You have skills and expertise and are purpose-driven. But why should people trust you as an expert? Or feel confident in spending their money with you? Today we talked about how to build authority for your brand/business/self. How do you show your ideal clients that you are an authority in your field?
Authority is your power to influence.
Authority = trust.
The more authority/trust you have, the easier it is to get someone through your sales funnel.
We talked about so many ways of building trust, such as:
- Referrals that come with built-in trust
- Showing not telling.
- Trust comes from showing what you do for your existing clients.
- Trust comes from a shared belief system.
- Trust comes from knowing your audience and speaking directly to them, knowing and solving their problems.
- You can build trust by creating content, getting published, writing a book – answering everything your audience wants to know
A comment from the chat: Before the Internet, you create authority via mainly print (e.g. book, columnist) or being on TV, like a guest at a talk show (e.g. Oprah, Arsenio Hall) or in a regular commercial (e.g. the “Wait But There’s More” guy).
A book recommendation: Positioning, The Battle For Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout about how to be seen and heard in a crowded marketplace.
Website recommendation/follow: The Future with Chris Do.
The next meeting will be on Wednesday, December 14th and will be dedicated to building the next version of Seattle Digital Freelancers.