As I talk with people who are growing in success I keep seeing essential components we can identify that will make us even more successful. It doesn’t matter if you’re a graphic designer, bookkeeper, artist, writer, speaker, computer programmer, web designer, attorney, dentist, coach, inventor or CEO, you can take a look at these elements and see how you’re doing.
Whether you have 1 customer or 10,000 you can look at your job, self-employment, or business to see how you’re engaging your skills to make money and make the world a better place.
Rank yourself 1-100% on how well you are doing in each of these areas.
1. Define Uniqueness – Focus your passion
What is it that makes you unique? How do you stand out from the crowd? There can be lots of others in the same arena but something has to make you distinguishable. Define that:
My ranking in this area __________ %
My plans for raising my effectiveness in this area include:
2. Build Authority – Grow your craft and confidence
What have you done that allows people to see your work? Do you have examples of your books, instructional manuals, audio products, tables, chairs, art pieces, speeches, landscaping, inventions, blogs, podcasts, client testimonials, etc?
My ranking in this area __________ %
My plans for raising my effectiveness in this area include:
3. Establish Your Voice – Expand your audience and connect
How are you building your audience? Who is listening to you now? Are you active on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn? Are you creating a regular newsletter, blog, or podcast? Are you active on social networking sites like the 48 Days Eagles Community? Are you commenting regularly on other similar blogs, podcasts, and websites? What workshops, seminars, and conferences will you attend this year? How would you rank yourself compared to others in the same industry or profession?
My ranking in this area __________ %
My plans for raising my effectiveness in this area include:
4. Leverage and Prosper – Deliver your work, give people what they want
How are you delivering your work on a daily, weekly, monthly basis? What books have you written? How many houses have you built? How many clients do you have currently? What are you doing right now to build an inventory of your products or services? How could you duplicate your core message with products other than what you offer now?
My ranking in this area __________ %
My plans for raising my effectiveness in this area include:
When I did this recently with a brainstorming group, I ranked myself at 94%, 85%, 40%, and 70% in these four areas. I see so many ways I could be better in the last two areas. We’re exploring new opportunities in Facebook advertising, being more active in writing for magazines and other websites, attending some strategic conferences, and building relationships with some other key players in my arena. We are expanding member interaction in the 48 Days Eagles community. I just completed the revision for the 10th Anniversary Edition of 48 Days to the Work You Love – and am now ready to create videos, seminars, and 8 short monographs for special applications (recently released inmates, recent graduates, etc.).
It doesn’t matter if you have 1 customer (employed in a traditional job) or if you are attempting to attract thousands, you can use this model to identify the areas where you can focus for improvement.
What an excellent plan. Printing this out and using! We all get way to comfortable and forget we are a service provider and we have to show others what we can do and what we have done. With all the noise, we can work like a dog and no one notice because we have failed to do the right thing and failed to establish our authority as an expert in our field.
Dale,
Cool – hope it helps you shape sharing your art with the world.
This is so needed for self accountability. Following through on these questions consistently would make it very hard to fail.
Excellent Dan and I can’t wait to read the 10 year update to 48 Days!
Love this! What a practical, concrete way to measure how we are doing in each area. It’s so helpful to have something on paper to base our progress upon. Thanks, Dan!
You are most welcome. Hope it helps you be even more effective.
Excellent advice. This made me think. I realize I have a lot of work to do!
Thanks Dan! I can see this really helping with my coaching clients. This is simple and effective.
Super practical, Dan. Thanks. Lately I’ve been really focusing on defining my uniqueness. With so much advice out there are about writing and publishing, I’m aware that I have to make my points of differentiation obvious.
Oh, this is making me ask some hard questions, which is good. Thank you Dan!
Putting this in my Evernote.
Thank you Dan! I’ll add these questions to my monthly VENN diagram check-ups to help keep me accountable and on track. Great tool! Thanks again.
Simple and sweet.
Thanks Dan, these questions made me really stop and think of what exactly am I doing.