Every so often, and at the oddest times, I’m reminded of just how big the world is and how competitive and diversified most sectors really are nowadays. Airports have that effect on me. So many flights to so many places, with so many people waiting in lounges to do deals, pitch ideas, sell products, hold meetings, clinch finance …
Bookstores. If you’re a writer, and you have any thoughts that your next ‘masterpiece’ will somehow make you millions, it’s easy to look at Amazon and see what you’re up against one screen at a time. But step inside the doors of a Borders and look up and around. That’s a much more realistic impression – floors and floors and floors of books, magazines, videos. And those are just your visible and published competitors.
Conference itineraries. If you have ambitions to speak for a living, search even the conferences you know about and just look at the quality and quantity of who’s making the roster. If you’re just another speaker on a standard topic, you’re part of a very long queue.
The case against being a generalist is everywhere, if you look for it.
And contrary to what the ‘change your life’ movement might have you believe, the universe is not waiting around looking to hand you out favours or tickets to the fast-line. There are tens of thousands of authors. There are many thousands of speakers. The world is clogged with people capable of doing meetings. For every market demand, there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, trying to win the right to supply.
Finding a progression strategy
Most people seem to follow one of these progression strategies. They:
- Train in an area that’s going to grow anyway, and hitch their wagon to organic expansion.
- Specialise to the point where the competitor pool is more manageable and/or someone sees a business opportunity in promoting their case (be they an agent or a recruitment consultant).
- Carry on with what they’re doing and just hope they’re lucky – that somehow they’ll get selected.
Incidentally, relying on your talent, qualifications, looks etc is often a variation of 3. So is going to a business school and doing an MBA.
And so much of the hoopla that I see around personal branding is also little more than a systematised version of 3. It’s essentially a luck strategy with some social media support. It relies on telling yourself and others what you do, without any real attention to those much bigger and more powerful, but abstracted, market realities, and then waiting for the phone to ring.
Popular but not enough
I can see why it’s popular. The whole American psyche traditionally revolves around that approach – if you believe in something and work hard, you’ll get the rewards. But if there’s insufficient market demand and/or the supply lines are saturated and/or you are just another anything, there’s no reason to presume your ‘brand’ is going to be chosen no matter how searchable or optimised you are. And when the competition pool is global, the going of course gets even harder.
Option 3 is a crowded platform for a reason. It’s the easiest one to board. And you only need to look at the application numbers for reality shows to see what I mean. So much hope assembled in one or more places at one time hoping that somehow they’ll defy all the odds and make the grade. People who think that being noticed is it. “I’m a singer/cook/model, I really want this, I have the voice/recipes/figure … pick me.”
Setting aside the fact that the reality of any career is far different from its perception, the roles that so many people clamour for and believe would make life so much better seldom happen by chance. Sure they capture the imagination – and there are just enough exceptions to keep the myth machine humming – but it’s sobering to remember those careers are called ‘dream jobs’ for a reason.
Just standing at the platform – even with a very real sense of your personal brand – doesn’t catch you the train. To paraphrase Kylie Minogue, you should be so lucky …
