Authority Marketing: Become the #1 Go-to Expert in Your Field – In Just 7 Minutes with Adam Witty

Resources/Links:

• Wanting to Know How to Become the #1 Authority in Your Field of Expertise? Learn more about authority marketing, your authority score, and how you can gain authority in your field: authoritynow.com

Summary

Have you been recently feeling bland and a sense of sameness in your business?

Are you thinking of turning things up that will make you and your business uniquely you in the market, but just don’t know how?

Do you want to know how to gain authority, be unique, and build your own brand that will make you stand out and guarantee you more profit in a market full of thousands?

Adam Witty is the CEO and Founder of Advantage Media and has built the company into one of the largest business book publishers in America, serving over 2,000 members in all 50 U.S. states and 63 countries. Advantage Media was listed on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s most rapidly growing private companies, seven out of the past eight years. He is the author of eight books, including his newest release, Authority Marketing: Your Blueprint to Build Thought Leadership that Grows Business, Attracts Opportunity, and Makes Competition Irrelevant.

In this episode, Adam talks about the importance of authority marketing and what magic does it do to your name and business in a marketplace of thousands and millions. He also shares his promising insights that can make you and your business uniquely you!

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:59 – Adam’s ideal client: “We help entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business leaders become the authority and expert in their field and put themselves into a category of one.”
• 02:19 – Problem Adam helps solve: “The problem that we solve is that most business leaders are stuck in a category of sameness. And consumers see them as a commodity, no different than anybody else, especially if you’re a financial advisor, a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer. People just think you’re like everybody else.”
• 03:10 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Adam: “They’re blending in with everybody else. They’re being commoditized which means people are challenging their fee structure and what they charge. They’re making decisions, whether or not to buy from you or not buy from you based on things like convenience, or location, or structure.”
• 04:01 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Adam’s solution: “They write the book that they want to write. We say, ‘Bait the hook to suit the fish, not the fisherman.’ And so, you have to ask yourself the question, ‘What is keeping my ideal customer awake at night?’”
• 04:54 – Adam’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Building your authority and your thought leadership is not something that happens randomly, and it’s not something that happens to you. You, as a business leader, have to make the intentional decision that you are going to build your expertise.”
• 07:03 – Adam’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Adam’s Website: authoritynow.com
• 08:04 – Q: How do you leapfrog your competition? A: It’s not about putting in your dues. It’s not about getting more degrees or certifications, so there are more letters after your name on your business card. It’s about taking and making the intentional choice to build authority, which is manufactured and it can be manufactured.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“It begins with an intention of, ‘I'm going to do this’, and then it's the discipline to actually follow through.” -Adam Witty Click To Tweet

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland beaming out to from- on the white sand, next to the big blue ocean at little Castaways Beach, Queensland, Australia, joined today by Adam Witty. Good day, Adam! A warm welcome from down under. Where are you hanging out?

Adam Witty 00:27
I am also in the warm sand of Charleston, South Carolina on the Atlantic Ocean.

Tom Poland 00:33
Perfect! Well, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Folks, I have a small confession to make. We’d always limit, almost always limit, the words in someone’s bio to 30 words or less, but I just couldn’t bring myself to trim your bio down, Adam. I mean, I cut it in half, but it’s a lot more than 30 words, but it’s worth listening to, folks. Because the reason that I want to go through Adam’s bio is that you need to listen up to what he’s saying because he is walking the talk. Adam’s the CEO and Founder of Advantage Media. He has built the company into one of the largest business book publishers in America, serving over 2000 members in all 50 US states and 63 countries. If that’s not impressive enough for you, Advantage was also listed in the Inc 5000 List of America’s Most Rapidly Growing Private Companies, seven out of the last eight frickin’ years, for crying out loud. He is the author of eight books, including his newest release, Authority Marketing: Your Blueprint to Build Thought Leadership That Grows Business Attracts Opportunity and Makes Competition Irrelevant. Love it! Adam, thank you for joining us on the show. The title is, “Authority Marketing: How to Become the #1 Go-to Expert in Your Field”. Adam’s going to share how to do that in just seven minutes. Sir, our time starts now. Question number one is who is your ideal client?

Adam Witty 01:59
We help entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business leaders become the authority and expert in their field and put themselves into a category of one.

Tom Poland 02:07
One, magic number! Eliminate competition. That is part of the problem you solve, of course, but there might be more to it. So question number two is, six and a half minutes left, what is the problem you solve?

Adam Witty 02:19
The problem that we solve, Tom, is that most business leaders are stuck in a category of sameness.

Tom Poland 02:26
Yep.

