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EP.115: The 5 Psychology-Backed Ways to Build Brand Authority | The Ambitious Podcast · Ambitious Podcast

0:00
We try these quick win strategies.
0:01
I'm going to post everywhere. I'm going to get Forbes on my
0:04
website. That's not actually the thing
0:05
that's going to build influence. People get paid to be in Forbes.
0:08
People pay with their business to be in Forbes.
0:11
It does not necessarily mean that they're the best person to
0:15
help. You can't demand your authority
0:17
in a room. Your authority has to be
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learned. It has to be perceived.
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It has to be felt. It's not about teaching
0:23
information. It's about giving insight.
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Many of us want to be the authority in our category.
0:27
We want to be a leader, but to be honest, all your marketing is
0:31
so vanilla. Authority is the ability for you
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to be able to operate from choice and not from pressure.
0:38
Authority is not something that you claim, it is something that
0:42
you build. Hello and welcome back to
0:45
Ambitious today. We are definitely going to be
0:47
diving in over the next hour into what I want you to think
0:51
about as a complete master class in building authority with your
0:55
online business. If you are somebody who has had
0:59
this word authority in your world as I have, from the moment
1:02
I started my business, there was this big emphasis on you have to
1:05
have authority. You got to build authority, but
1:09
a lot of US, number one, have been taught how to build
1:11
authority in a way that is not actually helpful and not
1:15
truthfully rooted in psychology. 2nd, we've also been taught
1:19
outdated strategies. So the things that used to work
1:23
in 2019 to build authority are not necessarily the same tactics
1:28
that you should be using today to build your authority online.
1:31
So today in the master class of authority, what I want to dive
1:35
into is what actually is the impact of having authority in
1:41
your business? Why is having authority with
1:44
your platform, with your audience actually a non
1:47
negotiable and why you really need to care about your level of
1:50
authority in your business? 2, we're going to talk about the
1:53
fact of what it actually looks like when your authority is
1:57
increasing because I think many of us might ask ourselves, OK,
2:00
well, I've been told authority is important.
2:02
I feel like I've been taking actions to build authority, but
2:04
how do I know if this is actually doing anything?
2:06
How do I know if this is generating outcomes or moving
2:09
the needle in my authority in my business?
2:12
And also we're going to talk about what is typically taught
2:14
online as to the tactics that people give you that they're
2:18
like, this is the way to build authority.
2:21
And I'm going to unpack why some of those also don't work.
2:23
And lastly, I want to break down what are 5 actually true tested,
2:29
supported, psychology backed approaches that you can start to
2:32
integrate into your online business to help you build
2:35
authority today. So without further ado, let's
2:37
get into it. So one of the first things I
2:47
want to talk about is why should we even care about authority,
2:49
right? Because I think there is again,
2:52
when most people start their business, this emphasis of you
2:55
need people to trust you. We know for a fact that people
2:58
invest and people buy from people that they trust.
3:01
And so many of us are taught that in order to get people to
3:04
trust you, you need to have authority.
3:06
But what really is the impact of authority?
3:09
Meaning why should you really care about the sphere of
3:11
business and what is it going to do or what are the outcomes that
3:15
you should see that will tell you that authority is something
3:18
that's going to benefit or help and support to scale your
3:20
business. So one of the first ones is
3:22
actually going to be around sales.
3:24
Sales are going to become easier and they're going to become
3:26
quicker. And I literally listed out, I
3:27
was brain dumping all the ways that I have seen authority
3:31
change my business and the businesses that I work inside
3:33
of. It is you do not need to
3:35
convince people to buy from you. You are not feeling like you're
3:38
trying to really oversell your value and why people should
3:42
invest or why they should pay your prices.
3:45
You don't feel constant need to use urgency tactics to have a a
3:49
last chance offer or a quick discount in order to get people
3:53
to move. You don't feel like you have to
3:55
over educate and literally plead your case as to the value of
4:00
what you do in your offer service.
4:02
And with this, you're also going to see a lot less comparison
4:06
shopping. If you are someone who feels
4:08
like you are notoriously having conversations, whether in the
4:11
DMS or on the phone where people are saying, yeah, I'm just kind
4:14
of gathering information, I'm kind of shopping around.
4:17
This is often times a factor that tells us this person does
4:22
not see you as a category of what they don't see you as
4:25
someone who is the leader within your category.
4:28
You will see people who decide faster and also with this you
4:31
will see people who have a lot less objections.
4:35
If you feel like you are constantly getting objections
4:37
from your audience, it can definitely be a byproduct of
4:39
lack of authority. So when you have more authority
4:44
within your category or within your business, you will see that
4:47
people are kind of coming in almost pre decided, pre sold on
4:51
you. If anything, the sales process
4:53
is to get the final touches of questions that they have, but
4:56
they're not necessarily at a place of meeting persuasion or
5:00
convincing in order to invest. And that is because the overall
5:05
risk perception of investing with you is a lot lower because
5:10
of the authority that you've built.
5:11
So I want you to literally think the higher amount of authority
5:14
that I have, the lower perceived risk somebody has of investing
5:19
with you. And even for me, I saw this in
5:21
my business because I had somebody even just recently who
5:25
had found me online and you know, basically followed me
5:29
within 24 hours had invested into one of our highest packages
5:33
that we offer. And so with that, most people
5:37
would say like, how is that possible?
5:39
But that is because there's kind of through all the marketing
5:42
that I've put out, through the things that I have within my
5:44
website, through all the pieces that I've planted in my
5:47
ecosystem, those are pieces of authority that I have planted.
5:51
So that if a new person comes in, they're seeing all these
5:53
markers that they need to feel the, the ability to easily move
5:58
forward. They don't feel that there's a
5:59
risk in investing with me. They feel certain because of
6:02
what I've planted as seeds. And so as a side note, I'm going
6:04
to break down for you later on today what those things are.
6:08
So second, you're going to see which is a big one, is that your
6:11
client overall quality is also going to improve.
6:15
So you're going to have less misaligned clients that are
6:19
coming to you. So if you feel like you were
6:21
having people that you're like, yes, this person wants to, you
6:24
know, hire my services. Yes, this person wants to invest
6:26
with me. But I'm going to be honest, this
6:28
person is not the ideal client that I really want to be working
6:31
with. That can be a by product of lack
6:33
of authority. You also will find that you're
6:36
going to attract clients that are not pushing your boundaries
6:39
as much. This is also something that I
6:41
noticed. I felt like in the beginning of
6:43
my business, I really was almost like feeling at the beck and
6:47
call or that I worked for my clients in the sense of the
6:50
dynamic of energy was very imbalanced.
6:54
I kind of felt, yeah, responsive to constantly like what my
6:57
client needs, what they want, what they demand.
7:00
And now I feel like because of the authority that I have in the
7:03
business, I'm able to really set out standards of like, these are
7:06
my boundaries, these are the expectations, this is the
7:09
process, this is the response time.
7:12
And that is not challenged and it's deeply respected by the
7:16
clients that I work with. So that was something though,
7:18
that I found became easier to enforce.
7:21
And I also have to communicate a lot less now because of the
7:25
authority that I have in the business.
7:27
And I don't know if you've ever had this, but clients will, when
7:30
you have authority, trust your recommendations and they trust
7:33
what you say, there's a lot less challenging.
