Foghorning

Where private becomes public in the pursuit of professional affirmation.

I’ve got no doubt that I’ve had plenty of missed opportunities which I never even knew about. There would have been someone in my network at the right time, in the right place, but just never thought for me to be the missing piece to their current problem.

I carry little online presence. Frankly, I don’t care about it and I don’t wish to allocate my time to it. I believe in just using the time to do more good, than do half and spend the other half of the time broadcasting about it.

There’s a lot of people who are greatly practised at providing a running commentary of their life to the world, through various and multiple social media platforms. Some slog this out themselves, others end up employing a team to plaster every channel with content at an alarming frequency.

But other than a lack of regard for it, I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do.

I work with private sector clients. And my clients are private. The work I do for them is private; and the discussions, meetings, and decisions we take together are private.

It no longer remains private when I start a Linkedin post with “Let me tell you how I managed to reduce my client’s project spend by 50%”.

I may not directly mention their name, or the nature of the project.

I may not mention any specifics at all - even their sector, the size of their company or their scope in any regard.

But if I do make that ‘generic’ post; people could still find out. A bit of googling; a little digging. And if you’ve got the resources, I’m sure someone with sufficient surveillance skills could find out far more than we think.

So the easiest way to avoid that - I don’t talk about my work on social media. Not generally, nor specifically. I don’t trumpet my successes, talk about project failures or oversights on social media. I don’t post photos, I don’t make carousels of my projects, and I just choose not to sacrifice my client’s privacy in pursuit of my popularity.

The collateral for that is that there’ll probably be plenty of people who forget I exist, or the work I do; the things I’m up to or the places you can find me at. But every client of mine appreciates this stance also, and it’s won me far more business than flinging out affirmations to thousands of followers and hoping for a few leads.

You do you; but for me, I don’t want to substitute my integrity for popularity, and so forgive me if I avoid the continuous updates for now. And if you do ever wish to work with me, then I will extend the same values for your business as I do my other clients.

TH