Building Visibility and Influence Without Being an Influencer

Welcome And The Big Question

Eric Dickmann 0:01

Welcome to Beyond Expertise, a podcast about identity reinvention for professionals ready to explore who they are beyond their titles and careers. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann. Let's get ready to go beyond expertise Today I wanna talk about becoming an influencer and I say this because, as a lot of my listeners know, this show is really focused on your next chapter, what you do when you develop and accumulate some expertise working in a more corporate business environment, and then decide to do something different, to take control of your life in a different way, to be your true and authentic self, to live by your own set of values outside the umbrella of a corporate world that you may have spent many years in. And I think one of the things that scares a lot of people is: how is my expertise going to be seen once I'm outside this corporate infrastructure that has supported me throughout my career?

Life Without Marketing And PR

Eric Dickmann 1:12

When you become independent, you don't have a marketing department, a PR department. You don't have a sales team. You're all of those things. You are everything in your company. While many of those things are truly exciting and you get a chance to learn and be hands-on in a business in a way that maybe you never have before, a lot of it is also scary because we are not all experts. We are not all even competent at certain things that are required to become a successful independent business person. And one of the things that I think many people struggle with, because I hear this all the time, is how do they present themselves online? You know, people of a certain generation are extremely comfortable online, maybe too comfortable. They share the most personal, intimate details of their lives online daily, oftentimes multiple times during the day. All you need to go-- do is go anywhere in public, and you will see people glued to their phones, taking selfies, recording videos. But for a lot of people, that's just not how we grew up. While we may be comfortable with technology, we're not as comfortable putting ourselves out there in a way that many younger people wouldn't even think twice about. But in today's world, we need to have the visibility in order to generate new business, to develop those new network connections, to build the business relationships that we need to have as you build out a new business. And so I just want to acknowledge today that that's pretty scary for a lot of people that I talk to. They simply don't know how to do it.

Replacing Corporate Identity With Clarity

Eric Dickmann 3:07

And I think part of it goes back to a show that I did previously, which is around our corporate identities and how much our titles and our status within an organization has defined who we are. And once we get rid of that and we do something new, something independently, we're trying to build a business of our own, all of a sudden those titles, that status, the company umbrella that we were under, that we were able to hitch a ride on, whatever perception people had about that company in the marketplace, all of that is gone. And now you have to put a stake in the ground and say, "This is who I am. These are my values. This is what I can do, and this is how I do it." And you have to be able to do that in a way that is authentic, that reaches the audience that you're intending to sell your products or services to, and you have to do it in a consistent way because it's noisy out there. There is so much competition. Maybe not for your particular skills or your particular product, but just in this attention economy, the number of things that are clamoring for our attention just seems

Winning Attention With Consistent Content

Eric Dickmann 4:29

to grow every day. We're no longer in a world where you can write a good blog post, have it show up in Google Search results, and customers who are looking for your product or service are gonna read that blog post and come to your website. It just simply doesn't work that way anymore. Now we have things like podcasts. We have things like YouTube videos. We have all the various social media channels. There are speaking opportunities. All of these different ways that you can put yourself out there in a way to be seen by an audience. The challenge is you have to do it frequently, and you have to do it consistently, and that is a huge lift for a number of people And I will tell you that, it has not been easy for me to do solo episodes on the podcast. I feel I have an awful lot to say, but there's a vulnerability to putting yourself out there in a way that says, "This is my point of view. This is my perspective. This is the way that I want to articulate it to an audience," that can be a bit intimidating On my other podcast, The Virtual CMO, I've interviewed people for years, had fantastic conversations, and that's a very comfortable environment because it's a conversation. But it's a little less comfortable when it's just you, your thoughts, your voice, your ideas that are coming across to an audience because you kind of have to own everything about it. And then on top of that, when I record an episode, I have to publicize it. I have to create social media content. I have to push it out on LinkedIn. I have to respond to people's comments. I have to keep it visible so that people find it. And then I have to immediately move on to the next one because content has a shelf life, and you can't just do one thing and hope it's gonna produce returns for weeks and months to come. It's a grind, it's a slog, but it's part of what's necessary in today's environment to be seen.

Referrals Fade And Strangers Matter

Eric Dickmann 6:40

I think a lot of people, when they become independent or they start a new business, they rely on word of mouth, right? They rely on referrals. Maybe they rely on recent clients or companies that they worked for, for that initial piece of business, or they get referrals from friends and family for some early client wins. But that just doesn't last for very long. Once you tap out your network, then you're in the business of generating leads from strangers, cold leads, and that's an entirely different process than leveraging your network. And one of the ways that we all have to get better at doing that is becoming more visible on various online channels.

Influence Versus Influencer Culture

Eric Dickmann 7:34

And I don't think that means that everybody needs to try to be an influencer. I think influencer often has a bad name because I think influencer has the connotation of people without a lot of experience, without a lot of expertise, who are just good at putting themselves out there so often that they almost can't be ignored, all of a sudden getting influence because of their consistency, because of their presence, oftentimes because of the crazy antics that they may do to get attention And that builds influence. And one of the things that I've learned over time is that it's a real skill. Some of these people are tremendously good at creating high-quality content that is engaging and it serves a purpose. And yes, maybe that alone is their skill. They're not coming with a lot of expertise in one area of business or another. Their expertise is simply creating good and compelling content, and that shouldn't be ridiculed or downplayed because that's the economy that we're in today. But I'm not advocating that everybody who leaves the corporate world to do something on their own needs to target becoming an influencer to get paid sponsorships, to get tens of thousands of clicks and views, to create viral content. That's not what I believe needs to be done at all.

Where To Show Up For Clients

Eric Dickmann 9:09

But what I do believe is that if you are independent and if you are trying to f- get new clients, you need to be visible in the places where these clients might be looking for answers to their problems. And it is almost impossible to do that nowadays without having some form of visibility online. So the net of it is we all have to use our skills to begin to build a level of influence, but I don't think we need to target being influencers who are creating viral content.

Ask A Question And Get Help

Eric Dickmann 9:51

And look, if social media, if creating videos, if doing a podcast, if all of these things are scary to you, if you don't know where to start, if, if you just need somebody to give you some quick tips, please reach out. In the show notes for the podcast, there's a link to ask a question. Please feel free to use that to reach out, ask a question. I'll respond to all of those personally. But this is something that I think is absolutely critical if you are going to start up a business or you have a business, but you're wondering why you're not getting the kinds of leads that you need. You have to have a presence online. You have to be able to build, some level of influence without necessarily becoming an influencer. So I'd love to chat with you more, share a few ideas.

Key Takeaway And Sign Off

Eric Dickmann 10:40

That's my topic for today. I hope you'll join me the next time as we go beyond expertise. Thanks for listening to Beyond Expertise. You can find show notes, resources, and links mentioned during this episode at podcast.ericdickman.com. If this conversation resonated with you, I hope you'll join me again next time as we continue exploring what it means to reinvent ourselves beyond our careers, titles, and expertise.