Yes, I know that you are supposed to get ‘small’ and specific with what you do—you can’t be everything to everyone, after all (unless you have a mega marketing budget!). BUT sometimes you can think too small.
When I’m working with people on their ‘Thing’ they often can’t see past what it is that they do right now—especially if they have a qualification, trade or specific service or skill they are an expert in. So if you're a lawyer or accountant, a nutritionist, a designer (I could go on and on with this list) then sometimes it's easy to think small.
Now, when I say small what I really mean is 'blinkered'—if you're good at something and that's what you 'do', it's sometimes difficult to see everything that's 'around' what you do.
Let's take an example... me! I was a marketer—I'd always been paid (in a job) to 'do' marketing. Marketing was what I was good at and I had qualifications in it and it was a 'skill'. So naturally when I set up my own business I sold what I was good at—my skill—and I was a marketing consultant. Fast-forward to me doing my Thing and it's all the stuff 'around' me doing my marketing that I sell. Marketing is now technically Step #5 of the 5 steps of Being a Business Celebrity (Step #5 is "Get in your Spotlight").
There is a lot of stuff 'around' marketing that makes up for me doing my Thing—I help find Things for starters (as you can't do marketing unless you know what it's for), then there's Fame Name (which is a bit of marketing, but it's the message and ownership of the message part), then there's story (again, it's a 'bit' of marketing I guess, but very much 'around' the core activity—it's what needs to be there to make the marketing work well). Then of course there's "Nothing is Impossible"—absolutely NOTHING to do with marketing whatsoever, BUT it's the piece that actually makes Being a Business Celebrity actually work (and the "Get in your Spotlight" marketing successful).
So if you're a bit stuck right now trying to 'make' what you are good at—what you're qualified in—your Thing, then have a look around. It's probably a lot BIGGER than you realise.
If you've been doing what you're good/qualified at for a long time, you will have plenty of experience that wraps around what you do.
Imagine it like this:
Your Thing sits in the middle of a circle and there are points on an outer circle all around it that actually make up what your WHOLE Thing is. And then what you need to do is offer ALL of your Thing together so that what you're good at becomes wrapped up as part of that. Hence why my Marketing stuff is now Step #5 of the 5 steps to Being a Business Celebrity. You sell the whole circle.
There's so MUCH you know that's at the end of your nose—and has been absorbed as 'common sense' by you so you hardly notice it—that you need to unpack what that is and sit it with your skill or qualification and TELL US ABOUT IT!
So yes, make it bigger, which at the same time will make it smaller (more specific and more focused) and you'll find it (it being your Thing) much easier to sell. Bigger really IS better :)
Want to talk more about this?
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