How To Build Authority And Accelerate Your Lead Generation Success

Lead generation is facilitated by authority. Being recognised as an authority means that people are more likely to act on your guidance or direction.

That said not all types of the authority are worthy of pursuing nor respected.

Let me share a story from my high school years.

Positional Authority Doesn’t Guarantee Respect

The principal or headmaster at a school has ultimate authority over other staff and all the students. This is positional authority which isn’t necessarily earned or respected.

Frankly I think at my school it was a case of whoever was willing to put their hand up after some community members had wrongly pushed out the previous position holder.

The new principal was a social bloke but completely and utterly hopeless at management. Further, rumours had been whispered among the students for years that principal was having an affair with the secretary (whose husband also worked at the school).

Needless to say midway through my final year the affair was exposed.

You can imagine how much notice the staff and kids took of the principal after that. Funnily enough both parties left very soon after.

Earned Authority Is Harder To Lose

Authority earned over time, without taking shortcuts such as buying lists or followers, is far more sustainable.

For example, Pat Flynn is a recognised authority in the field of passive income. He has achieved this through continually experimenting and documenting his results over time. His transparency regarding success AND failure has enabled readers to know, like and trust him. As a direct result he now has over 100,000 people on his mailing list all of whom are potential leads for his business.

Or consider Erika Lyremark from The Daily Whip. Erika was a stripper for nine years before growing an extremely successful commercial real estate company. She has experienced highs and lows of business meaning she can now advise clients’ to avoid the mistakes she made and grow their businesses faster. Also, rather than try to hide her background in stripping she’s now leveraged it into a very successful, high six figure brand.

Earned authority doesn’t save you from making mistakes but it does mean your followers are more forgiving and it’s easier to recover from your errors.

Lead Generation Is Accelerated As You Increase Your Authority

Respect for your authority on a subject enables people to feel confident when contacting you for assistance or giving you their email address.

Authority removes the fear and barriers that would otherwise prevent leads making contact. They can be confident you will provide accurate advice and not use their personal details inappropriately. It also assures them that you are the right person to assist them in achieving their goals.

How To Increase Your Authority And Ramp Up Your List Building

1. Do the work. Put in the hard yards so people can see you’re for real. That you haven’t somehow cheated your way to success. Maybe you haven’t put in 10,000 hours yet but you’re well on your way.

2. Work smart. It’s all well and good to work hard, but if you’re not working smart as well, you’ll hardly be viewed as an authority. Leverage your work so your authority builds as quickly as possible.

For example, if you are guest posting on quality sites around the web have an “As Seen On” section on your website. The associated social proof (that you are being recognised by others as an expert) will lead to greater trust and respect from visitors to your website.

3. Partner with other leaders in your niche or complimentary niches for events. If your partner has more established authority, people will begin to associate and view your authority as being at the same level.

4. Don’t be afraid to self-nominate for awards. Although you might feel resistant at first (we tend to struggle with tooting our own horn) it is absolutely common practice and has many upsides. Whether you are listed as a finalist or win, there will be plenty of PR opportunities to further build your authority.

How Have You Leveraged Authority To Accelerate Lead Generation?

I’d love you to share your experiences around authority and lead generation. How have you built authority? Can you suggest other tactics to those listed? How has authority impacted your lead generation?

If you found this post helpful, don’t forget to sign up in the green box below to automatically receive all posts in the series then share it with a friend!

Are you really keen to ramp up your lead generation ready for 2014? Want serious guidance and support? Apply now for a complimentary 30 minute strategy session! Only 4 spots available!