If a Tree Falls in the Forest…

You know the old riddle: “If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Without getting into that philosophical debate, let’s re-frame the question into something more practical for professionals. “If a professional is the best in the world at what she does, but nobody knows about her, does she have a reputation?” The answer is obviously negative.

The Principle of Alignment, paraphrased, says that when your unique giftedness is brought to bear on the corresponding needs of the right clients, you will become rich and famous and the angels will sing. But there’s a bit more to the story. You will not become rich and famous, nor will the angels sing, nor will clients who need you ever find you, if you haven’t established a reputation.

The last 10% of the Principle of Alignment, then, is the need for professionals to become reputed in their art. It may be as a cellist, an orthodontist, an oil well firefighter, an architect, or a golfer– the art doesn’t matter. But if the people who need your giftings don’t know you exist, you are invisible to them, and you will find yourself relegated to doing mundane commodity work for the barely grateful.

It’s become quite the rage in Canada for the large-scale personal injury legal shops to advertise on the back of city buses. It’s hard to drive downtown in any Canadian city without sitting in diesel fumes behind a bus and reading Get Justice and lots of money! Call 1-800-THE-BEST right now!

This is commodity-driven promotion, raw high-pressure advertising right in there with fast food, soft drinks, and vacation destinations. Effective, yes, but it’s the land-based equivalent of bottom trawling for fish in the ocean.

If you’re satisfied with commodity work and taking whatever comes through the door, then by all means advertise on a commodity basis, just like McDonald’s and Burger King.

But if you yearn to practice a profession where you get to do your best stuff day in and day out, creating and inventing and innovating, experiencing joy and not a job, then commodity is not the place to be. It follows that commodity advertising, billboards, bus signs, SEO websites, social media blitzes, and the like, are not for you.

The key to developing the irresistible, magnetic reputation which will draw in all the great, interesting, and profitable work you could ever imagine may begin with doing the exact work you were born to do, but it can’t end there. You can’t grow a reputation if you keep all the good stuff to yourself.

And that’s what we explore next week.