I don’t have a selling bone in my body.
I remember as a kid having to sell fundraisers for my school. My customers were my parents and my relatives and that was it out of pure sympathy. It wasn’t like it was a bad product. Anyone remember “World’s Finest Chocolate”? I mean it’s chocolate for heaven’s sake, surely I could sell that. Not a chance.
In today’s world we are constantly being put into echo chambers with those who agree with us. Social media algorithms will feed you content you agree with, while at the same time vilifying those you don’t. This is a daily problem not just in our politics, but in our parenting strategies, philosophies on work and life, and even how we feel about truth and science.
It’s no secret that it’s getting harder and harder to face the job market. Competition is fierce, AI is taking market share and the industries in need are constantly changing. All this to say that a “good enough” application package 20 years ago won’t get you a sniff today. Good has to become great and in some cases great as to become exceptional. So what does exceptional look like?
Trust me, I’m really not that narcissisistic. But I am curious.
Times have definitely changed quickly within the online space. Search Engine Optimization or SEO was once gold for online creators. Put in the proper keywords and learn the algorithm and you could be first on search engines like Google or Yahoo.
While SEO isn’t completely dead, it has been replaced at the top of the search engine output by an Artificial Intelligence or AI summary of the search term. Essentially, what you search for is what is now known as an AI prompt. The output isn’t always fantastic but it usually is fairly accurate with links on the side to show where the sources of the output came from.