What to Tweet About?

People keep saying, “You should be on Twitter”. Yes, I know. I’m on there all right. But I don’t “tweet” much, because up until now, I haven’t really “gotten” what I should be saying. I mean, who in the world cares when I wash my hair or that I had a great talk with my daughter or whether I’m answering e-mail or talking to a client in any given work moment? And I know people definitely don’t want to read a bunch of workshop or coaching advertisements. So, what to write?

And then, today, the answer began to form around the edges of my mind. It happened when I was writing my weekly update to the Aspyrre Community members. I realized that the update created intimacy, a conversation for those who did not have time to show up for the live event that week. And for the first time, I realized I wanted to have that kind of conversation with more people. It occurred to me that the question “what do I tweet about?” is the exact same question as “what do I write about?” when I think about writing an e-mail or a blog.

Except with my blog and articles, I take time to write, and my readers take time to read.

But the world is changing, accelerating at an outrageous pace. Nobody has time to read or write anymore.

In my recent workshops on time management, participants grappled with the idea that they simply can NOT complete or even begin everything there is to do anymore. They have to choose. In my career transition workshops, job-seekers are learning how to write resumes that will not actually be read unless they make it through the first few rounds of selection. Everything has to be in bullets.

So the pieces of the puzzle begin to converge, as I realize what twitter gives me – a place to blog in bullets.

The whole world has access to the bullets, and yes, they are quite lost in a sea – like “pings” from a submarine. But there’s always someone else on line the same time I am and, the more followers I have, the more interested those “per chance” people are in what I have to say. After reading the bullets, some will honor me with more of their time, and read a paragraph or an article. And some of those people might want to delve in deeper and join the community, attend a workshop, hire me as their coach.

We live in a new world, where people can choose who, where, when, and what to engage with. Twitter is a selection tool that enables people to come together quickly around what they care about, and disengage just as quickly when they need space.

At least I think. But today, I’m going to step in and give it a try.

Business Owners - Should you Niche?

When people ask who your target market is, do you find it hard to be specific?

Of course you can serve many different kinds of customers. Your product or service can probably be applied to a variety of situations very effectively, and once you understand the need, in most cases you can create a perfect solution.

I know that. You know that. But that doesn’t grow your business.

If you are like most small business owners, one of the easiest ways for you to grow your business is to build a referral network. And people only refer when they easily see a “match” between someone with a specific problem and another person who provides that exact solution.

If you are willing to declare a niche for yourself, you are allowing other people to categorize you. That means two things: (1) you have to give up all the potential referrals who don’t fit into your category, and (2) you will begin to get a lot more referrals than you’ve ever had before.

I believe that most small business owners never make it to step two because they can’t get past step one. At least I know that’s why I haven’t gotten to step two. However, recently, I had two experiences that enabled me to clearly envision myself moving to step two:

(1) I realized that I am not my business, so it became “OK” to have “a business” that doesn’t necessarily express all of me.
(2) I met someone who categorized me, and this person sends me more referrals than anyone I’ve ever known. I realized all these referrals are a good fit, and I wonder why I didn’t allow myself to be categorized earlier.

I still resist niching, but not because I don’t think it’s a smart and effective thing to do. It’s because I’m having a hard time choosing one thing and letting go of everything else. But sometimes the most powerful lessons in life come as a paradox, requiring you to give up something you are clinging to, in order to allow in something even more abundant than you ever could imagine.

Are you ready to let go and choose?