Mike Dias on The Art of Being Everywhere

In his latest Headliner column, pro audio executive Mike Dias discusses The Art of Being Everywhere All At Once, and how to turn the impossible into a reality.

Getting noticed is a funny thing. It doesn’t matter if you are a band or a brand, there are no shortcuts when it comes to cutting through all the noise and standing out. And there’s no luck either — even when it might appear that way. Nope. It’s just maths. 

Growing your brand is simply a function of time plus an endless amount of grit and work. I’m talking about the kind of work that it takes to move a mountain from point A to point B, one rock at a time. But if you set your intentions and processes right from the get go, eventually strangers will show up to help you move those boulders as a collective team.

Whenever I’m hired to help brands grow, here is how I start. This is the framework that I employ every time, and I invite you all to make this your own. As a warning, this is going to sound deceptively simple — and it is to some extent. 

There is nothing novel about the strategy or tactics that I’m going to mention. And in fact, those don’t much matter. It’s really all about the mechanics and the follow-through. The detail’s in the execution. I affectionately call this “The Art of Being Everywhere All At Once,” and when I’m feeling overwhelmed by it all and not-so-affectionate, I simply refer to this process as “Stacking Wins and Herding Cats.”

Here are my five simple steps for growth — for anybody or for anything.

STEP 1: CRITICALLY AND BRUTALLY ASSESS WHERE YOU ACTUALLY ARE RIGHT NOW

This step is rough and not for the faint of heart. We all want to be bigger, better, stronger, more powerful, more relevant than we really are. So we seek out counsel from the people we know who are going to blow smoke and fluff us up. And that’s unfortunate because if we start from a foundation of misalignment, the rest of this process won’t work. If we can’t start with reality, then we don’t have the heart to commit to the actual amount of work that growth takes. 

And we’re telegraphing to everyone else that we prefer to pay for shortcuts and false-promises rather than rolling up our sleeves. Not taking proper stock screams that we’re not willing to do the work ourselves and yet we still expect strangers to come and do the lift for us. That never works!

So just be honest and really think about your place, your standing, and your resources. Think about this holistically and at every level; where are you now? Who are your partners, how are your sales, how’s your global presence, and how are you and your offerings perceived in the market compared to everyone else? Then think about the tools that you have available to employ on the road to growing into what you want to become.

TAKE AN INVENTORY OF YOUR FRIENDS WHO WANT TO HELP

At every stage of growth, there are people who have helped you achieve your level of success. These people are your true assets and unless your culture treats them as such, then you will be on a perpetual treadmill always paying for new friends, new help, new sales, and new growth. 

If you truly want to be everywhere all at once, then you need an army of people helping you create wins and amplifying your successes. So start with the team that you already have in place and expand from there. And I use the word team liberally and in the largest context. 

Your team is everyone who cares about your well-being — everyone who wants to see you grow and flourish. Celebrate them. Communicate with them. Enable them and give them the tools to help you achieve all your goals. And then… then you need to allow and empower your people to bring their friends and their teams into the fold. 

Your job becomes focused on welcoming and inviting and setting the stage for the party of strangers who will show up to help. You need to make sure that you make it worth peoples’ time to want to help and support you. So really think about how you are going to do that. It matters. A lot.

BUILD A CULTURE THAT CONNECTS NEW FRIENDS WITH NEW OPPORTUNITIES

To be everywhere all at once, you need to dominate the airwaves and the zeitgeist. You need earned media (reviews of your products and services,) you need paid media (placements, ads, etc…) but more than anything, you need word of mouth free-media. That’s direct one-to-one personal stories and recommendations coming from the people who interact with your products and services. And this is where the real work comes into play. 

Because for true growth to happen, people have to talk positively about what you do and what you offer and to share their wonderful experiences with your products, services, and brand. But for people to actually want to talk about what you do and offer, you need to figure out how to go above and beyond just your services. You need to figure out how to be flawless in every action and interaction and you need to find real reasons to keep people engaged and wanting to help. 

