I have a friend

I have a friend. His name is Can. Can is the COO for a chemical company.

Can is in an increasingly crowded field with a ton of people, many of them people he trained, nipping at his heels to take his job. He wakes up each morning fearing for his ability to provide for his family.

One of the best ways out of a situation like this is to speak on panels at a conference.

Why do I keep banging on about this “speak on panels at a conference”? Because there aren’t many people willing to do it, and yet doing it allows other people to see you as the expert. And so speaking on a panel at a conference takes you from a field of 100 to a field of 10, and it’s sooo much easier to compete when the field is thin.

Can, however, like many, looks for excuses to not do it, because it is scary (that, actually, is precisely why it is so valuable). He says to me, “I don’t have the network for that yet.”

What Can is hiding from is that you don’t exit a crowded field and then build your network, you exit a crowded field BY building your network, and speaking on conference panels is virtually guaranteed to do that.

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