Whether you are working inside for an organization or on your own there are three areas that you will need to focus on in order to be wildly successful or at least have a better chance of success. Let me put it this way if you don’t have all three of these at some level, you will have little to no chance of succeeding. While they may not all be balanced equally, you will have to have focus on each area to some degree.
So what are they? Data, Passion and Community! These are in no particular order.
Data
You need data to measure. Without it, you have nothing to improve and nothing to help you grow, nothing to measure. This is critical for trial and error. How else will you know if are driving to success? Notice I said driving to success? If you wait to measure at the end, you may be too late. Find ways to measure all throughout your process but measure something.
Passion
If you don’t have passion for what you are doing, give it up and find something else to do. You will never be successful. The hours and pressure regardless of where you work will bring you to a grinding halt at some point. Passion is what gives you adrenaline, focus and purpose. Passion is a driver for carrying on when all other things and people tell you it’s over. As Coach McGinty (Gene Hackman) said in The Replacements, “you will need miles and miles of heart to get back in this…” Yup, I finally got to fit in a Replacements reference. Seriously, don’t you remember the old Thomas Edison quote, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”? Passion is what will drive that.
Community
This area of focus is becoming more and more important. The bigger community, the better chance of success you will have. I’m not talking about having names in a database, that’s not enough. I’m talking about engagement.
That means you need to be providing them value and lot’s of it. People are smart they know when you are using them to get names. They want value and you should give it to them. Here are some examples of people who are doing it right, Darren Hardy, Michael Hyatt, Gary Vaynerchuck, Chris Brogan or Keith Ferrazzi just to name a few. Keep in mind most of the people listed have multiple sites. Check them out on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites. They don’t just have followers; they have people engaged, people willing and eager to participate in the conversation.
What will you do to improve on these three areas?
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