Building Authority in Your Niche: The Power of Connections, Content and Interviews

We all are experts in our areas, and the best way to build authority, we think, is by going more on camera, sharing what we know, and sharing courses.

But let me tell you a secret!

The secret to building authority is interviewing people with a bigger audience than you, whom your target audience respects. 

You will get better reach if you make videos with people your target audience respects.

The people who speak better have more authority.

Focus on Providing Value

1440 is the most important number in the world because that is how many minutes you have in a day. Whether you are a newer agency or business, ensure that the minutes you spend are toward your goals.

You should focus on spending your time on what you are good at and then work on it to provide the most value. 

For example, if you want to be a speaker, start creating content/videos about it and make enough videos to use the Dollar A Day strategy to get those videos in front of people that you could use to leverage your speaking engagements. So that way, you will have exposure in your niche, and you will be sharing your value.

How to Build Authority

When you put yourself around the right people, go to suitable events, make the right connections, get the right people interviewed, or start making enough content to get it in front of the right people, you can get results.

What Is the Biggest Thing Many People Struggle With When They Start an Agency?

The biggest challenge you struggle to begin with is understanding and getting comfortable with the things you naturally are good at and the things required to start a business.

When we start, many of us wear many hats, so we need to figure out how to disconnect emotionally from the things we started with. It is your business, your baby. You want it to grow, leaping and hiring people to do something. So getting VA is essential.

• Identify the things you could do yourself.
• Identify things that you need help with — so you can hire people.

Inception Model to Build Authority

Inception is whoever I want to buy; I’m trying to influence the people they respect. And if I have enough content with people they respect organically, then the underlying audience will buy from me. 

The key concept, point of inception, is not that I provide direct mail. Inception is you plant that idea in your audience’s head. Inception is one level further than that.

But how do you play one level deeper?

• Find people you can make content with so that you can communicate what you do in a much stronger way without you ever needing to say it.
• Edify other people and use them as a bridge to build more authority.

Gather Your Topic Wheel

There is a concept of a topic wheel, where you are the hub and the center of what you are selling, and the spokes connecting the wheel provide the power. These are connecting topics.

Think about your audience and how they perceive your brand: What topics could your brand post about that resonate with your audience but be relevant and unique simultaneously?

Many people think, well, this is just business. I help publishers drive more leads to Facebook ads.

Maybe that’s what you do, but you must be clear on your why, how, and what, which are three concentric rings of the topic wheel. People buy based on why.

People are more likely to buy from someone with a story or mission they identify with. The best way to share your stories or mission engagingly is through a WHY video so your audience can connect with you. So you should look at people who are more successful in your niche, the LIGHTHOUSES, as it will confer authority on you.

Your Content Should Relate to What You Do

Your content should directly relate to what you do, as 70-80% of the content you see from the people you respect in your industry is about things that are not directly related to what they do.

Why is 70-80% of the content not related? Are they wasting their time?

It is because they are trying to connect with the audience. If 80% of your content is not directly related to something you do, should you create content like the food you ate, the picture of a flower outside, or talk about random things?

Yes, you should.

How to Approach High Authority People

Go to events, be present, and have a human connection.

You have people who don’t speak perfect English and scale a 7-figure agency because they are interviewing other people. 

So reach out to them and say I have podcasts and want to interview you. I will make the best use of your time and guarantee 100k views. That’s it.

When you approach high authority people and ask questions, they give five to six minutes of golden words. So find some questions that will feed your audience some value.

Getting people who charge more than 100,000 dollars is a little more challenging, but you can get one level below them.

Have you considered who you want to approach and who could be your LIGHTHOUSE? Who would you like to have on your website?

You might have all sorts of reasons and excuses about my website is not ready yet. And people are not willing to talk to me. You might say I do not have Dennis’s network and don’t know how to interview high-authority people. Dennis is a well-known speaker. It is easy for him to walk down.

It is not even necessary. All you need to do is reach out and say Hi.

Talk to People Who Know How to Network

Co-create content with other people, record the zoom meeting and one-minute video with others. Then repurpose it with the help of your VAs into blog posts, YouTube videos, press releases, TikTok, and Instagram.

The beauty is when you co-create content with highly authoritative people, you do not need to have any expertise.

Do I have expertise in email boxing? I am not known for that. It Is the perception that all these people with high authority are hard to approach.

But in the events, you see that they are just like you. They will give you information for free. 

Have a Podcast

So you need to have a podcast. People think there is a lot of effort going on in podcasts. No, you don’t have to be on apple podcasts or Google podcasts. You only need an iPhone to interview them, record videos, and then have your VA edit them. 

My friend Qasim has the number 1 google ads agency and told me that when you make a YouTube video every day for 90 days, YouTube begins to suggest your video. When he started, he had zero subscribers, but then he got a million views on his podcast. Google reached out to him and wanted to make a video with him. 

He learned two things from Evan Carmichael;

• All videos have to be over 10 minutes

• You need a 70% retention rate at one minute

So don’t think that the podcast is worthless.