Everybody — well, seemingly everybody — wants more attention these days. Athletes want scholarships and contracts. Musicians want fans and track streams. YouTubers want views. Business Coaches want clients. And everyone wants followers and likes.

With such a stampede for attention out there, how does one stand out amongst a crowd? Are there any specific strategies that help to make people know your name and your product/service/idea?

I thought you’d never ask. So I wrote this post.

Decide Your Aims

Yes, I know: “Get known!!” But why?

Known for what?

What will people know when they do know you?

Is there a next step after the known part?

When I graduated college and wanted to play pro basketball, I was a complete nobody in the professional basketball world. I needed to get known — but not just for the sake of being known. I would leverage my known-ness into agency representation, which would then be leveraged into a signed playing contract.

If you want more people to know about you, ask yourself why, then ask again if you have to, until you’ve decided on the end goal. I’m doing this in order to do this, so then I can do this… all so I can arrive at this.

In addition to strategy, knowing the endgame, when it’s meaningful enough to you, will motivate you along the way.

This is the mental mapping you need to do up-front at the start of your journey (or today, if you’ve already started), so you know why you’re doing what you’re doing and what it’s supposed to lead to. This will aid you in decision making along the way, since a fair amount of your plans won’t happen the way you think they will and you’ll have to make some choices on the fly.

Use your aim as your compass.

Reach Out to One Person Per Day Who Could Further Your Cause

You work on your game to be prepared for the heavy lifting required to reach your goals. Things will happen a lot faster for you, though, the more efficiently you can involve others in helping you get there.

But they have to know you to help you. Here’s how to make that happen.

Identify the type of people who can help you. Where are they from? What line of work are they in? What have these people accomplished? Who do they know? What job titles do they have? For me in basketball, my target groups were agents and team managers. After basketball, it was entrepreneurs.
Identify the specific people who can help. Now that you know where to look, you can identify people by name and zero in on how you’ll reach them.

Craft your pitch. This isn’t necessarily a copy-paste email you send to 100 people (people can tell when that’s what you’re doing, and are growing conditioned to ignoring such messages). It’s having a general framework for your exchanges with people: Here’s who I am, what I do, what I’ve done, and what I need for where I’m going (helpful bonus: Here’s what I’m offering in exchange for your help).
Reach out to at least one person per day. The reason I say one per day is so you can adjust as you go; you may realize a certain piece of information about you is completely irrelevant, or that one specific thing grabs someone’s attention every time — so you can edit out, or more strongly emphasize that thing. Don’t shoot all your bullets before you’ve learned how to aim the gun.
Get comfortable cold calling. You’re going to need people you’ve never met to share something — time, attention, help — with you. Hard to obtain resources when you’re afraid of talking to people.

Promote Your Shit!

Don't be an undercover brand.

If you’re a writer, share your posts or books.

If you make videos, get them seen.

If you have a motivational message, leverage your IG and Snap stories.

If you’re an athlete, be where the players are and make your face and game known.

Build an audience that you own.

I remember getting my first (digital) highlight video made while I was still an unsigned basketball player. I was out promoting that footage everywhere I could — my new blog, emails, and in every conversation I had with prospective agents and professional teams. Anyone who talked to or heard from me knew about that highlight video — they had no choice.

Whatever it is you’re doing, make it known. Hell, let people get annoyed by your talking about it too much — better that than them forgetting about it or even worse, never knowing you or it exists.

Say YES to Everything Until YOUR Phone Starts Ringing

There’s a lot of advice out there about saying NO — to protect your time, quality over quantity, prioritizing yourself, etc. When you’re first starting out, that advice does not apply to you.

You need to be as active as possible, saying yes to every opportunity until you’ve built a track record. Only then can you measure presented opportunities against said track record and logically say, I’m better than this or I’m past doing this kind of stuff.

When I started my basketball career, I was open to any job, in any league, anywhere. I wasn’t in position to turn anything down. As I got older , achieved more and my aims changed, I grew to be more discerning about where I’d play and who I’d deal with.

As an entrepreneur, I said YES! to every chance I got to give value, even for free, as it helped spread my name and my message and provided valuable experience — and, as I showed how good I was and proved myself, people came back and offered to pay me for more of that value.

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If you’re unknown today, don’t feel bad: Save for  the offspring of famous people, most of us start out that way. There’s nothing forcing you to stay that way though. Follow what I’ve told you and make people know your name.

#WorkOnYourGame

Also See:

What To Do When Your Field is Full of Competition
How To Put Yourself On
Mindsets To Stop Underselling Yourself
Impress On Day One — Or There Won’t Be A Day Two [Daily Game]
#587: Getting The RIGHT Kind Of Attention [WOYG Podcast]
#444: Attention is The New Money: Here’s How To Get It And Keep It [WOYG Podcast]
#212: 3 Principles Of Creating Attention [WOYG Podcast]