Why You Should Share All Of Your Secrets
If you thought I was talking about Secret or Whisper, I'm not. I'm not talking about your obsession with Pokemon or marital infidelities. If you are thinking about that, you've landed in the wrong spot. Instead, I'm talking about sharing your ideas, thoughts and advice for your own business or career. I'm not talking about becoming a spokesman or mouthpiece for the industry without actually doing any work. Instead, I'm talking about being a doer and a talker.
People Love Advice
Dear Abby and Ann Landers are two examples of people who built careers off giving common sense advice. People are constantly looking for support and justification for their decisions. Human nature causes this and things have not changed. Now because of the internet and advances in communications anyone can publish (including me) which opens the door for you to find your niche from plumbing advice to social media tips. There are people searching for everything so no matter what your advice is, people will follow it and use it to justify their decisions. Look at what happens when you google "Should I go to Law School?". Giving advice will cause people to seek you out.
You Will Look Like An Expert
When you are in a specific trade or niche you learn the ins and outs better than anybody else. People want to learn from and work with experts in a given field. When I am searching for a dentist or a car mechanic, I don't want a dentist or car mechanic. I want the best dentist and car mechanic. I want to make a decision based on all of the available information. Reviews and the such matter, but when selecting a marketing agency or other service based company I expect to be able to learn about you. Writing about your secrets will make you look like an expert.
Not Everyone Will Follow It
Even if you write an article on wikiHow about building a house from scratch, most people won't do it. You know why? It is hard. Even better they may try to but quickly give up. Then they'll pay a premium. This is the case with a lot of businesses. They try something and don't get immediate results and give up. The time and energy it takes to do something will eliminate the vast majority of your readers. Just because you wrote the steps to do something does not mean somebody can execute it.
People Will Come Back
If you are providing value people will come back. Maybe not all of them. But people will come back. The blog for Likeable Media drives a good number of views regularly. The even better number is the users that return regularly and eventually become our clients. If you are an advice giver in life, you already know that if you give advice people come back. Human natures drives us to seek those that we think can help guide us. We all want to build a trusted relationship, whether that be personally or professionally.
Your Secrets Will Help You
Karma. What goes around, comes around. Whatever you want to call it. It is real and people have been talking about it for years. It could be direct or indirect. You could be in need of help. You could be in need of the sale. You could need advice from somebody outside of your realm. You will be much more successful in getting results if your first interaction isn't an ask.
Do you give away your secrets? Am I completely off base? I'd love you to comment whether you like my secret or not.
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Senior Project Manager at Rockford Construction
9yI believe in good karma..if I've cracked the code to something, I'm open t o share it with however needs some advice. Thanks for the encouraging reminder and nudge for some of us.
Leader
10yGiving away your secrets is the right thing to do. You are not off base in your post. I am almost fanatical about giving away everything I know. I love it. And I find the more I give away the more I want to learn so I can give it away. You are also right when you say that not everyone will follow it. But I am not caught up in who follows it and I don't get bent out of shape when people don't - that would be egotistical and all about me. Giving away secrets is the way to go.
Business operations manager
10yForward-thinking topic, which is positive, in my view. Of course, those of us who are bound by confidentially agreements simply cannot share our expertise in having solved real challenging problems. (Changing names and topics won't work either because of specifics to a given industry.) So FB, LI, wherever, still needs to be relatively secret free. Funny about building a house from scratch, though -- I did that and filmed it over the course of six months as a "how to" experiment. Designing, planning, contracting, funding, laboring, landscaping, installing ponds and moving boulders, interior decorating and building furniture all on my own was an absolute breeze, compared with finding a new job in my actual profession. :-) And that is no secret.
WorkSource (Workfirst) Pierce
10yI think this is a very good insight. Remember a line from a song, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. This is no secret, and as for me I love people and they are all I have. Sometimes or most of the time, I remember people that touched my life by the secrets that they have shared with me, be it from a young child or a great speaker. It is how you interpret their secret that counts and resonate in your core being as a listenner.
Free Spirits
10yGreat points. Thanks for sharing.