7:36
So if you've ever had, you know, a client where you recommended a
7:38
strategy or you have a client that you, you know, recommended
7:42
something for their package or for their service, or maybe if
7:45
you're a coach, you've recommended something to a
7:48
client and you felt like, why am I getting pushback when you
7:51
literally hired me to help you and to tell you what to do.
7:55
And now I'm doing that and I feel like I'm getting pushback.
7:58
If that's something you're experiencing, it again, can be
8:01
due to a lack of authority. So when you're in authority has
8:05
increased, you kind of will start to feel like your clients
8:08
are sponges. They're just like, just tell me
8:10
what to do and I'll do it. Or just give me direction, I'll
8:12
integrate it. There's this deep trust and
8:15
almost, I would say surrender that happens when you're giving
8:19
advice. And that's because people trust
8:20
it. So they are seeking to learn
8:23
from you. They're seeking to absorb
8:24
whatever your direction may be. And as a result, because of
8:28
that, most people will integrate that advice or integrate those
8:31
strategies with a lot less resistance.
8:34
They're not going to be challenging you on the advice
8:36
and they're not going to challenge you in the process of
8:37
integrating it. So I found the, the shift
8:41
became, it was not a matter anymore of those questions of
8:44
like, well, what do you think about this and what, what would
8:46
you do in the situation? Or what do you think it was more
8:49
a matter of here's what I did. You can see people actively
8:52
taking your advice or your insights and starting to
8:54
integrate those quickly. So people are doing that because
9:00
most people don't test leaders. If you've ever even potentially,
9:06
you know, played sports currently or back in the day, if
9:09
you've ever been part of a team where you had a team leader or a
9:12
team manager that you really trusted and that you knew was
9:15
exceptional at what they did, there was this seeking to be
9:19
guided. And that really does happen
9:22
within our business as well, is when you are seen and perceived
9:26
amongst your clients to be a true leader.
9:30
And it's also, by the way, happens with your team.
9:32
If you are seen, whether through team or through your clients, to
9:35
be a true leader, people are going to follow you.
9:38
People are going to trust what you say.
9:39
They're going to integrate the advice.
9:41
They're not going to be questioning you and, you know,
9:44
asking more and more details. They're like, you know what
9:47
Sarah says, go left. We go left because I trust her.
9:50
I believe that she has the knowledge, the expertise, the
9:54
understanding to guide us in the right direction.
9:57
So if you find that people are challenging you or that they're
10:01
not taking the advice you give or that they're not following
10:04
the direction, there's a high possibility that you are not
10:07
seen or perceived to be a leader or an authority amongst the
10:12
people that you're trying to guide, whether that be through
10:14
your team or through your clients.
10:17
Now, the other thing that I find is that you also will see this
10:20
greatly impact your marketing. And if I could kind of distill
10:25
it down in a simple way, I find that a lot of the time when we
10:30
are an authority in our category, there's a lot less
10:34
about volume and it's more about the value or the impact or what
10:38
I consider to be the insight of what you're posting.
10:41
So you're not going to be in this thing of constantly chasing
10:45
reach and I just need to hit more people and I just have to
10:48
get more viral in all of this. You're going to find that old
10:52
content you make is still converting because of the impact
10:55
that it has. You will have people, which was
10:58
something that I saw as a big alarm of authority or a big
11:02
reinforcement of my authority was I found that people were
11:05
literally quoting my content, which was super weird initially,
11:10
if I'm going to be honest with you.
11:12
But I found that I would see people who were like, you know,
11:15
it's this post you put out. You said, you know, what gets
11:18
gets measured, gets managed. And I was like, oh, or someone
11:22
would say, you know, it was that post you put out that said, if
11:24
you've got it, if, if it's a pattern, it's a problem.
11:27
And when I started to hear people reiterate my marketing
11:30
back to me, it was a really good indicator that there are these
11:34
people that are diving into what I say.
11:36
There are these people that really are thinking critically
11:39
about the insights that I'm sharing.
11:41
And so with that, it shows that people are listening.
11:44
People are really wanting to be guided and they're trusting the
11:48
advice that I give and it's landing.
11:50
So if you feel like people are not able to reference your
11:55
marketing, if you feel like people are not, you know, diving
11:58
into multiple pieces, if you feel like a lot of your stuff is
12:01
very short lived, it can be a sign of a lack of authority.
12:04
And ultimately there's just with building authority, this aspect
12:09
of strategic leverage, which is basically the fact that, you
12:13
know, you can ask high level prices and not necessarily get
12:18
as much kickback as if you had no authority within your
12:22
category. I know for a fact that I have
12:24
been on calls with people and I've said, hey, you know, the
12:26
price is this much. And I remember there was someone
12:29
that had no previous relationship with them.
12:30
So like, I don't, I didn't really know this person.
12:33
And I remember them saying to me, they're like, that's like a
12:35
the price of a car. I was like, yeah, it is.
12:39
And there was just this calm that I had because I knew and I
12:43
I felt confident and I felt solid within my pricing.
12:47
But this person was like, OK, yeah, I didn't know anything
12:49
about them. They were very new to my world.
12:51
And they were like, yeah, let's do it.
12:53
So what I realized was as well that over time, by planting so
12:57
many seeds, my authority has increased.
13:00
So there's a respect, there's a understanding of my pricing and
13:04
not a matter of trying to negotiate it or challenge it or
13:08
justify it. It just like it is what it is.
13:11
And people are actively looking at it as, OK, this either makes
13:13
sense for me and I can afford it, or it doesn't make sense for
13:16
me and I can't afford it. And either OK with this, I also
13:19
find that when you have more authority and more
13:23
acknowledgement for the category that you're in, especially when
13:26
many of us at the beginning of our business are told to niche
13:29
down, a lot of us are told that we have to go really narrow.
13:32
We got to go really specific. And over time, the more
13:35
authority you have, I think the more you're able with success to
13:40
be able to broaden your niche. So like when I first started
13:43
with making content online or building my brand and it was
13:47
very narrow. It was very much about
13:49
specifically only at that time really coaches.
13:52
It was targeted toward people at a very specific stage.
13:55
And then over time, I started working with more agencies.
13:58
I've worked with lawyers, authors, digital products, like
14:01
it started to go a lot broader, but that was because I had to
14:05
build that authority base from which to to build out.
14:09
And so I think there's this aspect of when you have more
14:13
authority, you feel the ability to widen your niche a little bit
14:17
and to be a little bit bigger of a brand and cover more spectrum
14:21
than you would be if you were starting fresh.
14:24
Because if you start fresh and you have no authority and you're
14:27
talking about every color under the rainbow, people have no idea
14:32
who you're for, what you do, and there's really no through line.
14:36
Whereas if you've built this foundational base that people
14:38
know you for, you can dabble in other things and it's not going
14:41
to confuse your audience because there's this baseline
14:44
understanding of what you represent.
14:46
And the other thing that I would say is that authority
14:50
ultimately, if I could put it almost like in into a sentence,
14:53
is that authority is the ability for you to be able to operate
14:57
from choice and not from pressure.
15:00
And there's this aspect of like freedom that comes with it.
15:03
There's this aspect of agency that comes with having more
15:07
authority. And that's because you're not
15:09
feeling like you have to make decisions or operate and play
15:12
to, you know, what's supported or what's liked or what works.
15:16
You're really able to carve your own lane because you have that
15:19
authority built. So authority impacts literally
15:24
every area of your business. So I don't want anyone to think
15:28
that this is something that, you know, having authority is
15:31
something you care about in the beginning till you get a couple
15:33
clients and then we kick it to the wayside.
15:36
Authority is the base from which a lot of your business and the
15:40
results you're looking for are built.
15:42
Now when we start an online business, we are taught all
15:46
kinds of things as to what actually impacts authority.
15:50
So one of the things that we hear or see a lot is this aspect
15:55
of like be everywhere. If you are everywhere, people
15:59
will see you as an authority. So if I post more, if I'm on
16:03
every single platform, people will see me as legit.
16:07
And the thing that I will say, I've seen with the people who
16:10
try to be everywhere, when you try to be everywhere and you're
16:14
not doing it intentionally, you're creating a lot of
16:16
content, you're creating a lot of marketing.
16:19
And so when you're creating a lot of marketing, the thing that
16:21
I see most people miss the mark on is that you're trying to have
16:26
a million different content ideas.
16:29
You've got, you know, bucket one.
16:31
I'm talking about red today and then blue tomorrow, and then
16:34
purple and then green and then yellow because you're literally
16:37
just trying to pump out volume. And I get the idea, which is
16:41
that, you know, if people can't escape me, then of course
16:45
they're going to see me as the go to.
16:47
But sometimes when you try to be everywhere, you really in the
16:52
emphasis of having quantity really underestimate quality.
16:57
And most importantly within quality is consistency and not
17:01
consistency of posting consistency of the message.
17:05
Because a lot of the time when we try to have volume, we our
17:08
message, our through line of really what we want to be known
17:11
for and how we want people to remember us.
17:14
It gets lost. We really lose the essence of us
17:18
and our authority of what we want to be known for in the
17:20
process of just honestly hosting so much and needing so many
17:24
different marketing ideas to present online.
17:27
So I want you to thank the authority that you're looking
17:31
for is going to be built through repetition of similar opinions,
17:37
thoughts, and insight, not repetition of just simply volume
17:42
of posts. OK, so this is not a matter of
17:45
just like I got to get 15 videos out this week.
17:47
I got to get, you know, 5 emails out this week.
17:50
If those 5 emails have different undertones, different insights
17:55
to them that are all over the place, you could post those for
17:58
the next 7 years and you may build no authority and no brand.
18:02
Now, in the contrast, if you said should I have these five
18:05
where I feel really, really stretched and I feel like I'm
18:07
struggling to come up with ideas, or should I have two a
18:11
week that are really consistent in the message?
18:13
The insights are similar. There's a through line in my
18:16
perspective. I would always rather you have
18:19
two that are consistent amongst brand then simply just firehose
18:23
out all of these different pieces that are all over the
18:25
place. So I want you to think that a
18:29
high output, a high volume of marketing that is produced that
18:34
doesn't have a consistent point of view throughout all of the
18:38
pieces is literally going to do nothing for you.
18:41
And I see this because many people will say, I just don't
18:44
understand why I'm not growing. I don't understand why I don't
18:47
have authority. I don't understand why my brand
18:50
is not landing or I feel like I have this like really activated
18:53
community. I don't get it.
18:55
And it's honestly because there's just so much content all
18:59
over the place that has no real rhyme or reason to it or no
19:03
through line to it, that as a result, I don't really know what
19:07
you stand for. So how can I know that you lead
19:09
this charge or this mission or this purpose or this club, if
19:14
you will, when I don't even know what the consistent through line
19:18
is here? One day you're talking about
19:19
something red, and the next day you're talking about something
19:21
green. Unless there are different
19:24
versions of red throughout every single post that you create, the
19:28
volume will never move the needle in your authority and
19:33
your brand presence and consistency.
19:36
And it's a hard thing for people to learn because if we're not
19:38
having these conversations, we typically only learn this when
19:41
we feel like we've been making content for the last 15 years
19:45
and or what feels like 15 years. And we feel like nothing is
19:49
moving. We feel like nothing has
19:50
changed. And that's often because, to be
19:52
honest, nothing has changed because you've been all over the
19:55
place. So there's this aspect of volume
19:57
of marketing. But the other thing we see
19:59
taught online, which is kind of bucket number 2 is credential
20:03
stacking. My goodness, the amount of times
20:07
that I see. Business owners who were like, I
20:10
want Forbes on my website. I want to have this credential
20:14
of these letters beside my name. Let me be the person to let you
20:18
know, you having letters beside your name or having Forbes or
20:22
some magazine or article site on your site in itself is not going
20:29
to be the basis of how you were seen as an authority for the
20:32
next 10 years. Sure.
20:33
Is it something that might activate somebody emotionally
20:36
who lands on your website? Maybe, but is it going to be the
20:39
reason that you lead a movement of people in the next decade?
20:43
Absolutely not. So what I see a lot of people
20:47
make the mistake of is you believe that if you could just
20:50
get that credential, if you could just be associated with a
20:53
framework, if you could just get a a certification that you
20:58
genuinely feel like that would finally make you legit.
21:01
And I am here to tell you that when you have those accolades
21:07
and you have those titles and you have all of that on your
21:09
website or in your marketing, that's not what makes a leader.
21:14
Because I will tell you, people get paid to be in Forbes.
21:17
People pay with their business to be in Forbes.
21:21
People pay to go through credentials.
21:24
It does not necessarily mean that they're the best person to
21:28
help. So yes, there's great value in
21:31
credentials to do a certain type of job.
21:34
Yes, if you, you know, happen to get published in Forbes, it's a
21:37
cool thing to put on your website.
21:39
It's a great accomplishment if you did it organically.
21:42
But just simply having that in your marketing is not enough for
21:46
someone to say, oh, I believe this person is a leader.
21:50
And many of us can see this with, you know, for example,
21:56
celebrities. There's people who are
21:58
celebrities that by definition should have influence, but
22:01
they're celebrities that we know to be a celebrity that we don't
22:04
feel influenced by in any capacity.
22:06
And there's also probably a celebrity that you follow that,
22:11
you know, even though they're just as much as of a celebrity
22:13
as the person next to them. One of them says, you know, do
22:16
X, and you're like, OK. And then the person you follow
22:19
who you truly believe is a leader says do X or care about X
22:25
or buy X, and you're like, why do I feel like I want to buy
22:27
this now? The difference is not whether
22:30
you know, 1 is a celebrity and one's not.
22:32
They're both celebrities. One of them for you actually is
22:36
an authority in your life. One of them is actually a leader
22:40
to you and that's the basis of why we need to ensure that we're
22:44
not just credential stacking or we're not just accolade stacking
22:48
on our marketing or on our websites.
22:51
You want to remember that while credentials, yes, can be an
22:55
aspect of supporting authority, they do not replace lived
23:01
experience or discernment. So when we follow someone, we
23:06
want to follow somebody or we want to, you know, be led by
23:10
somebody that we feel is in deep embodiment.
23:13
We want to feel like we follow someone not just who has Forbes
23:17
or Medium or whatever type of magazine or you know, the Today
23:22
show on their site. We want to follow someone who
23:25
literally lives and breathes what their movement is, who
23:29
lives and breathes their authority.
23:31
And so just by having these, I want you to know is not going to
23:35
be enough to get people to actually want to listen to you.
23:38
It's not enough for people to feel like they want to follow
23:40
you in the sense of your mission and your movement.
