Smash Your Learning Curve with Mentoring – Saturday Morning Surfing

(Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes)

We hear the incessant drumbeat of “niche down, niche down, niche down,” with very little guidance on what that really means.

Part of what “niche down” means is narrowing your scope, and possibly going deeper. When we’re building authority, it certainly means going deeper.

Building authority means moving beyond repeating information everyone else knows. It’s understanding the real questions, knowing some of the answers (or where to find the answers), and being able to communicate the information you have acquired as knowledge others find useful.

It turns out I know how to do this, this building authority stuff.

It also turns out it’s not that hard to understand.

There’s two key elements:

1. Establish the absolute facts whenever possible.
   This can be tough in technology, because facts can change fast. Consider keeping up with facts as process, not problem.
2. Stay the course; outlast anyone spreading contradiction.
   There are a vast number of people writing – publishing – in Blogistan who practice Rumsfeld’s dictum of unknown unknowns. I call it the Echo Chamber. It’s full of parrots. Don’t be a parrot. Don’t argue with parrots either. Keep your facts straight, the parrots will eventually fly away.

Simple, right?

But not easy.

Facts can be slippery, and staying the course can be tedious.

Think about it. Since you have started web publishing, how many bloggers have disappeared? Even bloggers with substantial traffic and loyal readers. Bunches. Gone. They didn’t stay the course.

If you’re willing to dig for the facts and stay the course, here’s what I can do for you:

I can smash your learning curve flat flat flat.

There’s no getting out of doing the work, but let’s do the right work:

• I can teach you how to rip into just about anything you want to learn, systematically, and with intent.
• I can help you learn the practice of your path to mastery.
• I can help you determine what’s useful, and to whom.
• I can help you get the facts straight.
• I can help you set up your “authority infrastructure” to survive intellectual dormancy, evaporating motivation, and total loss of interest. (Hint: it’s a process.)
• I can help you become – quite literally a world authority in your interest area. This is not bullshit. In fact, creating world authorities is exactly what I’ve spent years learning to do. I’m credentialed.
• I can even help you figure out where, in which niche, you want to build long term authority.

That’s a lot!

But I can’t do it all… there’s plenty you have to do for yourself.

What I can’t do for you:

• I cannot decide what is important for you.
• I cannot guarantee that what you’re doing now, or decide to do in the future, won’t be a colossal waste of time. (I can only help you waste that time effectively.)
• I cannot learn anything for you. You have to learn for yourself. That’s the point.
• Learning can be pure BS&T; I cannot suffer for you. (But I might commiserate. A little.)
• I can’t get you to market tomorrow, next week, or next month. (There’s gurus for that.)
• I cannot help you become an internet marketer, or get rich at any speed.

In short, I’m more a mentor than a coach.

Mentoring is not coaching

There are differences between mentoring and coaching. Here’s my view:

Mentoring:

• More collaborative. We’re working together.
• Our vested interests overlap. What we’re working on provides mutual benefit.
• Symmetrical: knowledge flows both ways. I learn from people I mentor as much as they learn from me.

Coaching:

• More transactional. You pay for discrete chunks of knowledge.
• Asymmetrical: knowledge moves one way, from the coach to you.

What I know how to do works for building authority regardless of market. It works equally well to master crochet for lace doilies as it does PPC advertising.

If you want to build marketable authority, here’s what I suggest.

• First, do your market research. If you don’t know how to do market research, join a forum, get coaching, hire a consultant, whatever. Find a guru or something.
• Then, and only then, we’ll talk about building your authority in that marketable niche.

Sound interesting? Read on…

How mentoring works

Mentors help smash the learning curve in many ways. Mentors have big picture experience. A good mentor can help you avoid a blind alley, fruitless research, and can salvage and recycle work apparently done in vain.

Being mentored means being held accountable, and having someone on your side.

A good mentor will have a huge reservoir of ideas, notes, articles, references, links, contacts, and various and sundry miscellanea waiting for that enthusiastic someone to pick up the ball and run with it.

Maybe that’s you.

Currently, I’m informally mentoring 6 people out-of-band (that means I don’t write about it here) to help them build deep, long term authority in their niches. Long time readers (bofem) would recognize the names.

I have room in my schedule to mentor exactly three more people who want to go very deep into social media, or semantic web, or anything else within the purview of electronic publishing. Anything which provides mutual benefit is fine, pitch me.

If this all sounds fine and dandy, and strikes a chord, but you need more details, leave a comment and we’ll discuss it.