Ways to Take It to the Next Level
No matter what you're doing, there comes a time when you are going to want to take things up a notch．Maybe it's your career -- even if things are going along fine right now, ultimately you'd like to get a promotion, increase your base, or reach a larger audience．Or maybe it's a hobby that you think you'd like to turn into a career.
Getting started with anything can be a struggle, but once you reach a certain level of success, it can be hard to figure out how to make whatever it is you do truly remarkable．The things we do have a way of developing their own inertia, and if we're not careful, we get carried along in the routine without ever realizing the full potential of what we and our lives can be.
How can you shake things up a bit? What do you have to do to take your project, your career, your product, or your life to the next level? Read on...
1．Build Your Brand
The strength of your brand is how well you are associated with whatever you do．When people hear the word' lifehack', they think of personal productivity, and when they hear' personal productivity' they think of lifehack．It's a pretty strong brand．Some people have equally strong brands: when you hear about permission marketing, chances are you think of Seth Godin.
How strongly is your name linked with what you do? What could you do to link them more strongly? Some things to consider:
- Traditional marketing: Commercials, print ads, billboards, bus wraps -- anything that gets your name and message in people's faces．There are a few problems, though: people might mistake your message, linking you with the wrong specialty; people tend to tune out a lot of advertising as a survival mechanism; people often respond negatively to blatant (炫耀的) branding efforts; it's quite expensive.
- blogging: A blog is a conversation with your audience, and can help build up a loyal following that actually cares about what you do.
- Word-of-mouth: Hard to create and hard to fake, but very effective．Seek out people with a great deal of influence and focus on convincing them of your value．If Seth Godin wrote on his blog that you were the best web writer he knew of, we can bet that within the day your career would be at the next level (maybe the level after that, even!).
2．Build Your Audience
Make a concerted effort to increase the number of people who know about you．Branding is part of this, but it's not all of it．Give something away, find a new outlet, tell everyone you meet what you do, hand out cards wherever you go, show up at conferences and exhibitions, go to your kids' class rooms and talk about what you do (and make it interesting enough that they tell their parents)．Make yourself useful so people have a compelling reason to pay attention.
3．Increase Your Output
Give your audience, whoever that is, more of what they expect from you．Double, triple, or tuple your output．If you're a writer, write twice as much．If you're an actor, get into more plays．If you're a filmmaker, pledge to produce four short films this year instead of one．Make a painting a day．Aim to top your sales quotas by 50% every month．Do whatever it takes to make yourself more productive．Learn to do whatever you do in half the time -- then halve it again.
4．Improve Your Output
Make whatever you make twice as well．Improve the quality of your work until people have no choice but to stop and gape (目瞪口呆)．Create standards for your output, and aim to top them every single time．Take classes, read book, follow a mentor, practice twice as much, commit yourself to doing what it takes to your craft or profession.
5．Expand Your Niche (合适的位置、职业)
Do what you do now but with a wider outlook．If you write about dogs, start writing about pets in general．If you sell widgets, get into t