Any business or creative endeavor that grows does so because people talk about it.
Which means there needs to be some aspect of your work that is worth talking about.
The challenge is that things worth talking about are those aspects of your work that exceed existing expectations.
Delivering high-quality work on schedule and on budget isn’t going to cut it.
That’s expected.
In fact, getting people talking about your work itself might be the very hardest way to get them talking of all.
Anyone engaging with you has already set their expectations based on your existing body of work.
The bar has been set. And while you’re likely capable of meeting, and even exceeding that bar, at least a bit, that’s not enough.
Work that is truly worth talking about is extraordinary. Transcendent. Expectation-defying.
Sure, it’s possible, but few manage to get there once, let along consistently.
Luckily, there are other ways to get people talking.
While the work itself might be the most obvious element of what you deliver – it is, after all, what people are paying for, in either money or attention – it’s not the only element.
Perhaps equally as important as your defined deliverables is the experience people have when they engage with you.
This experience is made up of your process, your organization, your ability to communicate.
Maybe most important of all, it’s your ability to make people feel seen, heard, and understood.
This experience isn’t easy to create.
It’s not an item to be checked off your to-do list once, but an ongoing process that requires continual time, attention, and effort.
But while expectations may be high for your work itself, expectations about the experience of engaging with you are often low or non-existent.
Which makes it much easier to create an experience worth talking about.
You might tell anyone who will listen about your favourite podcast, even if they’re not interested in the topic itself.
It’s not the information on the show that gets you talking, however.
More likely, it’s the experience, and the community the host creates for and with her listeners.
Similarly, you might gush about a web design agency long before your new website is even finished if the process and experience are worth talking about.
Zappos is legendary for growing not because of its product – shoes that could be found at any number of outlets – but because of its customer service.
That service defied expectations of what shopping on an online marketplace could be like and as a result, was worth talking about.
Your work still needs to deliver. That’s a non-negotiable.
But it’s also just the foundation.
Which means you need to decide, if not your work itself, what’s worth talking about?
0 Comments