have very
specialized needs, because you’re the only one that does it. 7.
Cross-Develop Figure out how to use what you know in an
entirely different way. If you coach little leaguers, write a book about
coaching. If you offer one-on-one organization coaching, work with a developer
to create home organization software. If you’re a TV camera operator, tutor
middle scholars in video podcasting. Find a new way to challenge yourself and
put your knowledge to the test -- while developing new knowledge and
skills. 8. Expand Your Network Your audience are the
people who buy, read, or otherwise use your product; your network are the people
that help you make it, market it, or distribute it. Focus on building strong
relationships with a variety of people both in and out of your profession. Don’t
try to fake it -- strong relationships have to be genuine or they won’t last.
Join a social networking site like Linked In and work it like mad. Go to trade
shows, conferences, and exhibitions and talk to every exhibitor and every
presenter. Make a list of 20 people in your field you want to know and e-mail
them introductions. Build relationships with your l0 best clients. Build
relationships with someone from your top competitors (ff that’s legal). Join a
professional organization and run for an office. Obviously these
are not all exclusive -- you can and sometimes have to do more than one at the
same time. And they’re not ail necessary -- some even contradict others. But all
of them shake up your routines and make people pay attention to you, whether
those people are potential clients, potential customers, or potential
partners. None of these are keys to instant success. All of them
require hard work and time to show any effect. If you’re ready to take it to the
next level -- and you’re ready to put in the work and commitment that entails --
then go through the list and ask yourself how each item could help get you
there. People as potential clients, customers, or partners help you to be noticed by others and to ______.