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RE: Planing and mapping your business success.

in #business7 years ago

I think you'll find that innovation consulting is one of those fields where you really need to do something different to stand out.

In my case people were looking for articles on specific challenges like "how to create a drop-down in the Microsoft Identity Manager portal", and so they found my blog... but everyone and their dog is publishing thought leader articles at the moment.

And in general, innovation consulting has a low barrier-to-entry. I often compare it with being a doctor in the 1500s - to be one, you just hang a sign on your door saying you are one, and now you are. Combine that with the fact that it's a flavour of the month, and you're suddenly up against a ton of competition where it's difficult to distinguish who actually knows their stuff.

I may will start giving it away, or at least produce a few white papers and give them away in return for an email address.

Aside from the fact that this is something everyone does (ie, not innovative), it's also technically not "giving it away", but "selling it for the cost of their e-mail address".

Giving it away is something like the comment I made on this post on reddit earlier. Sure, I had a little link drop at the end, but that's mainly because people are more likely to remember "Brutal Teardowns" than they are to remember "RossDCurrie"... how many of those do you think I'll need to do before people start recommending that site to people they meet at Startup events?

Anyway, if I were you I'd be focusing on LinkedIn. They've amped the organic engagement over the last 12 months to bring users back to the platform, so their network effect is 2 degrees of separation (if I like something, my connections see it).

Post the odd thought leader post, sure, but mainly focus on engaging with absolutely every post you see on there, in a meaningful way.

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Hi Ross, Yes you are right on low barriers to entry which is infernally frustrating to me with over 15 years experience in innovation, and some people doing it with very little experience.
You make an extremely good point though relating to specificity of product. I think maybe my product is a bit too general at the moment and I need to look for a specific problem to fix, do it for free, and then take it from there. Given that I don't have any clients yet, and time on my hands, I've got little to lose by doing so.
Linkedin is already my core social marketing platform. On a more positive note, my website SEO seems to be performing reasonably well on certain search terms, not far behind the big boys, so I might start to generate some attention in 2018.
Right then. Back to the drawing board. Thanks so much for your valuable comments.