Take the extra step everyone forgets
You finished a project, got to the top of the hill, achieved your goals: why not take a moment and share lessons learned with others?
You work hard as an professional, producing big results that move the needle.
Your firm works hard for clients, helping them achieve their goals.
Your business works hard to please its customers and in return you receive a plethora of positive feedback.
All along the way you are learning great things, producing positive results, sharpening your skills and refining your methods.
But, do you share your successes/thoughts/experiences/learnings with the world?
This is the extra step everyone forgets. It is not hard, it is not too much work, and it’s what smart organizations now do as a natural part of their work-flow. I know you’re busy, but you are not too busy to do this, it is far too valuable to ignore.
Your work should be working hard for you while you sleep, on display in black and white, showing up in Google results and shared through social media, not gathering digital dust.
For professionals
Want to stand out as an outlier in your field? It isn’t going to happen if you keep all your hard work and experience locked up in a resume. Set it free, let it work for you to build your reputation instead. If you are serious about your profession, you are aware that a big part of your career is to contribute to your industry. You are not contributing if you’re silent. Your quiet accomplishments could be helping inspire others and creating demand for you to help others get to a similar place.
Take the time to document and share any and all case studies you can get permission to showcase in a public format – digital tools make this simple. If you want to be a leader in your industry you should share your expertise as well. By not doing this, you immediately make it known you merely want to follow.
You can even do this if you’re running a Substack newsletter. Some of the most popular posts from people like Noah Smith and Doomberg (two of the most followed economics authors online, they aren’t even marketers) are on sharing their journey. We want to see how you got there, it provides us all important context (especially for those who don’t know you).
For businesses
Tired of creating tailored RFP’s for each potential new client?
A few bullet points on a website outlining what you do proves nothing, smart people aren’t impressed. They want tangible proof of what you can do for them.
If you document everything you’re doing clearly and keep at it, eventually you can show your talent simply by sending someone a few links to some relevant case studies. The trick is to build this in as a natural process of your work-flow. This is an extra step, but it is what will make you stand out.
It should be a joy to share your success and experiences with the world, especially at the end of a project.
You’ve gotten this far, you put in so much effort, logically it makes zero sense to ignore the final step.
Bonus: gave a talk on data-driven storytelling a few years ago at a user summit in NYC on data-driven storytelling. Might provide some inspiration on how to wrap together case studies better, it’s from 2017 but the advice is fairly timeless.