23:43
And it's not enough, truthfully, to be seen as an authority in
23:46
your industry. Just having a number or a title
23:50
is not enough. And with this and the kind of
23:54
same vein of marketing is people that have these empty
23:58
positioning statements of like, I help, you know, X person do Y,
24:02
right? We all were taught this when we
24:04
first started our business. You got to have the I help
24:07
statement. What's the I help statement?
24:09
And that caught on like wildfire.
24:11
It was like everyone has to have the I help statement in their
24:13
bio. And why this is not really
24:16
something that's effective is #1 truthfully because everybody
24:20
does it. So if you are someone who feels
24:22
like you've had that I help statement in your bio for the
24:25
last, I don't know, three years, it's probably not the thing
24:29
that's making people actually want to hire you.
24:32
And with the ihelp statement or those classic ihelp pieces, the
24:38
thing that you're missing is you're missing insight and
24:40
you're missing evidence on why the problem actually exists.
24:44
So I want you to remember that authority is something that is
24:48
demonstrated by how you think about a certain problem, not
24:52
what you claim. OK, So this is like really,
24:56
really, really important. It is not about the fact that
25:00
you claim to solve a problem that's going to build authority
25:03
for you. It's about how you explain the
25:07
how of how you solve problems that's going to make you an
25:11
authority. So it's not about you claiming
25:14
I'm the person, it's about you showing the insights that
25:17
indirectly tell me you are the person.
25:20
OK, so you can't demand your authority in a room.
25:24
Your authority has to be learned.
25:26
It has to be perceived, it has to be felt.
25:29
So this is the thing that I think a lot of people miss the
25:31
mark on is like, we try these quick win strategies.
25:34
We try this. I'm going to post everywhere.
25:36
I'm going to get Forbes on my website or I'm going to be like,
25:39
I'm a expert at this in my bio. Putting that in your bio or
25:44
putting a professional bio on your website or having it in a
25:46
media kit, that's not actually the thing that's going to build
25:49
influence. The thing that build builds the
25:51
influence that you're looking for is a consistency of the
25:53
insight that you have in your daily deposits within your
25:56
marketing and your brand. And one of the things that will
26:00
instantly erode your authority that a lot of people often fall
26:05
into is that we have a lot of us this deep desire to be liked.
26:11
And so one of the things that I see people struggle with is that
26:15
they're not at a place where they have a comfort level with
26:18
being disliked. So we end up in this people
26:21
pleasing bucket of whatever people want I do or whatever
26:24
people are looking for, I create or whatever price they want, I'm
26:27
going to start to charge. What ends up happening is that
26:32
we are over explaining things. We are trying to be liked versus
26:37
actually be a leader. And even in marketing, we see
26:40
this a lot with people who are not comfortable with having a
26:42
polarizing opinion. And one of the lines that I tell
26:45
my clients all the time is no one is going to stand with you
26:49
if you don't actually stand for something.
26:52
And so many of us want to be the authority in our category.
26:55
We want to be a leader, but to be honest, all your marketing is
26:59
so vanilla. You don't stand for anything.
27:02
And then you're like, where's the people who are standing with
27:05
me in my movement? You don't stand for anything.
27:08
So if you don't stand for anything, how the heck am I
27:10
supposed to stand with you? So one of the things that I just
27:13
outlined for a client literally who just kicked off recently is
27:17
I said we need to establish like what actually are your brand
27:19
beliefs? Like what are those things that
27:22
you are willing to put a stake in the ground and say, this is
27:24
who we are? And transparently, if you're not
27:28
with this, then you're not with us because this is who we are
27:30
and what we stand for. Many people try to be liked by
27:35
everybody. They believe if I have a, a
27:37
neutral enough message, if I'm vanilla, then everybody will
27:41
probably in some way resonate with me.
27:43
But truthfully, the people that build the most leadership and
27:46
the people that build the most influence and authority are
27:49
those who are willing to stand for something.
27:51
They're willing to be polarizing.
27:52
They're willing to put a stake in the ground and say, I'm not
27:55
moving from here. So one of the things for me in
27:59
business is I believe in heart centered business.
28:02
I don't believe in like, you know, a bro marketing approach.
28:05
I don't believe you need to bully people on the Internet in
28:08
order to make a sale. So if you're somebody who loves
28:12
to bully people online as part of your scaling strategy, I'll
28:15
tell you right now, I'm not the coach for you.
28:17
I #1 won't permit it in my world.
28:20
And two, I'm not going to give you strategies that are rooted
28:23
in that. I'm just not going to do it.
28:24
So if that's something that is essential piece for you of
28:28
building your influence or your brand, you'll know that I'm
28:31
probably not the person you want to hire.
28:33
You may want to hire the louder coach.
28:35
You may want to hire the more aggressive coach.
28:37
You may want to hire the person who in fact does all that in
28:40
their marketing right now. So you need, in order to build
28:43
authority, you have to release this idea of people pleasing.
28:47
You have to be able to stand for something.
28:49
You got to put that stake in the ground and say, who am I and
28:51
what do I believe? And most importantly, you have
28:54
to be OK with other people not standing for that.
28:57
And so if we want to actually build authority, I would say
29:01
there's actually five ways that we're going to do this
29:03
effectively. And I want to 1st preface that
29:06
all the five that I'm about to explain to you, these are all
29:09
rooted in science backed approaches of why we follow
29:12
authority, not just in business, but in life.
29:15
And two, they're rooted in psychology of influence.
29:17
So these are principles that if you can master these within your
29:21
marketing, within your brand, within your clients, your team,
29:25
I can guarantee that in the next 6 to 12 months, you are going to
29:29
see a big shift in the way that your audience resonates with
29:32
you, the way your clients interact with you, and the way
29:35
that your team even interfaces with you.
29:38
And that's because we need, in order for people to really
29:42
follow us, to learn actually what makes us a leader and what
29:46
actually creates our authority with the group.
29:48
So without further ado, let's get to #1 Number one is pattern
29:51
recognition. So I literally have like all my
29:53
strategy notes here. So if you see me looking down,
29:55
that's why I'm like I this, as I said, we're getting to master
29:57
class territory today. So #1 pattern recognition,
30:02
remember I said before, when we have inconsistency within our
30:05
marketing, it creates doubt in people.
30:08
Pattern recognition is actually a root or a baseline fundamental
30:12
thing of building authority. And that is because when we see
30:17
repetition in something, we feel that it's reliable, OK?
30:21
So when we see repetition, we've got reliable.
30:24
And when someone is reliable to us, our brain interprets that
30:28
consistency as they are competent to lead.
30:32
OK, so I'm just going to go back to the front again, repetition
30:35
and message is what ultimately allows us to feel someone is
30:39
reliable, which then ultimately is what allows us to feel that
30:44
they are competent to lead us. So This is why when I said we
30:49
have to make sure that things are really consistent in our
30:52
message in our brand, This is why this is so important.
30:55
So what we wanna do is we wanna have topics that we discuss all
31:00
the time amongst our marketing. We wanna have recurring patterns
31:04
that we address as the core source of why your audience is
31:07
stuck. We wanna be able to explain why
31:11
problems exist. This is a big piece, OK, for
31:13
this bucket, many of us talk about education.
31:16
OK, So we talk about tips and tricks.
31:18
That was a huge thing years ago. If you just add value, if you
31:21
just teach people, they will follow you.
31:24
That's not actually what gets people to follow you.
31:26
What actually is going to get people to see you as an
31:28
authority is not you teaching them how to fix problems, it's
31:32
actually you giving insight on why the problems exist in the
31:35
1st place. This is a really simple switch
31:37
that you can make in your marketing.
