3 tips to stand out from your peers
Want to stand out from your peers? Become an expert on your industry.
You'll make better decisions and build credibility fast.
Three free ways you can actively learn your industry and company in less than 15 minutes per day:
Listen to quarterly earnings calls
Subscribe to trade journal emails
Connect with customers
Listen to quarterly earnings calls for your company and your competitors.
If you can't listen live, read transcripts via a free Seeking Alpha account.
Your company isn't publicly traded? Fine - listen to your competitors. Get informed about the 800 lb gorillas in the industry.
Every quarter, I read every word of the earnings calls for Lennox International, Carrier, Trane Technologies, Johnson Controls, and Watsco, Inc.
You'll build credibility and will soon know more about your company and competition than 99% of your peers.
Hint: By hearing your CEO and Wall Street analysts talk, you'll quickly learn to articulate your contributions in terms of big-picture business impact. What they talk about is what matters to your leadership.
Subscribe to trade journal emails.
This seems obvious, but most people won't bother.
Reading a couple articles a day will tell you what's on the mind of your customers, and the big trends driving your industry.
By going the email route, relevant topics come to you, and it's easy to chunk 30 minutes on one day week to read multiple articles.
Connect with customers.
Saving the best for last - come out of your ivory tower and just listen!
Visit in person when you can, but a quick call or video chat is a great start. Most distributors and dealers are happy to make 30 minutes to speak with you and share their experiences and challenges in the market.
You'll always learn something new about their business, your competitors, and the industry at large.
You're also building connections who can give you guidance. And people who know you are more willing to support your new *insert great idea here*. Or they'll help you fix your well-intentioned but unworkable idea.
Conclusion
I said "actively learn your industry" because most people passively wait for learning to come to them.
While they're waiting for osmosis to bless them with insight, you need to be actively educating yourself.
Expertise put into practice will make you successful.