Brochure Tips: Automatic Switching
Do you sometimes find yourself “on automatic” when you share your experience? Whether you’ve been in your field for a long time or not, you may be telling your same stories, sharing your same ideas, using your same delivery formats. It can be easy to fall for that, as it is what you know and what has worked for you. Why change what works?
While your audience may be learning some or most of your knowledge for the first time, you’ve been talking and writing about it for what can seem like forever. Unless you add or subtract something from the mix, there is a high risk that it will become stale, run out, become less interesting to those who could barely wait for what you offered and feel like there must be more to life. It is one thing to eat the same food every day for every meal or to wear clothes of the same color every day. Another thing is to repeat the same lesson dozens of times, if not hundreds of times.
Imagine what changes you can make from small to medium to large. Here are some ideas for you to think about.
-
Expand the way you deliver your information: hard copy, electronic, written, spoken.
-
Consider a different audience for your experience: younger, older, different industry.
-
Give your presentations in different ways: in person, on the phone, recorded, Skype.
-
Combine What You Have – Put individual products and services together in packages.
-
Change location: Take your information to a different state, country, or region.
-
Expand Your Reach – Authorize your presentations and insights for others to deliver.
-
Partner with others: co-present with someone whose experience complements yours
This is far from an exhaustive list of possibilities, as much as a short list for ideas to flow through you. What triggered that? Did someone or something come to mind for the first time, something that can breathe new life into what you’ve been doing, something that can turn monotony into fun, something that seems like a great idea that you’re not entirely sure how? do it? executed?
There is no idea that is too small to consider or too unimportant to have value in itself or as a trigger for something else. Before you are tempted to cancel or think you are missing the procedure, take a breath. Think about who you know who can be a sounding board, who, whether they can give you an answer or not, can give you a place to listen to your own thoughts that can give you answers while listening to what you are saying. After all, you’ve come this far with your business, even if you’re on the starting line. There are many people who can help you take the next steps, steps to keep you from being on automatic any longer.
ACTION – Look in your life for the people you know in all aspects of your life. Pick one or two to talk about your business insights, your expertise, your bite-size brilliance. Explain some ideas about what you are considering for the next steps to take to improve what you are doing and ask them what suggestions they have. It is entirely possible that they can offer you something you never considered.
© 2015