What is one of the most important things you may wish to achieve in Business? – It could be to position yourself in such a way that you are perceived as an Authority Figure in your niche. This may seem like a lofty ambition but today I’d like to look at a simple way that you can kick start this process and gain instant credibility.

The answer: get someone to Interview YOU!

That’s it, that’s all you need to get this ball rolling. Approach one of your contacts or even a friend or family member. You will have no problem getting somebody to help you with this and will entice them by giving them equal rights on the recording. They will be free to give it to their subscribers or even sell it as a stand alone product.

But why would someone be interested in listening to an interview with you? Because interviews give you some very powerful Leverage – they give the perception of importance and that’s all the subconscious mind needs to garner enough interest in peoples minds.

The fact that someone went to the trouble of doing an interview with you will give you an air of credibility and you get free exposure every time someone listens to it. You could email all your contacts and offer it to them as a free gift with no strings attached. This will help to further build your relationship with them and will see your recording be sent to thousands of people.

That’s it, it can be as easy as that! Sometimes the fear factor can stop people from taking action but if you just do it once you’ll be fine.

See how quickly you can position yourself as an Authority Figure?

Now lets break down each these ideas so you have an easy actionable plan of attack!

  • Get a someone to interview you, it could be a contact, a friend or a family member.
  • Discuss the topic of the interview and write up what questions will be asked.
  • Go over to fiverr and get a designer to put together an awesome looking product image.
  • Give the interviewer rights to the product so they can either sell it or give it away for free. Either way is good because you will be getting great free exposure every time someone listens.
  • Email and network with your contacts and give them the interview as a free gift, again to do whatever they want with. This is where things are gonna heat up because there is a chance your interview will be heard by thousands of people!!
  • You will now be gaining traction and a percentage of these listeners will look you up and arrive at your site. Have an attractive offer in place and you can see an great increase in sign ups to your mailing list.

It couldn’t be easier to establish yourself as an Authority Figure in your niche. You just need to do the interview once and let nature take it’s course. But why stop with one interview? How about doing a series, each one covering a different topic that your target audience are interested in?

The possibilities are endless with this. Once you get the first one out of the way you’ll never look back!

That’s it, instant authority thanks to the simple old Interview:)

Do you have any other idea’s on how to increase your perception in the market and achieve expert status Fast? Comment below and lets get this discussion started!

Thanks for reading – Noel.


Noel
Noel

Easy going guy and founder of CunMark.com who enjoys traveling, live music and good coffee - as well as sharing tips and strategies on this blog to help others navigate the world of online marketing!

    21 replies to "How to Position Yourself as an Authority Figure in Your Niche"

    • Christine Brady

      Hi Noel,

      I love this idea!

      You make a great point as to having options as to who does the interviewing – it could just be you and a friend with the friend asking you the questions.

      But I absolutely think that having someone in your field is very beneficial as it would be something you both could use – turn the interview around and interview them for the next segment!

      Actually, what you could do as well is transcribe it and put it all together in a nice package and sell it – *ideas*

      I think extending your value to others also establishes you as a leader – ultimately, what makes a leader is not (only) the knowledge or skills, but the fact that he or she stands up with a true desire to help others. It’s a lot like teaching – teachers are leaders because they stand up and teach despite what obstacles or challenges they face in the classroom.

      Awesome post Noel!

      • Noel

        Wow! Some great idea’s there Christine.
        I think having the audio transcribed could only be a good thing and give added value to your subscribers (cos some people like to flick through an ebook rather that listen to an hour of audio)
        I like the idea your teasing out there about establishing yourself as a leader – the analogy with the teacher is pretty cool and makes a lot of sense.
        Thanks for sharing that with us:)

    • Brooklyn

      First!

      Great one Noel!

      I have always loved the idea of interviews to gain expert status. I have defiantatly recignized someone as being an authority figure just because they were being interviewed. Even if I had never heard of them before!

      I must admit that there is definately a fear factor when thinking about either being an interviewer or interviewee (that is a strange looking word)

      Do you have any experience with this, or are you going to do an interview soon?

      I would love to hear about it!