Adam Witty 02:27
And consumers see them as a commodity, no different than anybody else, especially if you’re a financial advisor, a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer. People just think you’re like everybody else. And so what we do is we help make business leaders dramatically different. We also position them as an expert so people want to come to them for their advice and insight, as opposed to feeling like they’re being sold something.

Tom Poland 02:55
Right. Very clever! So question number three is around the typical symptoms that one of these experts is going to be feeling right now, how do they know they need to find out more about what you’re doing? What’s going on in their business that they think, “Gosh, I think I need help”?

Adam Witty 03:10
Yeah, they’re blending in with everybody else. They’re being commoditized which means people are challenging their fee structure and what they charge. They’re making decisions, whether or not to buy from you or not buy from you based on things like convenience, or location, or structure. You’re watching your competitors surpass you in terms of growth and getting speaking opportunities and media opportunities. And you’re probably very frustrated. Right?

Tom Poland 03:41
Right. So thank you for that!q Question four and we’ve got five minutes left. We’re talking about people that are assertive, they’re trying stuff. And in doing so, they’re probably going to make mistakes to try and solve this problem. So what are some of the common mistakes that you see folks making before they find the Advantage Media solution?

Adam Witty 04:01
Yeah, so the common mistake or number one is they try to write and publish a book, they write the book that they want to write.

Tom Poland 04:10
Right.

Adam Witty 04:12
We say, “Bait the hook to suit the fish, not the fisherman.” And so you have to ask yourself the question, “What is keeping my ideal customer awake at night?” And I need to write the book that solves that problem for my ideal customer. That’s the number one mistake that we see people make.

Tom Poland 04:35
So, folks, get that golden nugget there. You got to bait the hook to suit the fish and not the fisherman. Thank you for that. Question number five, I’m after a top tip, a valuable free action that’s not gonna solve the whole problem, but it might take folks a step in the right direction. And we’ve got four minutes left.

Adam Witty 04:54
Yeah, so first of all, I’m delving into the next question and that is where should people go to learn more. But there’s a lot of resources here, and that is that authoritynow.com. But here’s the two big things that I would tell you. First, building your authority and your thought leadership is not something that happens randomly, and it’s not something that happens to you. You, as a business leader, have to make the intentional decision that you are going to build your expertise. And you have to, then, build a plan that you can strategically and systematically follow and implement to make it all happen. So it begins with an intention of, “I’m going to do this”, and then it’s the discipline to actually follow through. The second thing that I would tell you because I’ve got time on the clock, Tom, I’m-

Tom Poland 05:51
You do. You’ve got over three minutes, just under.

Adam Witty 05:54
And, the second thing that I would tell you is that most people are fearful of taking the step of authority marketing because they think that they’re bragging. They think that they’re calling attention to themselves. And some people feel like they are going to be called out as an “imposter”. You got to get over all of that. We live in a crowded world, in a crowded marketplace, where there are billions of commercial messages being shot at people each and every day. And if you’re going to stand out and be the person that people want to work with, you need to make sure that your message is loud, clear, and resonates with your target market. And being seen as the authority and the expert is the most efficient, and smartest way to do that.

Tom Poland 06:50
Makes a lot of sense. Thank you, sir. We’ve got two minutes left, let’s reference again that valuable free resource, where can people go to find out more? And what will they find there at authoritynow.com?

Adam Witty 07:03
Well, the first thing they can do is they can request their authority score, where we will do an audit of their authority presence online and give them a scale on- give them a score on a scale of zero to 100. So we’ll see how you rank compared to your peers. The other thing they can do is they can listen to the Authority Marketing Podcast. And they can also access my book, authoritymarketing.com, which is available there, but also available on Amazon and other places too.

Tom Poland 07:34
Perfect! Folks, you really got to have a look at this. Personalized Authority Scorecard is both comprehensive and it’s succinct and it’s visual, as well as, written. So it’s really well thought- put together. Authoritynow.com. Go there. It’s on the homepage, Personalized Authority Scorecard, lots of other stuff there, as well. Blogs, books, and so on. Thanks for that. Sir- oh, I’ve just gobbled up 15 seconds of your time. I’m sorry about that. 45 seconds left. Question number seven, what’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t and the answer, please?

Adam Witty 08:04
The one question that you did not ask me, but you should have is this. “Adam, how do you leapfrog your competition?” And the answer is, “It’s not about putting in your dues. It’s not about getting more degrees or certifications, so there are more letters after your name on your business card. It’s about taking and making the intentional choice to build authority, which is manufactured and it can be manufactured. And you can put yourself in a category of one if you decide to do it and take the action to do it.”

Tom Poland 08:40
Perfect! Adam Witty, thanks so much for your insights and your time.

Adam Witty 08:44
My pleasure.

Tom Poland 08:45
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.