Overnight success

How do you achieve overnight success?

1. get discovered on a national TV show?

2. rob a train and run to Brazil?

3. work your niche for 15 years?

I unfortunately, like many others, didn’t have the benefit of the first two and have had to rely on the latter.

Chatting to Alison King at The Dentistry Show, HR consultant extraordinaire, who is taking her first steps into the dental market.

She asks “how come everyone knows you?”

And I reflect on my first visit to a dental show – the BDTA – in 1996 here at the NEC.

Wandering around for a full day and meeting one person I knew – Jeff Caddick at Castle Ceramics – not another soul knew me.

Since then I’ve:

1. written articles, ezines, blogs, tweets and anything else I can get my head around

2. driven up and down the country attending endless BDA, BACD, Study Group and Supplier meetings
   

3. sometimes big fees, sometimes none

4. sometimes big audiences, sometimes few

5. sometimes hit the mark, sometimes bombed

6. made some friends, made some enemies

7. said the right thing – and the wrong thing

8. upset some and inspired others

9. attended multiple trade shows and conferences every year

10. turned up at interminable dinners

11. coached over 700 clients for fee

12. helped many more for free

13. listened to a million stories with an empathetic ear

14. kept confidences and promises

15. heard wonderful testimonials

16. heard outrageously untrue and unfair gossip about myself and others

17. tolerated the greedy and the power-mad

18. started new ideas that have fallen at the first fence

19. innovated ideas that have worked slowly

20. wobbled but never fallen down

21. lifted other trainers, consultants and coaches on the first rungs of their career ladder

22. made catastrophic mistakes and faux pas

23. made a few good decisions

And now I know everyone – and 2010 is evolving into my busiest and most enjoyable year for a decade.

Day one at The Dentistry Show has been superb for networking and, along the way, I have secured over £5000 of consultancy business and agreed dates for more gigs later this year and in 2011.

I’ve also taken possession of my shiny new referral business cards from Cathy Johnson – and I love them.

The quick way to become an overnight success is to take 15 years.

Ready, steady, go!