Everyone knows someone for whom things just “work out.” Things go along swimmingly for them, and the things they want just seem to magically drop into their laps. Opportunities seem to appear out of nowhere. The truth is that you, too, can make opportunities appear. Here’s how…
Today’s question is from Raquel Y., who asks, “I know other freelancers who haven’t been around that much longer than I have who just always have work. I mean, we’re not in the same industries and I get that make a difference, but it still seems like stuff is coming so much easier for them. What’s the deal?”
People who seem to have opportunities just fall into their laps aren’t magical—they just know how to be opportunity-oriented. There are opportunities to find new clients around us all the time.
There are two parts to being opportunity-oriented (and, thus, attracting opportunities to you). The first part is that you have to be prepared. Your website needs to be built and ready. You need to have your business cards on you at all times. You need to be able to deliver your USP elevator pitch at a moment’s notice.
When you’re prepared, you can take advantage of the opportunities that are already around you. For example, when you meet a small business owner at a cocktail party who’s talking about how she wants to build her business and improve her marketing, if you have your USP ready to convey and a business card ready to hand over, you’re likely to have another conversation with her about her marketing needs.
If you don’t, you won’t.
The second part of being opportunity-oriented is priming the pump. In order to get opportunities to come to you, you have to put yourself out there in the business world. Pitch new clients, tell people what you do, reconnect with previous colleagues, create a business Facebook page and promote it, write articles about how you’ve helped clients and what other business owners can learn from it, post about it on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
There are dozens and dozens of ways to put yourself out there. Putting yourself (and your business) out there is how clients find you, contact you and, eventually refer other people to you.
It looks to you like the people who constantly have work opportunities coming in to them aren’t doing anything at all to get them. And that might be the case now, but I guarantee they’ve worked hard in the past to get what’s coming to them now.
It’s like the case of the businesses that the media calls “overnight successes.” Any of the founders of these companies will tell you that sure, they found success “overnight,” but it took years of hard work to get to that night.
Add tasks that make you more “opportunity-oriented” to your daily to-do list. Put in the effort now and you’ll see the payoff just a little down the line.
Your turn! What one thing are you going to do now to make yourself more opportunity-oriented? Let us know in the comments below!
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