4 steps to become a “Key Person” in your industry

Written on 18 December, 2012 by Karen Lim-Sam
Categories Events Marketing

What is a “Key Person”?

In any industry there are “Key People”

  • Their names come up in conversation… for all the right reasons
  • They attract a lot of opportunities… the right sort
  • They earn a lot more money than most people… and it isn’t a struggle
  • They can make something successful if they are involved… and people know it

How do you become a “Key Person”… faster?

It’s surprisingly easy to become recognised as a Key Person if you take the time to put these four things in place:

1.  You need to know your niche and your micro-niche.

It’s not enough to have a niche. You need a niche within a niche. When you have that, you tend to answer the question “what do you do?” with a lot more authority and power.  A niche is “Bodybuilding” a micro-niche is “Vegan Bodybuilding” or “12 Week Body Transformations”. When you know the specific game that you’re playing, you don’t just make more money, you also have more fun doing it.

Action step: Write down your industry, your niche within that industry and then your micro niche.  This is your absolute speciality, where you truly stand out.

2. You need to publish your ideas.

We live in an ideas economy where your intellectual property (IP) can become a far more valuable asset than any physical property you may own.  Packaging your ideas, philosophies and methodologies (your IP) into a blog, articles or even a book isn’t hard, especially if you focus on writing specialised content tailored to your micro niche.

You would be right to question whether there is really much merit in publishing content.  You may even question your ability to produce anything of real value.  The reality is that if you’ve been in your industry for enough time, you’re sitting on a wealth of stories, checklists, tips, tricks and best practices that your readers would find extremely valuable.

More than anything, publishing great content positions you as a thought leader and the ‘go-to’ authority in your niche.More than that, after people have read what you have to say, it makes doing business with them far easier when the time comes.

Action step:  Think of a story you regularly tell to potential clients that helps to explain the value of what you do.  Now, condense that into a 750 word article that you could send them to read before you meet with them.

3. You need a product.

Burnout happens when service based business owners get stuck wearing too many hats.  Hunting for new business, servicing clients, admin and operations.  The list goes on!

The first product you need to reverse the situation, is one that helps to educate people as to why they would want to do business with you.  For example, Google’s Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) offers a free training program that shares their latest research as to how the internet is changing the way people make purchase decisions.  It’s full of valuable and relevant content and is what’s called a “product for prospects”.  Ultimately, it get’s non Google customers seriously considering advertising on Google (and not one Google employee had to speak to anyone!)

The second type of product is one that helps deliver the result the client is after, thus reducing the owners need to swap time for money.  A good example is when your accountant signs you up to an accounting software subscription.  By offering you this kind of product the accountant is able to leverage their time away from low profit activities so they can focus more on the high value strategy work.

4. You need to ‘Google’ well.  Provided your name isn’t Brad Pitt, this isn’t as challenging as you may think.  If you take 2 days of focused effort you can step up a great Facebook page, a LinkedIn group, a twitter account and a great blog. With all that in place you are going to sky-rocket up the Google listings. Staying there will require you to be diligent but if you are organised, that can take less than 30 minutes a day (and it could be done from your iPhone in the back of a cab).

When you have these four things in place, sit back and watch what happens to your life. People will ask you to speak at events, you will be referred to as an ‘expert’ or ‘well connected’, you will get focused opportunities coming your way and be seen as the ‘purple cow’ in your industry.

LEARN MORE

If you feel like you’re standing on a mountain of value and would love to learn more about how you can build your brand, commercialise your IP and become a “Key Person of Influence” in your industry, you should check out these events:

The Entrepreneur Brand Accelerator Event – Sponsored by Netregistry Melbourne | 18th Jan 2013 Sydney | 2nd of Feb 2013

Netregistry is a key partner of this event and as Netregistry customers, you get 40% off the retail ticket price, with sale ticket prices starting from $24 for general admission.

A complimentary copy of Daniel Priestley’s best selling book ‘Become a Key Person of Influence’ is included with every ticket so to find out more and book your tickets, click on the following link: Entrepreneur Brand Accelerator Event >>>

Can you think of examples of people who have done these things and become a Key Person?

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