I have not had an AH-HA moment for sometime until last night.
I’ve spent my life on the Internet since 1992 and become on and off on many projects. I worked as corporate slave for years too. I finally realized that I miss the most important key to become success in the digital world.
I know I have to do my best, and I know I have to be the best I can be. However, I was never motivated to become the AUTHORITY of what I do. I was blind, distracted and not seeing things from third angle. Really. I look back the past 6 years since I move on to my own entrepreneur journey. I have had up and down, good time and bad time, but I keep changing my direction and working some side projects to just make extra passive income. I was never an authority of anything other than my name. I enjoyed too much about “I have done good enough!” I obviously have NOT done enough.
I was focusing too much on generating passive income and become #1 on Google search. I totally ignore the fact that all the true successful businesses in the world have one thing in common. They are the authority of what they do.
Be the best in the industry! Become the authority!
It really doesn’t matter the size of the industry or niche you are working on. No matter what you do and how you do it, you are basically trying to become the authority! Think about the SEO we do all the time and how Google evaluate your website ranking. It’s all about authority! When Google becomes the authority of search engine, Google beats Yahoo and Bing totally. When Facebook becomes the authority of social network, MySpace is fading away. When Apple iPhone becomes the authority of Smart Phone, Blackberry is forgotten.
I have had hard time to compete with the super large company in my industry, and I blame on the lack of funding and their industrial monopoly and bad business practice. I also have had some success with bigger companies wanting to partner with me, I thought I was just lucky and brag about my my SEO success. I miss the true point. I was chasing the wrong thing.
I was doing the right thing using the right technology, but I was not putting myself in the position to become the authority. I pay too much attention on things that won’t make me the authority. I keep asking why do people paying big company huge amount of money with no result and not willing to pay me 1/10 of the cost with much better result?
The answer is easy. I am NOT the authority of the industry. People don’t know me, don’t trust me and don’t have confidence to pay me.
Shame on me to take this long to discover this common sense. Now I see things differently. I am going the right direction from now on.
About Terence Chang