You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can make in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
That's a quote from How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie which was the book of the month in our Mastermind Book Club.
I've read this book at least a dozen times over the years and for some reason, this phrase hit me like a ton of bricks this morning.
It seems like we spend half of our workday creating content so people will notice us.
How's that working for you?
It's getting harder and harder to get people to notice us online.
Now we're not only competing against our competitors.
We're competing against an army of AI robots that create content, well, like a robot.
I see a lot of catchy headlines on social media, so I click and read the article.
I'm pretty good at detecting the AI content but it's getting better and better every day.
The problem is the content isn't in our voice.
Maybe I'll create some AI content and see if you can tell if it's me or the robot.
Back to our story....
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can make in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
What if I stopped creating content that may attract a few eyeballs and started reaching out to people on LinkedIn to have real conversations?
That's what I've been teaching for years and it's working better than ever.
I used to spend a lot of time engaging with people's content, but my ROI was not the greatest.
What works better is to reach out to former colleagues and clients.
Check-in and see what they are up to.
Scanning their profile lets me see if they've changed jobs or even changed careers.
What an easy way to start a conversation with someone who already knows, likes and trusts you.
When people change jobs, they often hire consultants to help them make a great first impression with their new boss.
Try reaching out to former clients and colleagues on LinkedIn instead of spending two hours a day creating content and liking other people's content.
Try it for 30 days and let me know how it goes.
Join us for our next Mastermind Book Club meeting, next Thursday April 27th at 11:30 AM Pacific/2:30 PM Eastern.
Our April book of the month is The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.