There is never a shortage of opportunities and there is never a shortage of people willing to help if you are willing to do the work and to create those real bonds of engagement and those true experiences. But this doesn’t scale and it can’t be automated. 

This has to stem from your internal culture and from your people. This is where you must invest and where you must inspire your team to perform. If not, you will never grow past the beginnings of that previous stage. You will be stuck on that treadmill running flat out just to slowly lose ground.

CREATE THE WINS. STACK THE WINS

When you invest in your culture and in your team and when you build processes that help you go above and beyond for your customers and fans, people will notice and there will be wins. Your products will get mentioned more often. They will be used more often. They will be visible more often. They will be sold more often. And they will be shared and reviewed more often. You create mass. You create gravity.

I like to think about this phase of growth like a dance party. It’s hard to get it all started but once it’s going, it builds its own momentum. No one wants to be the first one out on the dance floor — all alone with all eyes on them. And as hard as that is, being the second one out there is even harder. (The first one is always drunk or crazy. It’s the second one who’s really going out on a limb vouching for it.) 

But the minute the third person hits the floor, then it’s safe enough for everyone else to hop on and that party keeps going until the needle skips or until the DJ misreads the room and throws on a dud. Business and branding are exactly the same. One win begets two more wins. Two wins beget four. Four should beget more but by that point in time someone on the team usually throws a wrench into your game. Try very hard to avoid doing that for as long as possible. You don’t get too many chances to keep the party going.

AMPLIFY THE WINS INTO THE VOID

Now here’s the best part. Just because it feels like you’re winning in your echo chamber and just because you’ve built a bit of momentum, it’s easy to go back to myth making and to believing that anyone cares at all or that you’ve made an impact. You haven’t. You are still right back where you started from. There is just simply too much noise and distraction to compete with. 

There is always something new and shiny. Always someone doing what you do cheaper. Or better. And there are still an infinite amount of people who have no idea who you are, what you do, or who simply do not care. Your job is to not be discouraged by that fact. And you have to remind yourself to not believe your own hype or to think that what you’ve already accomplished has mattered at all. And you must find the grace and humility in this because you are going to have to keep doing this over and over again. 

And you are going to need to remind your internal team and bosses that no one cares an equal number of times. That’s the job and you can’t be discouraged by that. Because if those simple facts get you down, you’ll never have the fortitude to do what comes next. And this is the part that really matters.

As you are growing your brand and reaching out to build new opportunities and to bank new wins, most people will not get back to you. And when I say most, I mean (almost) no one will get back to you. Which is normal. You can’t take that personally. But every time that you have a win worth sharing, make it a point to circle back and to simply keep them in the loop. 

It doesn’t matter that they’ve never responded to you. Just keep having an ongoing one-sided conversation with that open email thread. Don’t hound them. Don’t spam them. Just simply keep amplifying your wins and moving all your checker pieces forward. Some might even say that I simply create wins in order to amplify them.

Do this on all platforms at all levels and throughout your organisation and eventually — over time, over years — and you will eventually turn the impossible into reality. And when you do that enough times and when you’ve created the culture and platform and process for others to adopt your shared beliefs and shared wins as if they are their own, you will look back and realise that what felt like yelling into the void without a megaphone was actually orchestrating the coordinated efforts of countless friends and strangers moving pebbles and boulders from point A to point B.

Mike Dias writes and speaks about Why Nobody Likes Networking and What Entertainers Can Teach Executives. He is one of the few global leaders in Trade Show Networking and he helps companies maximise their trade show spend by ensuring that their teams are prepared, ready, and able to create and close opportunities. This column will be an ongoing monthly feature because Mike loves talking shop and is honoured to give back to the community. If this article was helpful and useful in any way, please reach out anytime at Mike Dias Speaks and let Mike know about what you want to hear more about next time.