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It's Time to Broaden Your Horizons
(Article Contributed By Marie, of Sex Story Text - Posted on June 30th, 2010)
Ok so it's hump day ... the middle of the week and I should be down at the office working my butt off but I'm not.
I've run around doing a whole bunch of errands ... I've been to the bank to deposit some checks ... I've been to the post office to check our mail box ... I've had my hair done ... I've been shopping for a birthday present ... and now I should be down at the office working but I'm not.
Instead I'm sitting on our back deck at home with a cup of coffee and my laptop and while I'm writing this column I'm enjoying being outside on a stunning winter's day. Sure I'm working but I'm looking at life from a whole different perspective.
Instead of spending yet another day looking at the office wall ... gazing out the windows at the center's car park ... talking to would-be clients who think that a multi-page website can be done in a few hours and cost less than a hundred bucks ... I'm here at home working away enjoying being outside.
If anyone comes into the office and needs to talk to me the guy we share office space with will hand them the phone and they can call me but for today I just needed a change of work environment.
I was beginning to realize that being stuck there in the office was really limiting me. Any creative flair that I might have was beginning to disappear and that had the real potential to limit my ability to make money.
And you know what? Every one of us who works in this industry faces the same potential problem. If you work in the same environment day after day ... if you hang out with the same group of people on the boards ... chat with the same bunch of people on ICQ and Twitter ... if you don't look outside of your comfort zone ... then pretty soon you'll begin to become stale and your view of the world will begin to become very limited.
So you need to get out of your comfort zone ... you need to know what others are thinking ... what others are experiencing ... what others are discovering.
In this industry knowledge really does give you a great advantage over your competitors but if you're always picking up ideas and trends from the same group of people all the time then your focus will become very limited. You need to be looking well outside of your circle of friends for the information you need to get ahead.
Over on a mainstream blog a well-known social marketing expert said exactly the same thing today. She pointed out that if she focused only on what her Twitter friends were saying she would believe that the iPad was going to be a total failure - instead of being a failure something like three million iPads have been sold in the last 80 days.
A couple of weeks ago her Twitter friends were telling her that Facebook was doomed because of the privacy issues and millions of people were going to leave Facebook. And Steve saw the same messages going around his Twitter friends. In the end the number of people who actually left Facebook in protest at those privacy changes was something less than 40,000 ... hardly a mass exodus and probably hardly noticed by those who own Facebook.
So who are your influencers and how much time do you spend every day listening to what they're saying? Do they come from a wide range of backgrounds or are they just a bunch of adult webmasters who ... just like you ... never bother to look outside the message boards and forums that cater only for the adult industry?
If those are the only people you're listening to and the only places you're looking for information then you really aren't doing yourself any favors. You need to broaden your horizons ... look outside of this industry for the information and use that information to stay ahead of everyone else.
If you don't look outside of this industry you're going end up with such a narrow focus that you'll lose touch with the people you want to sell your products to and when you do that your chances of making money are gone.
And now I think that it's time for another cup of coffee and then I'm going to have to jump into some keyword research for a mainstream site we're building for a client. This one is certainly going to take me into areas I've never been in before but I'll enjoy the challenge just as much as I’m enjoying the sun and the birds here on the back deck.
Maybe Steve might have to man our office in town for a few weeks ... the change might do him good and broaden his horizons too.
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