Professionals: Blend Offline Reputation With Online Visibility To Drive Business Development
Blending your offline reputation with visibility online helps you drive your business development across your weaker social ties.
Once you have built up a strong following, you should begin to see the networking opportunities expand, allowing you to help grow your business. —Erik Qualman
For a professional, visibility online is about cultivating a presence that drives your niche narrative.
I now have three clients directly attributable to the LexBlog blogpost (coaching) generating in excess of $7k a month. Now, there’s ROI. —John Grimley (international business development)
Niche is about focus. Your narrative needs to be about a niche if you want to develop traction that rises above the “noise” online. What are you about? What do you stand for? Be open with your agenda and objectives.
Want to Have More Fun and Be More Successful? Find Your Purpose. —Cordell Parvin
My niche narrative is about the collision of social networking, leadership and the business of relationships.
Here’s a great example of a tight niche: Real Lawyers Have Blogs —Kevin O’Keefe
I chose my niche after some healthy introspection. These questions guided me:
- What am I passionate about?
- What is my professional experience?
- What’s the theme of my skills?
- Am I willing to focus?
- Am I comfortable sharing my perspective in a public forum?
- What do I want to be known for?
- How can I be of service to others?
My niche continues to ferment. I’m “free diving” and adjusting as I go. It’s okay struggle with how to drive your narrative. Experiment. This isn’t about 100% or 80% — 60% is okay.
It is worth noting that the eyes can listen, too. The gifted business developers, communicators and leaders have learned the listening potential of careful observation. —Eric Fletcher
These six points are discussed in different ways throughout this blog and in my Tweet stream @kevinmckeown. Here’s a recap:
- Develop an awareness through observation to inform your strategy and execution.
- Building a strong online persona happens slowly (like a good offline reputation).
- Learn to engage in meaningful ways about what matters to people. Tie that back into your unique ability to help that person.
- Over time, engaging authentically increases your visibility and accelerates relationships and word-of-mouth.
- That sets up the right conditions or social proof necessary for business development to happen.
- Taking shortcuts doesn’t work because the depth of connection necessary for a business relationship must start from an authentic place.
Finally, remember the seven big picture points:
- Listen before you talk
- Strategy first, tools second
- Your authentic content matters most
- Leverage and repurpose your work
- Converse and connect with the right audience
- Make your content easily sharable
- Seed, distribute and syndicate your content in appropriate ways
How are you building “expert status” online? How did you decide on your niche? Image credit: “Right Needle in the Digital Haystack” from Connect4Advice