I Haven’t Followed My Own Advice
I was asked recently to give a local business owner some advice about Twitter. As I thought about what I would say to her, I realized I wasn’t following my own advice.
It comes down to this: it’s not really about Twitter. It’s about managing the public face of your business. It just so happens that currently, Twitter is a really good way to do that. There are all kinds of other social media tools to help as well, but those are topics for future conversations.
People are tired of dealing with bureaucracies and mindless policies. They want to do business with people who care about their issues. They want to interact. They are real people who want to talk to real people.
In 2009 as I considered freelancing, this concept was really important to me. I am a real person with faults and strengths. I have expertise I can offer you. I intended to use this space, and some of my time on Twitter, to share things I learned about how to communicate better.
But somewhere I got lost in the fear that it had to be perfect. I forgot the conversation and the process. I let doubt crowd out the chance to grow and improve. Twitter became almost completely fluff (except for the valuable relationships I’ve made) and this space lay dormant.
Last week I read this on Michael Hyatt’s interview with Seth Godin:
Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.
This is what I want to do. Leave you better than I found you. Help you get closer to where you’d like to go.
So I’m not going to worry that this space isn’t completed yet. That my portfolio isn’t posted yet. That I don’t have all the bells and whistles done. That’s the process. Maybe down the road you’ll help me with some of that. But first let me ask you:
