What’s your influence strategy?

Your reputation depends on what other people say and write about you.  If you have a good reputation, it means you’re doing something right.  But what happens if your reputation is good, but is almost a trade secret?

Lots of people do a great job for their customers, but only those customers know about it.  The problem is that people expect good service, so they only talk about it if it falls short of expectations.  The stats used to be that you told 5 people about an exceptional experience and around 20 about a bad experience.  With social media, the potential is to tell thousands about a bad experience – and it’s not ‘news’ if you’ve had a good experience, unless it was mind-blowing!

While we’d all like to be known for exceptional service, the truth is that people are amazed at first, then accept it as the norm, so talk about it less.

To expand the community that know how good you are, you need a strategy to influence more people.

What to include in your strategy

Know your audience.  Sharing information randomly, will be a long, uphill struggle.  If you know who you’re trying to reach and know what they’re reading, where they’re active online and what they’re interested in, everything you do will be much more likely to hit the target.

Get the testimonial habit!  Ask customers to give you feedback – ideally when they’re happiest – and always ask for permission to publish.  Put them on your website, use them on social media, add them to your marketing material.

TIP:  Always ask the customer what their outcomes were, this is the most powerful part of any testimonial.

Be visible.  This might be on social media, at local networking groups, or in online communities.  If nobody knows you’re there, they can’t enquire about your products or services.

TIP: Put time in your diary to maintain consistent activity in your chosen places.

Share your expertise:  Showing off your knowledge and expertise is an excellent way to influence people.  You can do this on your blog, on social media, in articles for selected publications, through lead magnets and in your networking presentations.

TIP: Have a plan for at least a few months, ideally a year ahead.  What will your subjects be and what will you share about them?

Have a punchy and memorable answer.  When people ask ‘What do you do?’, don’t answer with your industry.  Create a one liner that is different and helps the question asker to remember you.  For instance, I use a couple of different ones:

I help people to RAVE about you.  RAVE stands for Reputation, Authority, Visibility and Expertise.  Does your marketing tick all four of those boxes?

I have a magic keyboard that creates compelling copy and a talented team who manage all your content marketing.  When would be a good time for us to talk?

These took time to develop, so invest some time on creating something that really grabs attention and interest.

TIP:  When you’ve got your one-liner written down, practise saying out loud over and over, until it’s automatic and you don’t have to think about it.  Then it will emerge smoothly the next time the question is asked.

There are many more things you can add to your influence strategy – but these will get you started!

Leverage your blog posts

If you write regularly for your blog, you’ll be generating a wealth of information around your area of expertise.  If you’re running a business and understand the power of marketing you probably also create social media posts, newsletters, and, possibly, YouTube videos, a podcast, a lead funnel and even email campaigns.

It all sits under the heading of content marketing.  And it means you have to write a lot!

But if you already write a blog, most of these other things can be extrapolated from your original blog posts.  This is how we do it for our own marketing and for our clients.

Social media posts:  Take one line quotes from your blog post and use it on social media to intrigue and engage potential readers, then add the hashtags and link to your blog.  Sometimes I have to edit a bit to make a line work as a stand-alone, but that takes a moment!  From one blog post you might get five or more social media posts.

Newsletters:  Nobody reads newsletters that are literally your news.  They’re not interested in what you do (or have done), but they are interested in what they get.  That means you need to lead with an article that has value.  Your blog posts are perfect.  Maybe not the whole article, but the first 3-4 paragraphs, with a ‘read more’ button linked to your blog.  It will improve your newsletter open rates and people visiting your website

YouTube video: If you use a platform such as Invideo.io you can drop in your blog article and it will create a whole video for you.  Or you could simply do a talking head video and narrate it using an autocue on your screen, so you stay looking into the camera.

Podcast: This is even easier than video as you don’t have to tidy your hair or smile at the camera!  You can use an app, such as Anchor to create your podcast.  Find some royalty free music for your intro and outro (or persuade a musician you know to create something original for you) and graphics to represent your brand.  Once it’s set up, you simply upload to your chosen platforms.

