Today I received the physical copy of my first ever newspaper article. It was from the folks at African Bulletin who featured my press release this month and will feature a few of my articles over the coming months.

So I thought I would celebrate that with y’all, say thanks to African Bulletin and to you, tDA’s reader.

Who woulda thought I would have ended up with my own feature in a newspaper and my own show on the radio in such a short time.

If I was to derive a lesson from this then I guess it would be, whatever you want to do, put yourself out there hard because you never know what results you will achieve until you put yourself out there and take action.

Direct Marketing

I love studying direct marketers like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham and of course, Tim Ferriss & Yaro Starak. One of the key ideas I have gotten out of the industry is:

Test assumptions!

Whenever you want to establish whether or not something will achieve particular results, conduct a micro-test and the test will give you much more real world knowledge than hours of abtraction ever would.

Here I am 9 months later and me and my tiny little blog actually have a brand name and a reputation which can probably be translated into something else.

So now, I can honestly say to other people, the greatest use of a blog is to establish a brand, preeminence and mindshare in a particular niche.

Why? Because I have lived it.

I can actually say that putting useful information out there on a blog is a great way to get featured in the media.

Why? Because I know other bloggers who have achieved way more media than I have and I have had a bit media success too.

So in short, I will repeat a message that I have expressed over and over and will continue to express over and over because I believe in it so much:

Let’s not think about it or read about it, let’s BE about it.

Hope that helps and yet again thanks for supporting the Displaced African (tDA).

Have one of those days that will be studied in the history books,

Mwangi