April 12, 2019

Chop wood, carry water

Longtime friend of the list, Mike Julian replied to my message from yesterday (subject: “16 ways to share”) with this excellent follow-up point (shared with permission):

I think an important aspect of this that often gets overlooked: do these things, then keep doing them. Credibility, authority, and (localized) fame are established over the long-haul and look an awful lot like chop wood, carry water.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Thanks, Mike :-)

Since I didn’t call this out explicitly in my original message, I’ll do so now:

Sharing your expertise online for free isn’t a “one and done” sort of thing. There’s no silver bullet. In fact, there’s rarely even an obvious inflection point. Until there is.

I think of it like gardening. You have to tend to it a little bit every day if you want it to bear fruit. You don’t get a payoff on the first day or the first month or maybe even the first quarter. But hoo-boy... once those tomatoes start coming up, you won’t have enough places to put them.

For this approach to work for your service business, sharing needs to become part of your daily routine. It’s just something you do. You wake up every morning and ask yourself, “How can I help folks today?”

Over time, your body of published work grows. Eventually, it develops a gravitational pull that attracts more and better clients. As you add leverage to your business via products, systems, pricing, etc your profits will grow.

Yours,

—J