Are you a thought leader, or a thought spreader? Are you the fertilizer that is spread, or the organic nutrient making rich soil?
Taking time to know who you are working with helps understand how not to work against your objective. Everyone is talking about telling a story, or speaking to your audience, but if you don’t take the time to figure out what and who that audience is then what are you trying to accomplish?
For example, if you are running a bakery and decide to blog, who are your customers? Is it the busy, overworked mom that has a part time job, in her middle age with a couple of teenage kids? Or is it the older executive running a fortune company that wants to bring home a hand made artisan bread to surprise his wife?
What about an IT consulting company? Is your primary audience in the public sector or private sector? Think about it for a minute, don’t just look at who has been paying your bills, but look at the ideal and who best matches with what service and product you offer.
Don’t be spread like fertilizer, be a nutrient that will be longer lasting and have residual effect for the long term.