🤔 Interested in becoming the go-to expert in your industry?

👌 Looking for practical actions you can take to build your influence and authority?

👇 In this article, I’ll break down what influence is and specific actions you can take to build your influence, plus best practice examples.

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What Is Influence?

There are lots of fancy ways you can define ‘influence’, but I like to keep it simple. Your influence is a metric used to decipher how many people you can get to take a certain action.

Here are 2 key components that contribute to how influential a person is (IMO);

1. How many people they can get to take a certain action

2. What the value is of the action being taken

Building influence takes time. Don’t kid yourself by thinking reading this article and taking action will instantly blow up your influence, it won’t. However, if you consistently implement the actions below over a period of time, your influence will grow. Be patient.

10 Ways To Build Your Influence & Authority From Scratch

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #1[/highlight] Invest In Becoming Great At What You Do

Lots of people focus so much on becoming influential, that they forget that the backbone to influence is being exceptionally good at something. Whether that’s making cakes, or playing chess, the most important thing you can focus on when building your influence is becoming the best at what you do.

Best Practice Example

There are lots of examples of people who have worked hard to achieve some incredible things. This ‘people are awesome’ video sums this up pretty well.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #2[/highlight] Learn How To Distribute Your Talent

Being great at what you do is crucial, but if you don’t know how to get enough people to see your talent, you’re buggered. You need to figure out where people who are interested in what you do, go to watch people like you, do what you do.

This is why having an understanding of how to use social media is so powerful. Millions of people are spending hours a day on social media watching people like you, do what you do.

It’s not just social media though, they may go to live events, watch TV, listen to Podcasts, read books. Learn where they consume information and then learn how to effectively distribute your talent in the places where their attention is focused.

Best Practice Example

Someone who really stands out to me as truly knowing how to distribute their talent is James Smith. His rise to fame has been down to his ability to understand what his audience want to see on social media and then delivering exactly that in a unique way.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #3[/highlight] Provide The Most Value With Your Content

‘Providing value’ is thrown around a lot, but it’s vital if you want people to give a sh*t about what you have to say. As humans, we’re constantly looking to fulfil some kind of desire/need. That could be being entertained at a football match, watching YouTube videos to learn how to fix your garage door or listening to a parenting Podcast to learn how to be a great parent.

If you want to build your influence, you need to become the go-to person who fulfils the need of your audience. The way you do that is by giving them more than everyone else. More tips, more detail, more laughs, more crys, more insight, more variety, more skills.

Best Practice Example

Brian Dean from Backlinko is someone who goes over and above to create content that provides more value than anyone else when it comes to SEO. The detail he goes into on his blog is insane.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #4[/highlight] Answer People’s Questions Online

Building relationships is another important factor when it comes to building your influence. What can you do to make people ‘care’ about you? One simple, yet highly effective action you can take from scratch, is to start investing time in helping others for free.

Start answering people who are asking questions about what you are great at online. You can find people asking these questions by simply searching the right keywords in social media search, or forum pages like Reddit, or Quora.

Best Practice Example

The cliché example that comes to mind is The #AskGaryVee Show. Did you know I was featured on episode 230?

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #5[/highlight] Position Yourself As Influential

I hate the whole idea around ‘fake it til you make it’. This isn’t that. This is positioning yourself with your best foot forward, in an authentic way. Think the media and copy on your social media bios, your website, your Google My Business, your ads, your Marketing etc.

If you are a complete beginner, add ‘aspiring’ to the front of what it is you’re aiming to grow your influence around.

Best Practice Example

Someone who I think does a great job of positioning themselves as influential is Nicole Bremner. Just take a look at her social media bios, content and especially her Instagram. Nicole oozes influence.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #6[/highlight] Build A Community

As humans we’ve evolved to want to be part of a community. Building a platform where others interested in what you are good at can go to meet like-minded people is a great way to build your influence.

You ultimately have control of what the community see and the direction it goes in. This could be a Facebook group, event, meetup, WhatsApp group etc.

Best Practice Example

Andrew & Pete are prime examples of effective community builders. The go above and beyond to serve their community and the power of this was demonstrated when they sold out their first event: Atomicon.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #7[/highlight] Implement The 3 Authority Questions

The key to getting attention is to build authority and there are 3 key areas you need to focus on when building authority through your content;

1. Who’s saying it?

2. Where is it being said?

3. What you are saying?

Best Practice Example

I discovered an amazing video this week from Dennis Yu which talks about these three key components in detail. Watch the video and connect with Dennis, you won’t regret it.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #8[/highlight] Collaborate With Other Influential People

Influencer Marketing works so well because it is a fast-track approach to gaining the trust of audiences you want to reach at scale. If someone you already trust tells you to do something, you’d be way more likely to do it than if someone you have never seen before asks you.

A great way to implement this is to collaborate with other people who already have an influence over your audience. This could be interviewing them on a podcast, creating an interesting video with them or getting them on a panel at your event.

Best Practice Example

Ai Addyson-Zhang stands out to me as someone who has worked incredibly hard to collaborate with some amazing people on her Facebook live show. It’s been a joy to watch her personal development and she is the collaboration queen.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #9[/highlight] Start Public Speaking

Most people watch videos on platforms like Facebook for under 5 seconds before scrolling, it’s incredibly difficult to captivate enough of their attention to communicate your message. Imagine if you had 1,000 people in a room listening to your every word for 40 minutes. Pretty powerful right?

That’s exactly what happens when you speak at an event, you have a captive audience. It’s an incredible opportunity to educate, entertain and inspire them, ultimately building your influence and authority when done well.

Best Practice Example

I can’t help but share one of my favourite public speakers (and people) here. Introducing you to the lovely Janet Murray.

[highlight background=”#FFFBCC” color=”#ed1d2b”]Strategy #10[/highlight] Become A Contributor

Becoming a contributor for a credible publication is another way to ‘hijack’ the influence and audience someone else has already built to help build your own influence.

Best Practice Example

I met Charlie Lawrence online a year or so ago, but finally got to meet him at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego in March this year. He writes some incredible articles for Social Media Examiner which have really helped build is influence.

Over To You

Are you willing to take action, start building your influence and stay patient? Most people aren’t. Don’t be like most people.