Using Leverage and Giving Leverage
photo by jpstanley
Leverage is a big word thrown around the Internet Marketing circles. I saw an old video of John Reese where he said the “money is not in the list, but in the list of other people.” To those foreign to core IM strategies, John is referring to sending out targeted emails for the sole purpose of making money, selling a product or talking about a promotion. What he means in that statement is that by leveraging the mailing lists of your friends, you will ultimately get your message in front of more people, expanding your own network and thus making more sales and lining yourself up for future opportunity.
Leverage can also be gained in many other ways in business and for young 20somethings. Take the job landscape. Leveraging your friend’s parents who have ties to companies you wish to work at, or your friend who knows a friend who is in upper management. These connectors are getting you in front of the right people at the right time to land you a new job. You never find the “best job in the world” on Craigslist, Careerbuilder or some other job board. The best jobs are unadvertised.
What about leverage in getting the word out about an event? Is the local paper or news station more likely to pick up a press release from an online submission form or from a trusted source that has brought them great stories in the past? Sounds simple right, but that’s leverage.(BTW - we leveraged local news, online channels and social media to raise over $3,000 for Rock For Hunger this weekend at the Cure For The Run - hell yea!)
Have you thought about using leverage for SEO? I recently wrote a piece for Mashable on Gen-Y Entrepreneurs. It received a good amount of comments, over 500 re-tweets and plenty of new fans. Other side effects were Digg’s, Stumbles’s and Delicious bookmarks as well as people mentioning the article in posts of their own. The end result, that post is now ranked 6th for the term “Gen-Y” out of 16, 000,000 results. Not bad leverage there!
So, I ask you guys now, how can you use leverage to impact your career this week? Who can you talk to? Who can you meet? What can you leverage to help yourself or your business?
Most importantly, who can YOU help by leveraging something you have to help someone else start to reach their goals? That is the true power. Let’s talk in the comments.
-Greg Rollett
Kudos for your Rock for Hunger efforts!
I think there is a related concept that needs to come before leverage. That is “FOCUS.”
If you are trying to do ten things than leverage will just complicate your life at a faster pace. If you can choose one primary life purpose and put all your energies towards that goal, than leverage can do amazing things.
Keep on rockin Greg!