31:39
It is not teaching people how to fix them, it is teaching them
31:42
how to understand and basically helping them to diagnose why
31:46
what is happening is happening. OK, so think about going to the
31:51
doctor or an emergency room, OK? It'd be easy for anybody in that
31:56
room when you are sick and you are feeling at your worst to
31:59
say, hey, take this medication. Do you just because someone
32:02
hands you a medication, trust that person?
32:04
No. But if that doctor comes in and
32:06
says, hey, OK, so I know your symptoms have been feeling like
32:09
ABCDI, want to kind of breakdown what's going on internally
32:12
within you. So bucket one, we're seeing
32:14
this, bucket 2, this is what's happening.
32:16
And bucket three, if we don't get this medication integrated,
32:19
here's what's going to be the impact.
32:21
Who do you trust? The person who broke down the
32:23
entire problem or just the person who handed you the
32:25
medication? The person that we put our trust
32:30
into, we put our energy into, the person we truly feel led by
32:34
is the person who's given us insight around our problem, not
32:37
just taught us how to fix it. And this is something that many
32:40
people, when we think about adding value, I tell people it's
32:43
not about teaching information, it's about giving insight.
32:47
OK, so that's the that's the contrast I want you to think
32:49
about. It's not about we're teaching
32:51
information anymore. We need to give insight to what
32:55
someone's problems are. And one of the things that is
32:58
really important is we do not want to go surface level.
33:03
OK, you're looking. Remember, I use that word
33:05
diagnose. I want you in your marketing to
33:07
speak to what is the root cause of what someone's experiencing.
33:12
So often times in my marketing, I'm kind of break the 4th wall
33:14
for you here. You're going to see that I will
33:17
break down and say, here's the root of what's going on.
33:20
So even today to break the 4th wall, I've done that.
33:22
I've said to you, hey, here are some things, there's some
33:26
insights I want to share and here's the root of what you're
33:28
doing. Here's the problem or the source
33:31
that you have of your problem when it comes to authority.
33:34
So I often the reason I give, you know, a lot.
33:36
And as I said, I really try to think about every single episode
33:39
as a master class is because I try to give insight.
33:44
If I just said go do this, go do this, go do this.
33:47
And I never gave you context as to what the problem was, where
33:51
it's coming from, and what the impact is of you not fixing it
33:54
or of you fixing it. You would never care about
33:57
anything I say because guess what?
33:59
It would just be more information.
34:01
It would just be more of a textbook being taught to you,
34:04
more of a three tips. The thing that allows something
34:08
to have impact is if you can actually add insight to the
34:11
problem, not just information on how to fix it.
34:14
So when you articulate what someone is experiencing before
34:19
they explain it, the brain of that person listening to you is
34:23
categorizing you as an expert. They're like, this person
34:26
clearly gets me because I've been doing all of this.
34:30
I've been experiencing all of this.
34:31
So there's this aspect of deep trust that you're building with
34:34
the person who's watching you or listening to you.
34:38
So you want to explain why problems are existing, not just
34:42
how to fix them. And here's the other piece.
34:45
We need to cut back on the expert language.
34:50
So one of the things that I always tell people is in your
34:52
marketing, when you try to sound smart, you're actually doing the
34:57
complete opposite. Because what you're doing by
35:00
trying to sound smart using complicated models, complicated
35:04
explanations or analogies, you're using complicated expert
35:07
language that you use within your team or in your industry.
35:11
And you're like, well, this is going to make me sound legit.
35:14
The thing that actually is going to make you sound legit is
35:17
taking something that is Uber complicated and simplifying it
35:21
so someone in grade 6 could understand it.
35:24
That's actually what is going to allow the message to land, to be
35:29
understood and to be integrated. What most people perceive as,
35:33
oh, if I use this complicated language, people are going to
35:35
finally listen to me. What you're actually doing is
35:38
you're making it 10 times harder for the person to even
35:41
understand what you're saying. And so then no one's getting the
35:43
message, no one's understanding the message.
35:45
And as a result, it's literally bouncing off of me and I'm not
35:48
absorbing any of it. Instead, people who have actual
35:52
authority and leadership don't feel an insecurity around
35:56
simplifying things. They know that if they simplify
35:59
something, then they're going to be able to impact more people
36:02
because my insight's going to be absorbed.
36:04
It's not going to be. What does that mean?
36:06
What is that analogy was that acronym stand for?
36:09
There's not confusion. Simplicity of message is also
36:13
something that allows you to scale your message.
36:16
And with this, simpler explanations are also going to
36:18
be perceived as higher authority because you're not putting
36:22
strain on the person listening to you.
36:24
Like nobody wants to listen or follow somebody or be led by
36:28
someone that they go, OK, like I didn't absorb any of that.
36:30
I'm going to have to come back to this later.
36:33
The thing that is the root of that though, is not having an
36:36
insecurity. That's really the thing that I
36:39
would say trips people up with this is they think, well, if I
36:41
don't use complicated language and if I don't use expert
36:44
language, are people going to see me as smart?
36:46
Are they going to see me as the expert?
36:47
Are they going to see me as influential within this
36:51
category? And the short answer to that is
36:54
yes. Let's go back to our analogy of
36:56
the doctor. If the doctor came in and
36:57
started using all these acronyms and talking about different
37:00
veins and levels of hormones in your body that you've never
37:03
heard of before, you're sitting there and you're thinking, don't
37:07
know what the heck this person just said to me.
37:08
If they say, hey, your brain has this really simple system that
37:12
does X and right now yours is not talking to each other.
37:17
That's very simplified language of something that you and I both
37:20
know probably has a ton more medical terms as to how that
37:23
person could explain it. But there's a reason that they
37:25
don't explain it in their terms, because we would never absorb,
37:28
which means we'd never actually take in the insights they're
37:31
sharing. So if you want to share things
37:33
and also have them absorbed, you have to simplify your message.
37:37
So the first one is all about pattern recognition, which is
37:41
that we need to have consistent patterns, consistent ways that
37:44
we talk about insights, consistent topics, we discuss
37:47
problems, we use simplified language, simple explanations.
37:51
It's really about the consistency of the message and
37:54
the simplification of the message.
37:56
Now, the thing that I would also say is going to be kind of a
38:01
bucket to kind of add on to this is consistency of perspective.
38:05
Nobody wants to be led by someone who feels like they do
38:08
have a change in their message all the time.
38:10
So generally speaking, one of the biggest predictors of
38:14
somebody being seen as credible, as if they are consistent,
38:16
meaning that they're not kind of switching which sides they're on
38:19
each day or each week. So I noted in behavioral
38:22
science, fluctuating signals are interpreted in our brains as
38:26
uncertain, low conviction, and someone is seen as an
38:30
opportunistic person. So even I watch marketers who do
38:34
this, I followed somebody and I was like, this is mind boggling.
38:37
Is anyone else picking up on this?
38:38
Like one day they're like, this is the way to scale.
38:42
And I was like, OK, great. And then two days later they
38:44
were like, never do that. This is the way to scale you.
38:47
If I put these two videos beside you, these two videos just
38:52
completely contradicted each other.