      Brooklyn

      • Noel

        I’ve done several interviews in the past (all music related, promo for gigs/records etc) but I’ve never done one in the IM field I must admit.
        I’d love to do one but again, I would have to be well prepared and know my topic inside out. I know I’ve heard interviews of people I’ve never heard of but guess what, I’ve looked up quite a few of the people in question.
        Thanks for stopping by Brookly;)

    • Sylvia

      Noel,
      You are brilliant what a great idea! I am so glad I stopped by. As I am starting to figure out, product creation does not have to be hard and you definitely made it sound easy.
      :)Sylvia

      • Noel

        Thanks! I don’t know about that but I do my best 🙂
        I think we mere mortals like to make things harder on ourselves than they have to be – but thankfully there’s usually an easier way around the problem. All is takes is just to take a step back and try see the bigger picture!
        Cheers – Noel.

    • Muhsin

      Hi Noel,

      Nice post there!

      This is quite a new method that i have never heard before but
      I am definitely going to explore more on what you have just shared with us here;)

      What the market perceive you as is very important and it can also be achieved
      through the power of association.

      Thanks for sharing!

      Cheers!

      • Noel

        Exactly mate – success by association is another powerful concept…
        How often do people buy based on what they “perceive” to be a valuable product – I know I’ve done this on numerous occasions!

        Thanks for getting involved in the discussion!

    • Sean

      Heya Noel

      Blog is looking great buddy.

      You managed to break down the concept and made it very clear for someone who never heard of this before to understand.

      It’s funny when you think about it. If we hear anyone at all being interviewed on any subject at all we automatically assume that this guy/girl must be a leading authority in their field 🙂

      And I guess it’s real easy to do to. Find out the burning issues people need addressed, write them down, research the answers and then spit them out in your own words during the interview.

      I think it’s important to makesure that the questions and more importantly the answers in the interview are top quality and not just a bunch of filler and nonsense to try get an interview put together.

      Always think – DELIVER QUALITY

      Keep the thoughts coming Noel,

      Sean

      • Noel

        Cheers Sean – I think you summed it up perfectly:)

        Quality content is a must nowadays – with Twitter, Facebook etc. there’s no place to hide if your delivering crap to people. Reputation would suffer if your do and then you could say “bye bye” to your business.

    • Jas Kaur

      Hey Noel,

      First of all I have to say your blog looks awesome, I haven’t been here for a while and it’s all looking really nice..

      Great post… I’m a bit of an amateur photographer- I love to be behind the camera and hate being in front.. so the idea of being the interviewee (I agree with Brooklyn, that is a strange looking word) is a bit daunting as I’m ‘in front of the camera’ as it were. But I totally get the concept and as you said in your post, once you get the first one out the way you’ll never look back… Once you do a whole bunch of these, add transcipts, add videos of the audio with presentations, then BOOM, there’s your membership site..

      Thanks for sharing Noel!

      All the best,

      Jas
      http://www.jaskaur.net

      • Noel

        Hey Jas, how are you?
        Thanks for the kind words 😉
        You’ve made a good point, from one little interview you could extract the Transript, Slideshow presentation and MP3 – easily enough to start a membership site or have as a OTO/Upsell/Downsell when you give away your free gift!
        Great stuff:)

    • Simon

      Have to agree that the blog looks really nice:).
      This post shows you’re really thinking like a marketer :). You can always turn the interview into an e-book. If you do a number of interview, you could maybe have them transcribed and use them as a bonus for some product or put them on a site or turn them into blog posts :). These might’ve been pretty bad example, but remember to re-purpose as much as you can.

      Awesome blog!
      /Simon from mwa 3.0

      • Noel

        “This post shows you’re really thinking like a marketer…”
        Cheers Simon, really appreciate that man!! Thanks for adding to the discussion – you’ve made some very good points there…
        Thanks – Noel.

    • Roger

      Hi Noel,

      Look forward to seeing your first IM interview. I am sure someone on MWY would love to interview you.

      • Noel

        Ha Haa! I wonder what brave soul would want to interview me??:)
        I’d love to do one at some stage and just show people how I went from Point A to Point B…

    • Brad Lees

      Hi Noel
      Great post and another example of how Alex’s course is expanding ‘our’ thinking. For me, one big takeaway of MWA is developing a more creative way of thinking and it’s got me looking at how information can be ‘productised’ (is that a word?) or ‘commoditised’.
      To me, that’s the crux of developing a marketer’s mindset – and it’s clear with this post that’s what you’re doing.
      Congrats.
      Brad

      • Noel

        Hey Brad!
        I like those words… “productised” and “commoditised” I get what you mean by them.
        Yup, it’s all about taking a different approach to things and thinking “laterally” I agree there’s a big mindset shift going on, I’m def analyzing and thinking about things in a different way that I did before I joined his coaching program.
        Thanks for the encouragement, appreciate it;)
        Noel.

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