Lead funnel: Building your list is a valuable way to grow a community of people who have actually told you they’re interested.  If you nurture them well, they’ll turn into customers.  A lead funnel is the most effective way to do this.  You offer something that is of specific interest to your ideal customer, your lead magnet – free of charge – and they provide their name and email in order to get it.  Usually this is a report or document that is available as a download from your website.  With a bank of blogs to draw upon, you can edit three or four blogs on one subject into a valuable report or guide that will help the reader.  However, remember that your lead magnet is only the first level of your funnel.  There will be other elements to build.

Email campaigns: Nurturing your list keeps them interested.  A newsletter will help, but if you want to promote a specific product or service, an email campaign that includes something of value as well as your promotion works better than just a sales pitch.  Draw on your blogs for relevant tips to lead each email with.

And don’t forget you can also post your blog as an article on your LinkedIn profile in its entirety and many community networks have opportunities to post member’s blogs too.

Reasons not to be an author

If you run a business, train people, are a consultant or a speaker, having a book with your name on the cover as author sets you apart from your competitors.  It positions you as an authority and extends your reach dramatically.

I was taught that there were two types of people – those that take action and those that, faced with an opportunity, come up with lots of reasons why not!  If you’ve thought about writing a book and haven’t yet done it, you’ve probably had a load of reasons why not occur to you – and your subconscious is very good at coming up with rational excuses.  Here are some of the most common:

Don’t know where to start

There’s a lot more to writing a book than simply having an idea and typing 40,000 words.  If you want a successful book, doing your preparation pays dividends – not least in putting together the whole plan from idea to achieving best-seller status.

However, there are resources available to help you.  Some are expensive, some are free and there are plenty of options in between.  If you want to learn more about any subject, you invest in training.  If you want to get started at zero cost check this out.

If you’re worrying about sitting in front of your screen and suffering from blank page syndrome – that rarely happens with a well-planned non-fiction book.  You have a skeleton to guide you, all you have to do is flesh it out.  (Fiction is a different animal – and that’s an article for another time!)

Not enough time

Time is one of those dichotomies – everyone has the same 24 hours every day, but some people manage to stuff a mass of activity into each day and others arrive at bedtime wondering where the time went!

I think the answer is using a calendar or diary effectively.  Book time – or appointments with yourself – to get specific tasks done.  It allows you to tell people who want your time “I’m sorry, but I already have an appointment then.”  Most people are happy to pick another time when you’re free.

If you’re serious about writing a book, you’ll find the time – even if that means swapping time sat on the sofa watching TV for an hour developing your book.

Nobody will be interested

In our businesses we all have expert knowledge – and, while there may be books already covering your specialist subject, it’s your unique take on the subject that will make your book different to all the others.

The plus about this as that most people who are interested in a subject buy more than one book about it – usually several.

There’s a big difference between ‘not interested’ and ‘not aware’.  Part of your job in developing a book is to identify your target audience and then ensure they know about your book.

Writing isn’t my thing

Writing a non-fiction book is more about sharing your knowledge, experience and expertise.  You don’t have to be a great writer – but you do have to have a good plan and a great editor.

If you prepare properly you won’t struggle to assemble your thoughts on each chapter as you’ll have a plan and know where you’re going.

It doesn’t matter if your spelling, grammar and punctuation are a bit sketchy, that’s your editor’s job to tidy things up.  A good editor will ensure that your manuscript is easily accessible for the reader with nothing that diverts their attention from the content.

I’ve heard it’s difficult to get a publishing contract

Part of the process of creating a book is understanding the different types of publishing.  If you aim to get a contract with a publishing house, you need to know how to do that – and what you get in the way of services and payment.  However, it’s far from the only route to getting published – there are several other options, all with different costs, different services and different rewards.

So – are you ready to take action, or are you already coming up with more reasons why not?