38:54
But this person is so opportunistic that it's just
38:58
like, whatever I can say to get someone activated today, I'm
39:00
gonna say that. And what we find is that a
39:04
consistent point of view is the thing that allows someone to
39:07
feel that you were predictable, as I said earlier, and that
39:10
predictability is safety. And so if we don't have that,
39:13
we're losing people. And so as soon as I saw this
39:16
person's marketing, I saw one video was like, you got to do
39:19
this. And then video to like literally
39:22
a couple days later, they must have someone helping with their
39:24
marketing. Because I was like any average
39:26
person would see the two that these are just completely
39:28
different. The other piece goes out and I'm
39:31
like, these are literally combating ideas.
39:34
So it was mind boggling to me that this person has any
39:37
influence because I was like, they don't realize they're
39:40
killing their brand by doing this.
39:42
People recognize that you're just saying what needs to be
39:44
said in the little micro moment with no actual perspective of
39:49
the macro lens of what do I stand for and who am I?
39:52
So you have to anchor to a set of core beliefs and you have to
39:56
repeat them across everything. I want to be clear here, this is
40:00
not just marketing. One of the other things that we
40:02
see is that someone will say something within their marketing
40:05
and they completely contradict that perspective once you hire
40:08
them. So, you know, someone will say,
40:11
oh, you know, don't do paid advertising that doesn't work or
40:15
don't do, you know, SEO that doesn't work in their marketing.
40:19
And then you get into their offer and you're like, hey,
40:21
we're going to help you to build out your SEO funnel.
40:24
What So like there's a there's a disconnect.
40:27
The congruency is essential. And I want to echo this is not
40:31
just in marketing, it's in everything.
40:32
It's making sure that what you say in your marketing is what
40:34
you say in sales. What you say in sales is what
40:37
you say in your offer. If you are breaking beliefs
40:40
between these different parts of the business, you are actually
40:42
breaking your authority every time that you do it.
40:45
So people trust leaders that they feel that they can
40:48
anticipate. You ever felt led by someone
40:51
maybe at a job or as I said, in sports, it could be anything.
40:54
And you kind of when you have a situation or a problem, you
40:57
almost perceive or you predict how you think they're going to
41:00
respond. If we can't predict what we
41:02
anticipate they're going to have as a response, we really don't
41:06
have a lot of trust in that leader.
41:07
One of the things that allows us to feel safe is predictability.
41:10
So you want to, as a result of this, really try to be conscious
41:15
of how you're using trends within your business.
41:18
OK. So I want to be very intentional
41:21
with this. I am not saying by any means
41:23
that you should not be doing trends in your business.
41:25
I think that trends have a place.
41:26
I think that they are effective. I think that they do in fact
41:29
work. But the problem I see with
41:32
people who leverage trends is that the trends are often times
41:36
again, taking that kind of like the quick win.
41:38
They're taking the quick moment that can get a a little boost of
41:42
a surge of momentum or surge of attention or a surge of
41:45
visibility. But they don't think about does
41:48
this trend actually go against what I stand for or does this
41:51
trend go against who I am? And so often times if we don't
41:55
cross reference that you're doing things for the quick win,
41:58
which are ultimately leading to long term detriment of your
42:01
brand and authority. So you want to be careful that
42:04
in moments of wanting more sales in your business, in moments of
42:08
wanting to generate more attention, wanting to generate
42:11
more momentum, that you're not just going always for that quick
42:14
win. Because if you do, you could be
42:16
actually, by doing so, literally eroding your own authority as we
42:20
speak. Now, the third is discernment
42:24
and boundaries, which is basically where this is kind of
42:27
the nerdy part of this, but social hierarchy research of
42:31
like how we actually categorize things in our brain basically
42:34
says that the ability to say no, being selective and not having
42:38
aspects of urgency are actually what are interpreted to be a
42:41
high status signal to our brains.
42:45
So if you've ever watched someone who's got really good
42:48
boundaries, you've got some, you've watched somebody that is
42:50
really intentional with their time, is really selective with
42:53
their energy, very like intentional about how they move
42:56
within either their life or business.
42:59
There is kind of this like unspoken respect.
43:01
You have that person because you see the way in which they
43:04
respect themselves. So high status people or high
43:07
authority people, they often do not need to convince and they
43:12
often don't need to make accommodations, always at the
43:14
beck and call of other people. They make really intentional
43:18
choices. So one of the things I would say
43:21
here is that they're not really into being super reactive.
43:24
People of authority are not, whatever you need, I do it and
43:27
whatever you say, I'll do it. And you know, I'm going to
43:30
convince this person. It's like, if this person
43:32
doesn't see my value, I'm unattached.
43:34
If this person demands this, but that's not going to work for me,
43:38
it doesn't work for me. They're really settled within
43:41
their conviction of themselves and their boundaries, their
43:44
energy. And they have a really strong
43:46
ability, frankly, to say no. And they're very selective with
43:49
the people that they're around, the clients they work with, the
43:53
things that they accept within their team.
43:55
Boundaries as a leader and as somebody of authority.
43:59
I want to be clear, boundaries are a power signal.
44:03
There's someone recently that I, I started following and it was
44:06
really interesting. I was kind of like as a consumer
44:08
evaluating it and as part of their process, they do not have
44:12
sales calls. You cannot automatically book a
44:14
call with them. Like there's a very selective
44:16
process. So what they do is you, you fill
44:19
out their application. Part 2 is you pay to apply to
44:23
their program, right? So it's probably like, you know,
44:25
a couple $1000 you pay to apply to their program and with that
44:29
then they review your application to see if you're a
44:31
good fit and they basically say, hey, we have a very limited
44:34
capacity of how many people we take on.
44:36
We'll see if you're a good fit and based off of that, we'll get
44:39
back to you. So it was interesting because I
44:41
when I was kind of thinking about it, I was like this aspect
44:44
of, you know, we're very selective with who we take on.
44:47
They are not urgent and getting back to you, you're not getting
44:49
like an instant 5 second book a call here.
44:52
There's an aspect of also kind of this, this lens of power
44:55
because you have to pay to apply to work with them.
44:59
Granted, that amount goes toward working with them, but still.
45:01
So you still have to pay to work with them.
45:03
And so when I was kind of stepping back and evaluating the
45:06
process, I thought, well done because there's this lens of
45:10
selective, non urgent high authority.
45:13
And even if you didn't know who they were, just even probably me
45:16
explaining this, you're thinking, OK, wow.
45:18
Like how who is this person that they feel like they can have?
45:21
This is their process, right? It kind of breaks our brain a
45:24
little bit. But what it does is it positions
45:27
them in a fantastic way as an authority.
45:30
And here's the thing, it wasn't like an arrogance thing.
45:33
All the the marketing is very nice.
45:35
It's very considerate. It educates you in the process.
45:38
It's not this, oh, you're not worth my time talking to.
45:41
They just explain why they're selective and how their process
45:44
works. And this is, you know, we're
45:45
very intentional with who we work with.
45:48
There was this deep respect that was explained in the process.
45:51
And so it was really interesting because what it did is the
45:55
enforcing of the boundaries of this business actually
45:59
truthfully created a really, really deep respect.
46:01
I instantly was like, I have deep respect for this person
46:04
because of the way in which they approached it.
46:06
So when you are selective with the clients that you work with,
46:10
when you are selective about the opportunities you take, when
46:13
you, you know, state, which is a big thing in marketing, who do
46:16
you work with and who are you not for?
46:19
It's the people who feel like they have to work or take on
46:23
anybody and everything that typically don't have a lot of
46:26
people who respect them. And that's simply because they
46:30
are open to everyone and everything.
