Start Small

I once spoke with a guy who spent 15 years in Washington (the state) building and then running an outdoor rafting company. Mike had just moved to Connecticut, where he was launching a new career as a realtor.

Mike is trying to build his credibility online, and he has this thought that he can combine his outdoor adventurer life with his new tenacious realtor life. It’s not a bad thought.

The problem is that Mike only has 25 Twitter followers, and his realtor bio makes no sense, whatsoever. It sounds like he wants you to kayak over a waterfall with him instead of trust him to sell your house.

Mike and I discussed the small steps he needs to take before enjoying the career success he seeks:

Make a list of 10-15 topics or phrases on which he wants to focus his online presence.
Use this list to determine what he should – and should not – tweet about.
Rewrite his bio so that his experience as an athlete and adventurer gives him more - not less - credibility as a residential real estate broker (I helped him do this.).
Attend numerous local events so that he broadens his personal relationships and increases his odds of securing listings.
Hustle as much as he can to find deals, even if at first the best he can do is to refer prospects to brokers in other areas (He has many contacts in popular vacation resorts.).

Prior to our conversation, Mike was spinning his wheels. He was so eager to succeed in his new career that he skipped right past the small building blocks that required his immediate attention.

Instead of wondering why you have 20 Twitter followers instead of 200, make your own list of topics, and become a predictable source of good information on a narrow list of topics. People who care about these topics will eventually find you, even if progress at first seems a bit slow.

Focus on quality and steady progress. Don’t try to be an overnight sensation. People who rush or clamor for success often end up failing or embarrassing themselves. We underestimate how true this is, because a very small number of such people end up making a very big splash.