Yes, you heard them correctly, today my post is about “repeat, repeat and repeat”. Jack Welch already said it, former President of General Electric for 20 years and chosen as the best manager of the 20th century by Fortune magazine, said that his job as a manager was basically to repeat, repeat and repeat his ideas in cycles of 3 to 5 years. He said that as a manager, he should spend time defining the strategic lines of his company. And once the main lines to be followed had been specified, he stated that his only function was to explain these strategic lines over and over again. To its managers, to the rest of the workers, to the clients, to the suppliers, to the distributors, to the shareholders… and start over. Same ideas repeated over and over again. At times, so much repetition can be tiring, but it is essential that the groups you want to influence listen to your ideas repeatedly. As with songs, to keep the chorus you must listen to it many times. And then, when you have memorized the chorus, is when you probably like the song and when you better internalize the message that they have transmitted to you. Repetition of the message is essential for any leader. There is no leadership without a clear repetition of the message.
In the field of personal branding, repetition also plays a fundamental role. It is impossible to achieve a good personal brand if you are not able to repeat your messages repeatedly. And messages and actions must follow the same strategic line, they must be coherent and consistent in their repetition. If one day you talk about financial issues and another about human resources, you will probably end up confusing your target audience. If you really want to position yourself as an expert, as a true reference in a specific discipline, you must repeat over and over again your perfectly defined and bounded ideas.
Therefore, if you want to develop good leadership and a good personal brand, you will have to repeat your ideas over and over again. To do this, I share 5 steps to achieve it:
- Define your ideas: do not rush. Spend time thinking about the strategic ideas that you are going to define. Collect information, let yourself be advised, think … and be concrete. You need few ideas, but very clear ideas and very well defined ideas.
- Identify your target audience: you must be very clear with whom you want to share your ideas. Define well which groups you want to impact.
- Specify your channels: once you are clear about what you want to share and with whom you want to share it, you must define which channels you will use to repeat your message. They can be offline and online channels. Face to face, remotely, individually, in groups, …
- Verify that the message has been understood: as far as possible you should verify that what the message you have shared with your target audience has been perfectly understood. Ask, listen, make them repeat your ideas… Check that they have understood it correctly.
- Get them to internalize it: it is not enough just that they understand your message; Furthermore, they must internalize it, they must “make it their own.” Therefore, you cannot stop repeating your messages until you see that your target audience is able to share your ideas and apply them properly. The ultimate goal should be the practical application of the ideas you have conveyed. Facts are much more important than words.
In short, you must be very clear that you will only achieve great leadership or a great personal brand if you repeat your message until satiety. Follow these steps to ensure that your repetition is really effective.
I finish with a quote that perfectly sums up what I wanted to convey to you with this post “I am not afraid of someone who has practiced 10,000 kicks, I am afraid of someone who has practiced a kick 10,000 times.” Bruce Lee
