To ribbit, you must first know the difference between knowledge and skill. Knowledge is information processed by humans and placed into context. Skills are what give teeth to knowledge, its proficiency and facility; it is the developed talent or ability through training or experience. History is replete with examples where people had the knowledge but not the skills to take the knowledge to fruition. They didn’t presented in a consumable form.
The skills require tenacity, few people have the tenacity to complete the tasks needed. Many people are gifted but few are tenacious. A tenacious skillful player would potentially become the new standard on a market. But what market? in this case, what pond?
Concentrate on a specialized growing market or field with few competitors.
Your immediate goal is to test the waters. You want to get an assessment on how much you should do, and how well you should do it, in order to develop the skills that you think are mandatory for achieving success in a particular field. If you are going to do this, be sure you know what constitutes success in the field. If you don't know, find out. If you can't find out, pick a different field. There is no use going into a war if you have no idea on how to win it. This requires discipline, not many people have it, and this is the first filter.
After you have assessed the extent of the skill required, and the supply of people with similar skills, the next step is developing...
Your marketing ability.
This is the next big filter of becoming a big frog in a small pond: a successful use of digital media. This has completely changed the nature of competition over the last 15 years. With the development of the Internet, then YouTube, then social media, and other digital media, an individual can become notorious within a particular field, even though there are skilled specialists in the field, because the competing specialists do not have the gift of self-promotion. They are not good marketers. They have no interest in marketing. So, they leave the position of biggest frog in the pond for somebody else to claim. Even more striking is the fact that in this step you don’t have to become the best or biggest, just being in the top quartile will suffice. How possible only one supplier could service the overall demand over this channel with expediency and deliverability? time is against him but don’t count on this for too long. Customers will listen if you answer why you are the best choice for them, first.
The sooner that you begin to work on whatever your specialty is, and the sooner you begin the process of posting your findings on the Internet, the greater the long-term payoff for your work. Get the power of compound growth on your side. If you start early enough, and you build your reputation by accumulating contributions to the field. This requires studying how the winners in the field did it, creativeness in the elimination of bottlenecks, helping people get to their goal more efficiently, giving them access. This is good ribbit on your pond.
