 Don't be great. I know... that's kind of a weird thing to say, but I feel like I'm at a place in my life/career where it makes sense. For perspective I'll start a bit earlier in my journey. I spent years in and after high-school and throughout college with no desire to succeed. I just wanted to be done with the tasks that were giving to me and go home. I was consumed with the fact that I spent so much time on school and work, and I was hardly any further along my career path - even after all of that time. I stumbled around for a while with confusing thoughts restricting any motivation I could muster up. Being a creative type, I spent a lot of time in the creative/digital landscape, but I wondered why I wasn't on the path that I knew I should have been on. At a certain point I just said "screw this." I decided that no matter what I did, I was going to do it as well as humanly possible. I've kind of always had that mentality, but in the past there was no motivation behind it. To be honest, I think this motivation grew out of frustration. Frustration that I wasn't excelling. Frustration that I wasn't being listened to. Frustration that I wasn't the best. That frustration was key. I realized that I didn't want to be great. I didn't want to excel. I wanted to be the best. After years of trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I realized that motivation, confidence, and, pride came from trying to be the best. I loved to do so many things and I couldn't chose just one. I realized that I needed to be the best at being great at a lot of things. That was, and is my path. I can honestly say that there is very little competitive motive behind this desire, I just want to make the best decisions, make people happy, and make people successful, (and maybe have some of my own at the end of the day....) I think that there are two simple ways to understand this logic. The first, is to consider the fact that people don't choose "great" over "best." It just doesn't happen. If someone actually does choose "great", it isn't because they wanted to. They will still have that voice in their gut that whispers, "I wonder how much better that 70 inch TV would look in here." Great" is number two, number three, and so forth. "Best" is number one, and nothing less. My second reason for trying to be the best, is that there is no other challenge that is tougher. Not only is it a challenge to be the best that you can individually, but even more so when you're compared to everyone else in your industry. If you do become the best at what you do, it's an even BIGGER challenge to stay there. Once you become the best, you will probably fall into that "great" category automatically, so why not reach for both. Don't be great. Great is boring. Be the best. -Stephen Hardy
0 Comments
It's always nice to have a Social Media plan in place. There are unlimited tools online, but here is a simple one from Convince & Convert. It's a good rule to find a decent set of steps to follow, and then refer back every once in a while to make sure you haven't lost your way! As a business owner, there's a certain point where you should realize that social media, blogging, and other web strategies are simply that, a strategy. There are a million different ways to sync, coordinate, produce, and organize your content, but when you're spending all day working... how do you do it all? First, you have to understand what the purpose of social media is, and make sure that you NEVER forget it.
The purpose of social media to be social. Of course there are many different side effects of being social, like customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, but BEING SOCIAL is the first thing that you should think about. If you lose sight of why you're tweeting or updating your status, then you will lose your following. When I say lose your following, I don't mean losing the number of likes that you have on your Facebook page. Just because someone has liked your page in the past, does not mean that they see or even CARE about what you have to say. I always try to keep a ratio of promotional posts to a minimum on social media, because people aren't there to buy your stuff. They are there to talk with their friends and see what kind of spaghetti that LeBron is eating. It's easy to get likes, but it takes work to get people to interact. Social media is hard work. You should understand that there is a difference from your personal accounts, and your business accounts. When you're tweeting to your business followers, you should consider it part of the job. You should take it seriously and put a plan of action together. That doesn't mean that you can't have personality or have fun with interacting with your followers, but there has to be order. Developing a strategy can be complicated, but it helps to have a platform in place before you start posting random pictures and posts. There's a reason why "Social Media Manager" is a fast growing career path for many people, but even if you pay someone to do your social media, you should always stay connected to your followers and spend a certain amount per day being social. -Stephen Hardy Owner WITHaid+ |
AuthorStephen Hardy after many pots of coffee... 
ArchivesCategories
All
|
RSS Feed