46:31
There's no aspect of organization, there's no aspect
46:34
of being selective as to who therefore and who they're not.
46:38
And one of the things that I found even with this example of
46:41
this person that I saw, there was no over justification.
46:44
They didn't feel the need to over justify their process.
46:47
Over justify, you know, the steps that you have to take to
46:50
over justify why you need to pay and why this is important.
46:53
It was just like, hey, this is our process and we have this
46:57
process for the following reason.
46:58
If that doesn't work for you, we wish you all the best of luck
47:00
with your business. It was really respectful and was
47:03
short and sweet and it was confident and it was rooted in
47:07
like real conviction for how they do things.
47:09
So I would say when we have this aspect of being selective in our
47:13
business, selective with our energy, selective with our time,
47:17
selective with our boundaries, with the clients that we work
47:19
with, there is this deep perceived value of you as a
47:24
brand and you as a business. And as a result, there's this
47:27
really high perceived value with your leadership and with the
47:30
authority that you have in your space now #4 I would say out of
47:34
the five is probably something that I have the biggest issue
47:41
with when it comes to the way that people do authority.
47:46
And as a result, it's the biggest opportunity that you
47:49
have with authority in my opinion, which is the integrity
47:53
that you have after a sale. Because listen, in this online
47:58
world, we have a lot of narrative and a lot of
48:01
conversations around messaging and marketing and content and
48:05
say this to get people to move. There's a lot of conversation
48:07
around that. And obviously it's very
48:10
valuable. Marketing is a really important
48:11
part of online business. But one of the things that
48:15
people from like a psychology perspective is really important
48:18
is expectation confirmation theory, which is a big word that
48:22
is not super important for you to remember or memorize.
48:25
Ultimately is a matter of trust is strengthened when these three
48:29
things happen #1 your experience matches the expectation of the
48:34
experience you had. Two people are consistently
48:38
showing up the way that you expected under pressure, and 3rd
48:43
standards are upheld even when it's uncomfortable.
48:46
OK, so this is really the basis of integrity.
48:51
Authority is reinforced when people experience what I was
48:55
promised is what I received. And authority collapses when
48:59
leaders overcompensate. They blur boundaries or there's
49:03
a mismatch between the messaging and what the delivery was.
49:08
Expectations are not consistent or they're not consistently
49:11
upheld. And as a result, it's all over
49:14
the place. OK, I, I'm trying to think how,
49:19
how I can, how I can talk about this in a concise way.
49:23
I had somebody that I, I knew in the online world and there was
49:26
some big bold claims within the marketing.
49:31
And then I start to hear these stories from others in the
49:34
industry of the delivery. And it was like in the
49:38
marketing, you know, we're going to help you do this and you're
49:41
going to get here and you're going to achieve X.
49:44
And then here I am literally having conversations with people
49:47
who are inside the offer and they're like, none of that could
49:50
be further from the truth. Like this person's like, I'm in
49:53
it with you and like I, you know, get into it with you.
49:56
And I'm right, right on the front lines with you kind of
49:59
thing in your business. And then this person was like, I
50:01
got passed off to somebody and I've never talked to that person
50:03
in the last like 6 months. So there was a massive
50:07
disconnect between what was being said in marketing and what
50:11
was happening inside the offer and the crazy pieces that this
50:16
person was literally earning through clients, burning
50:20
through, you know, people in their world because they were
50:23
just literally saying anything and everything in their
50:26
marketing. But then the people inside were
50:28
like, wait a second, this is what we were promised.
50:30
And we're definitely not getting this promise.
50:32
So we were promised support. We're not getting support.
50:34
We were promised massive quick wins and these like quick
50:38
momentum in the surge of of, you know, cash, for example, or the
50:42
surge of scaling, but that's not really happening.
50:44
We were promised customization, everything is a blueprint.
50:47
So there was this deep disconnect.
50:50
And So what ended up happening is literally the people that I
50:52
ended up speaking to, which is very sad, to be honest, felt
50:56
like there was a a bait and switch.
50:57
And so over time, while maybe in forward facing marketing, people
51:02
perceived this individual to be an authority in their category,
51:06
as soon as someone got into the world of what they actually did,
51:10
it all started to dissolve. It all started to basically die.
51:13
And that was because there was such an incongruency between
51:16
what this person said and what they actually did.
51:19
And so, you know, it's sad because if this person had said
51:25
this in marketing and actually upheld this within their
51:28
delivery, actually upheld this within what they do with their
51:32
clients, they would have insane. They would take over their
51:35
category. There's no question.
51:36
Because like not only are they claiming this, but they're
51:38
actually doing it. They're actually showing up in
51:41
that way and they're actually providing that service.
51:44
So the thing that I would say is, is something I want you to
51:47
really assess is do you feel or what level of confidence do you
51:52
have that your marketing and what it is that you put out
51:55
actually is congruent with your service?
51:58
And I think that this is a, it is a hard one for a lot of
52:00
people to acknowledge because sometimes brands are
52:06
unintentionally putting things in marketing or kind of having
52:09
these claims out or, or saying certain things because they're
52:12
like, this is what works in our marketing.
52:13
And it may work in your marketing, but if you don't
52:15
actually follow through with it, you're doing a lot more damage
52:19
than you might think. And that is because we know that
52:22
when someone invests in someone and you know, they're
52:26
underwhelmed. So I had another peer of mine,
52:28
she invested in somebody and or she was thinking about investing
52:31
with somebody. And I said to her, you know,
52:33
just make sure you do your research because I was like, I
52:34
don't want to ever speak badly about somebody, But I said, just
52:37
make sure you do your research. Go in making us an educated
52:40
investment. And you know, she did for like
52:45
30 seconds. And so she went in and she went
52:48
to go invest with this person. And she's like, yeah, yeah.
52:50
I like looked at the website, I looked at this and I said, well,
52:52
I would do a little bit more, you know, investigation than
52:54
that. I think I would go a little bit
52:55
deeper. But she was so excited to buy
52:58
that she was like, you know, no, I think I think I was going to
53:00
do it like they they said X this time in their marketing.
53:03
Like obviously that's what they do.
53:04
So anyway, I catch up with her like a year later.
53:06
And she was like, I also want to say like, I was so wrong and you
53:10
were so right. I really should have done more
53:13
homework. She was like, now that I look
53:14
back, there were so many glaring signs that I probably, this was
53:19
not the right investment for me. And I made that investment
53:22
anyways. And so it's hard because if you
53:25
don't do the research of congruency.
53:27
And what I mean by that is like if you're investing, for
53:30
example, ask to talk to that person's clients.
53:32
Ask to, you know, look at how they worked with an industry
53:35
like yours. Ask the critical questions, get
53:38
the information to really make an educated choice because
53:41
sometimes there is that incongruency between what's in
53:44
marketing and what's in delivery.
53:46
And if we don't do our own investigation, we might be
53:48
investing in businesses or brands that have that same
53:51
inconsistency. And it's also an opportunity for
53:53
you to reflect. Do you feel that there's
53:55
anything that maybe you've been saying or doing in the front
53:58
that hasn't been fulfilled in the back?
53:59
And so that's just something for you to kind of reflect on an
54:02
audit. The last is going to be your
54:05
credibility signals, which really are, I would say, mental
54:09
shortcuts. So an easy way that I would
54:14
reference this is what I consider to be borrowed
54:16
authority. So this is actually something I
54:18
recommend quite a bit to people who are building their authority
54:20
right now is to borrow it. So OK, you'll even see
54:24
potentially in marketing people who will have like a Gary Vee
54:28
video and then they'll stitch it with their opinion.
