What I Learned Running a Personal Blog
1. To be noticed online, you must know your audience and be interesting and engaging.
Want to stand out, generate buzz, and attract attention? First, memorize your audience’s needs, wants, pain points, and goals. (Also known as creating a buyer persona.) Then use that knowledge to craft content they want to see in a way that’s gripping and compelling.
Dare to be unique. Dare to be creative. Dare to be bold.
2. Do the work, even (and especially) when no one sees it.
Yeah, the long hours and feeling of invisibility can be tough. You still need to buckle down and get things done. The true measure of your commitment isn’t how diligent you are when everyone takes notice, it’s how dedicated you are when no one does.
3. Persistence + patience = payoff.
Success doesn’t come packaged in a bottle you can buy off the shelf with little effort, and the journey to your goal is about dogged tenacity. Want to go anywhere significant or make an impact? Put in the effort, don’t give up, and eventually you’ll accomplish what you set out to do.
What I Learned Working for a Small Business
1. Focusing on customer satisfaction is vital to success.
From providing great customer service to creating a friendly, welcoming atmosphere, your main goal should be to create an enjoyable time. If people have a positive experience, they’re much more likely to be repeat customers.
2. Hard work is not only important, it’s imperative.
You don’t stop when you feel like it—you stop when the job’s done. Identify a task. Get it done. Then repeat. At the end of the day, you can be proud of the work you did and the people you served.
3. Appearance matters.
Whether it’s showing up on time or making sure the rental space is neat and the equipment is clean, outward impression says a lot about you. Make sure you get it right.
What I Learned Helping Plan, Market, and Execute a National Student Convention
1. Having a vision, mission, and goals is useless without a plan.
Going from point A to point B doesn’t happen by accident. Whatever goals you set out to achieve and whatever vision you hope to fulfill, you need a detailed, step-by-step plan of action to help you get there.
2. To market effectively, you need to show how you'll solve a problem, add value, or enable success.
Convincing college students to spend hundreds of dollars to attend a five-day event? No easy feat. In order to invest time or money (or both), people first need to see in tangible, relevant ways the personal benefits they’ll gain.
Consumers are always asking, “Why?” Why do I need this? Why is it worth my time and money? Why you and not somebody else? Answer those and you’ll have a message worth listening to.
3. Alone, you accomplish only a fraction of what you can accomplish by working with others.
Putting on a national event is no joke. Dozens of moving parts, countless details, hundreds of hours of work. Without a dedicated team who has each other’s backs and pitches in wherever needed, disaster is inevitable. Working together, you can create something to be proud of and impact hundreds of lives.