Many people want a life where they can simply get paid to be who they are. These are the people who want to get paid for the expertise, the things they've learned, the experiences they've had, and even some experiences they will have. This makes sense, I think. Educational creators are going to be the people who change the world in the future. Online courses and homeschooling are going to be the norm very, very soon.

Today I want to break down how you can build authority to actually reach that level of profitability. I want to talk about what it really takes to be an authority figure in the world today, where you can work with brands, you can have clients, and maximize every opportunity.

I want to be clear: this article really, really focuses on educational creators. I think there are a lot of people out there who have a lot of expertise but no positioning, and there's a difference. Expertise is what you know. Authority is what the market believes. These are two completely different things, and the gap between them is where your income dies. You can be the most knowledgeable person in the world on that specific subject, but that doesn't mean you'll work with the brands, get speaking slots, or get consulting clients. Authority isn't just about what you know. It's not even just about who you know. Authority is about your positioning in the world and how you're perceived. This is where the perception of who you are truly matters.

Disclaimer: I’ve been executing these tactics for years. While these can be accomplished simultaneously, it's best to start with one and then, once you get the ball rolling, start another.

Most educational creators try everything they know, and that's really a mistake. Authority comes from being known for one specific thing, not 10 things. The more narrow you get on the claim, the stronger your authority signal.

Something like "I help B2B creators land their first brand deal without a massive audience" will be "I help creators grow and monetize." Your one claim should be something that you've personally done. It also should be something that is needed desperately by a specific person, and then nobody else can say as clearly as you. I'm comfortable talking about podcasting, brand deals, public speaking, and a lot of things in this space because I've actually done it. I have videos and years of proof behind me.

Authority without evidence is just confidence, which isn't bad, but being confident can turn into delusion when you don't have the right authority. Every result you've ever produced for yourself or someone else needs to be documented somewhere publicly: a LinkedIn post, a newsletter issue, a YouTube video, even a podcast episode. The format doesn't really matter; the documentation does.

Brands, event organizers, prospective clients, they're all going to Google you before they respond to you, and what they find is your authority score. This is why I've always been so big on video testimonials from people that I work with, because nothing says value more than somebody getting on camera to talk about how great you are. Anybody can write a testimonial, anybody can write some super hyped post, and now with AI most of that stuff is unbelievable, but when you have a real person on camera talking about your greatness, it amplifies your priority, your authority times ten.

When other people talk about you, it speeds up your growth faster. If popular people within your space talk about you, it makes you go at hyper speed. One of the best ways to do that is getting on podcasts within your niche. This is probably the easiest way to gain authority because podcasts are always looking for guests. I might do a whole article on this because I've done hundreds of interviews at this point, and there's a difference between a person who wants to be on the show to just build authority and a person that can be useful. Now, the person that wants to do both, that's the real winner.

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Anytime some other person or publication talks about you as a creator and they mention who you are and what you do, it adds more points to your authority score. You want this happening as much and as often as possible. When someone else's audience sees your name attached to specific claims, your authority transfers faster than any content you could create yourself. The action step here is to target five podcasts in your niche this month. Make sure you pick a specific angle that's tied to your one claim. Don't focus on getting as many appearances as you can. Focus on getting two to three each month, and you'll see how fast your authority can grow.

every authority figure in any field has one piece of content that defines them, not a YouTube channel, not a podcast, one specific piece. Think of frameworks, guides, a real breakdown that's something that people should share when they're talking about your topic. This kind of makes you referable. It's like your magnum opus. You want to have your own Mona Lisa for yourself as a creator.

The fun part about this is once you get really dialed in on the one specific thing you want to be known for, the one way you help people, it gets really easy to make something like this. This doesn't have to be a really long, extensive piece. It doesn't have to be an entire book. I think it's best if you execute this in your one favorite format. For me, that would be a podcast episode or maybe a YouTube video, and I actually would sit and do all the fancy production and add the bells and whistles. You have to have this for your brand

Authority is built in rooms, not just on platforms.

Pick one room and show up in it consistently for 90 days. The educational creator who is active on LinkedIn with a very specific point of view in their niche closes brand deals that are never announced publicly. This might be one of the hardest, hardest things to do, because getting in those rooms means that you're always there and present in those rooms. You have to make it a priority to show up there and speak your piece. It's not even about just being there. You have to speak your mind. You have to have a perspective, something that's going to make you stand out even more than the average person that is also in that room.

Consistency: none of these moves work without consistency. You can't build authority in a week. I truly believe authority takes at minimum nine months. You have to say the same specific thing in enough places and in enough ways to where the market starts associating your name with that thing. The minimum timeline I will say is 90 days before the market starts to reflect it back to you.

The fun part is when things start to compound, so those YouTube videos start to pile up, the playlist gets longer, you have more and more newsletter articles out, you've been featured in 25 different publications.

Another caveat here is that authority can't be bought. This is something we see a lot of educational creators try to do, where they pay to be in Forbes or they pay for features on certain websites. That does work. It will get you some type of attention, but it doesn't get you conversions. It's one of those things that you can buy, but the price you're paying is not the price of admission. Your pain is to be sort of mentioned, but you don't really pay for the access that you really want, because let's be real, you want the authority and the notoriety of the attention, the respect, so that you can get the brand deals and you can speak on stage and get clients and customers. If you take the route of paying for it in the wrong ways, it will not help you. If anything, it will slow you down.

I don't think you should chase those logos, because we all know they can be bought. The smart people know that they can be bought, and even the not-so-smart people are starting to trust the logo less and less. If you are going to pay for authority, I think you should pay for it in terms of attention, putting money into your YouTube channel so you can get views. Paying YouTube to get you more subscribers is smart. That's going to help you grow faster and give you more authority, but paying that same money to be featured in a Forbes article with 20 other people like yourself is not a smart move, because most of the people that do that have no real authority and no real impact

fixing authority is probably the problem that most creators have. To keep this really simple, I'll give you a list of things you need to complete each month to build your authority to master level within a year:

All of these tactics are going to help you grow your authority, build your impact to an astronomical level faster than releasing a ton of your own content

If you want direct help with this, just reply to this email.