54:31
What they're doing when they do that to break the break the 4th
54:34
wall is that they're borrowing the authority of Gary Vee and
54:38
they're piggybacking their insights on the back of it.
54:41
The reason that that works is because if you basically trust
54:44
Gary Vee and this person adds value to Gary Vee's clip,
54:47
they're leveraging the authority of Gary Vee in that video.
54:52
Another example would be, you know, for me, even in this
54:54
podcast, I'll break the 4th wall for you.
54:56
I oftentimes will in some episodes discuss stats.
55:00
So if there's a topic that I want to talk about that I'm
55:03
like, I really need to hammer home for people how important
55:05
this is or how prevalent this is, what I'll do is I will
55:09
literally get stats and I will research how relevant something
55:13
is so that if I say, you know, this is a big problem.
55:16
So I had an episode way back when that I did about
55:20
friendships and like the the loneliness epidemic that we have
55:23
right now. And so it's one thing for me to
55:25
sit here and say, you know, oh, we have a loneliness epidemic.
55:29
People are like, OK, how do you know?
55:31
Or like, how, how significant is it?
55:34
If I say, you know, I just listened to a podcast the other
55:37
day. I don't exactly know what the
55:38
source is to be full transparency.
55:40
But they were talking about how 40% of all individuals will be
55:44
single, choosing to be single and childless within the next
55:47
decade, which is crazy. But if I'm talking about
55:51
relationships, or I'm talking about being single, or I'm
55:53
talking about starting a family in an episode, and I give you
55:56
that stat #1 that's not my stat. It's pulled from somewhere else.
56:00
But what it's doing is it instantly gives credibility to
56:03
what I'm sharing or the perspective that I have or the
56:05
lens that I'm taking. So one of the things that I
56:08
really believe in is borrowed authority, which means you can
56:11
pull from people, you can pull from other platforms, you can
56:14
pull from other perspectives, and use that to support the
56:18
point that you're trying to make.
56:19
Especially if you think that the thing that you're talking about
56:22
is not necessarily something that people automatically see
56:25
you as an authority in. So even to this day, I've been
56:29
doing this for the last seven years of my business, even to
56:31
this day, I always am borrowing authority, which basically is,
56:36
is there a source that I can get or is there another, you know,
56:39
person that I know my audience trusts or that I know my
56:43
audience would appreciate that I can borrow their perspective.
56:48
I can borrow that information and I can add my own information
56:51
on to it to further support my point.
56:53
This is something that I would say a lot of people don't
56:56
leverage enough. But if you do, it's a very easy
56:59
way to shortcut authority because we have our trust in
57:04
certain sources. We have our trust in certain
57:05
people, in certain platforms, in certain, you know, publications.
57:10
So again, if I'm recording an episode and I say, you know,
57:12
Forbes did a study on this, you might not trust what I say about
57:16
that topic. But if I say Forbes did a study
57:18
to back up the point that I made, you're like, oh, I didn't
57:21
know that. And so now there's this aspect
57:23
of, of trust. So you can cite or you can refer
57:28
to other peers, other public publications, other sources that
57:32
are respected. You want to use basically proof.
57:35
So I use other platforms to transfer trust.
57:38
I use social proof to transfer transfer trust.
57:41
And ultimately, a lot of us have the ability, if we borrow
57:46
authority from other people, to use that as a tool while we
57:50
build our own authority. So if you have a lot of points
57:53
that you're trying to make and you're like, well, who's going
57:54
to listen to me on this topic? Go research it.
57:56
Go find somebody else of a person or a platform or
58:00
publication who has already discussed this that you know,
58:03
your audience would respect and pull information to support your
58:06
point. It's a really easy way that I've
58:07
been doing for multiple years and it works very, very well.
58:10
What I hope you take from today is that authority is not
58:14
something that that is just a, a title on your website is not
58:18
just something that you put in your bio.
58:20
I, if I could distill it down. Authority is built over the
58:23
daily deposits and practices of how you're showing up in your
58:26
business. It's, you know, something that
58:29
you can do within your brand and marketing.
58:31
It's something that happens in your sales process.
58:33
It's something that happens in your delivery.
58:35
It happens with your team. It happens in little micro
58:39
moments. Authority is not something that
58:42
you claim. It is something that you build.
58:45
And one thing that I hope is that with these different things
58:49
we discussed today, you can, number one, understand why
58:52
focusing on building authority is actually a very important
58:54
piece. As we talked about earlier, it
58:55
really does impact your business and it creates this flow and
58:59
this ease and this surrender of those in your world.
59:03
Surrender from your team that will follow your lead.
59:06
Surrender in the sales process of people respecting your
59:09
process and your prices. Surrendering your marketing of
59:12
people wanting to actually be led by you because you are a
59:15
thought leader. These are things that if you
59:18
want to feel more ease and flow in your business, we need to
59:20
care about. But the most important thing is
59:22
that we're doing it right, That we're not just, you know,
59:26
putting a, a random, you know, article or something like that
59:30
on our website and thinking, boom, I've done authority.
59:32
I want you to think of authority almost similar to that of
59:35
marketing or that of sales. This is something that you
59:37
should be integrating into your world and into your execution
59:41
every single week because it is literally like planting a seed.
59:45
It's going to need to be nurtured.
59:48
It's not something you do overnight, but if you do focus
59:50
on this, I can guarantee you, you will start to see those
59:53
benefits in six months or in 12 months.
59:56
And most importantly, you're going to see these greatly
59:59
impact things when you look up, you know, a year, 2 years, three
1:00:02
years down the road. The authority I have today, the
1:00:05
prices that I charge, the way my marketing activates, the the
1:00:08
things that happen inside my offer are not the same as they
1:00:11
were when I first started. The experience of my business
1:00:14
has greatly changed because of the intentionality that I've put
1:00:18
in to building authority overtime.
1:00:21
And so I want to invite you to maybe even just take one thing
1:00:24
from today. Maybe there's one thing you want
1:00:25
to reflect on, there's something you want to audit, maybe there's
1:00:28
something you want to integrate into your business.
1:00:30
So by no means you have to take this whole aspect of information
1:00:34
and do 15 things today. Just focus on one, take one
1:00:37
piece and say, you know what, I'm going to create a piece of
1:00:39
marketing this week that borrows authority or I'm going to, you
1:00:43
know, audit my marketing this week to ensure that my message
1:00:46
is consistent and that my perspectives are consistent.
1:00:49
These are just small actions that you can take.
1:00:52
And with taking those overtime, you're going to see a big shift
1:00:55
in your authority in your business and online in general.
1:00:58
So with that being said, I hope today was helpful.
1:01:00
Of course, as always, I always love hearing from you.
1:01:03
So if there is any questions that you have about authority or
1:01:05
maybe even there's something that I said today or a
1:01:07
perspective or one of the five categories that you feel really
1:01:11
landed for you, whatever your insights, questions or shares,
1:01:14
feel free as always to reach out to me on Instagram.
1:01:16
I love connecting with you guys and having conversations about
1:01:18
what's landing in the aha moments and light bulbs.
1:01:21
But with all that being said, we will see you on next week's
1:01:23
episode. And, as always, stay ambitious.