Why Am I Doing This?

I have previously written about the steps needed to create an authority blog but I haven’t really discussed why I want to become an authority, an expert, the “go to” person in what is arguably an already saturated niche.

There are a few main reasons. The most obvious being there is a lot of money to be made in the internet marketing industry. People have come from nowhere and built six and seven figure businesses. I don’t think there is an industry quite like this where there are such low barriers to entry and the potential to make the sort of money it would just not be possible to make by working a “real” job.

I am not giving internet marketing a serious shot purely because of the money. While the financial rewards are attractive, what motivates me more is I know deep down I could be very good at it.

Writing content has always been one of my strong points and I don’t see why my blog cannot be held in the same esteem as John Chow, Shoemoney and ProBlogger.

Sure, they put out really good content but are they infinitely better than me in terms of actual blogging ability? I don’t think so. I know it is going to take time before I reach that level of status but both John Chow and Jeremy Schoemaker both admitted they blogged for a long time before their blogs made them any money.

Finally, I believe I have a lot of unfinished business in this area and I know I have not lived up to my full potential. I have been in and around this niche for years without really “making it” and after receiving coaching from Rich Schefren and Alex Jeffreys and making more contacts in the last three months than I have in the last 10 years I now feel “ready” to give this my best shot.

Unfortunately, being both good at what I do and “ready” to unleash myself into the world of internet marketing is not going to be enough. My success, as does yours, depends on two things – personal branding and expert status and that is what I want to discuss here.

If I am to reach the next stage and explode the readership of my blog, my subscriber list and be inundated with joint venture requests the only way to achieve this is to be seen as an expert, the authority in this niche and the same goes for you.

1. Personal Branding

Personal branding is crucial to success. A strong personal brand, a unique set of attributes and characteristics which will enable you to stand out from the crowd of numerous similar marketers all professing to have the same abilities and pitching the same products as you.

A strong personal brand is a mix of everything you do and want to achieve online:

• Reputation
• Trust
• Attention
• Exectution

2. Personally Branding Yourself as an Expert

When you have a clear idea on how you want to brand yourself, the next stage is to brand yourself as an expert in that particular area. It is possible for anybody to achieve this.

There are no real “qualifications” as such to state you are an expert (although this can help), it’s mainly down to how you market yourself as the authority figure in that niche.

To be seen as an expert you need to achieve the following:

• Differentiate – your ability to stand out from the crowd.
• Reputation, trust, attention and execution.
• Widely recognised as a reliable source of technique or skill.
• Accorded athority and status of peers.
• Expert status by virtue of training, education, profession, publication or experience.

3. Why Do You Want to Be Seen as an Expert?

Personally, it’s because I know I am good at what I do and while I am not referring to any of those people already mentioned in this blog post when I say this, there are marketers out there who are classed as “experts” even if they are not as knowledgeable or as capable as I am.

Through their own branding and marketing they have excelled themselves to authority status and are making a lot of money from doing so. If they can do it, there is no reason why I cannot do the same.

You should know in your own heart why you want to be seen as an expert but here are a few business reasons why expert status is key to your success:

• When you stand out from the crowd you get more attention. More exposure means you get more sales.
• You are trusted. You have less hurdles to overcome in order to sell products because customer trust is already in place.
• You are seen as knowledgeable and because you are this “go to” source, your emails stand a better chance of being opened and your blog posts being read.
• You have influence and relevance. The people you feel are relevant to your own success are those you respond to straight away, e.g. answer their calls or emails even if you are busy. When you have influence in the marketplace, your own marketing efforts become a lot easier.
• You have authority and social proof. The emergence of the new “social web” means social proof is more important than ever before. People will want to comment on your blog posts and talk up your products. This looks great for people who may not have encountered you before because there are numerous people all speaking positively on your behalf.

Conclusion – Putting It All Together

This post should give you a better idea of my own motivation behind wanting to become an authority figure in the internet marketing niche and also some practical advice on how you can do the same. To summarise, there are two primary skill sets for you to excel yourself to expert status:

1. Your Area of Expertise

• Your ability to apply that expertise in the area where your prospects are and show them how aligning themselves with you can benefit them.
• Your ability to communicate that expertise whether it’s through your own blog, video etc.
• Your ability to share some of it for free so that people can see for themselves that you have the expertise that they want themselves.

2. Your Ability to Market Your Expertise

• You need to promote why your area of expertise is important.
• You need to promote your purpose.
• Marketing your expertise is the only way you will be able to attract, convert and retain customers.

Hopefully I am achieving the above through my blog and other content I put out on the web. This is such an important subject to ensure you begin your internet marketing career on the right foot so I will write more posts around this topic over the coming weeks.