In my last few articles I discussed how to go from a generalist to a specialist to a celebrity. In this final post of the series I will be explaining how to transform from a celebrity into a celebrity authority. As usual, I will start with definitions: a celebrity is someone who is famous and well known, a celebrity authority is someone who is famous and well known, and has the power to give orders and enforce obedience (there isn’t a definition for celebrity authority as its two words, so I’ve combined the definitions for the words celebrity and authority).
Being an authority amongst specialists and experts is one thing, but being an authority amongst all the other celebrities in your field is another. It’s clearly the most rewarding status you can reach (especially financially). But what characteristics does a celebrity authority have?
- Celebrity authorities are highly demanded, everyone wants a slice of them, and everyone wants their opinions
- Celebrity authorities are extremely well paid
- Celebrity authorities are demanded even by the media
- Celebrity authorities have raving fans, not just followers
- Celebrity authorities are the leading authorities in their niche/industry
- Celebrity authorities have a great lifestyle, not just a great bank account
This is by far the most difficult status to reach, but also by far the most rewarding. To become a celebrity authority, you need to do the things listed in my previous article on ‘How to Transform from an Authority into a Celebrity‘ and then some. For example: instead of just publishing a book like a celebrity in a field may, a celebrity authority’s book would need to be a best seller, instead of having a great blog, a celebrity authority would need a blog that is one of the go-to sites for information in their niche, a celebrity authority is the sort of person you expect to see on TV discussing their industry/niche.
In short, you need influence, and a lot of it, to be considered a celebrity authority. So how do you get it? Well, you follow the steps required to become a celebrity in excess, go above and beyond what most people are prepared to. Here are the steps as a reminder but I recommend you read the full article if you haven’t already:
- Focus on your image and your brand (social media is key)
- Be authentic and genuine
- Show your face and name
- Find ways of getting your message out to people
- Make sure people are exposed to you as much as possible
- Be the party
- Make sure that you’re constantly and consistently putting out new content
- Put your personality out there
- Engage with your fans
- Make sure it’s easy for people to get in touch with you
- Give back
- Value your time
The core part of being a celebrity authority is having an army of raving fans; this means that engagement is probably the key aspect. The more you engage with people, the more you raving fans you will create, and the closer you are to becoming a celebrity authority. Replying to and helping your followers on social media is a great way to do this, and you should aim to do this as much as possible, but to become a celebrity authority you need to access bigger audiences and engage with them.
This means you need to be appearing on as many podcasts, TV interviews and live events as possible. There are two benefits to this: the first is that you can share this content you create with your own existing audience, further increasing your influence on them, the second is that you get access to other people’s audiences (as they do yours), so it’s win win for both of you. Also, don’t worry about spamming them, as long as you’re delivering value they will like it, so if you go on a TV interview a day and share a different one every day they won’t consider it spammy as long as the content is good, the only unfollowers you will have are those who aren’t interested in what you have to offer, and they’re of no use to you anyway, besides, you’ll gain more than you lose as a result of this.
Getting big media exposure is crucial, so as well as appearing on podcasts, you should be writing for big media outlets, such as Entrepreneur or Success Magazine (if you follow the steps required to become a celebrity, you will be able to do this eventually, and if you can’t write now, write posts for whatever outlets you can). Once you do this enough, you’ll be able to get TV appearances, although I’d recommend you do as many podcast interviews as possible before this, just so you get comfortable being interviewed.
You also need to be speaking at as many events as possible, if you can’t get the big events right now start small and work your way up, join a Toastmasters if you don’t think you’re a great public speaker, because if you want to be a celebrity authority, you need to be. Make sure you don’t let your ego get in the way, if you can only speak at events with 20 people right now, do it, it’s better than 0. Then after that you’ll be able to speak at 50 person events, then 100, then 200, then 500, then 1,000, and you get the idea.
Remember, you need to be the guy (or girl) people in your field go to in your field to get their problems solved, so if you don’t know what the main problems people in your field experience, you’re in trouble. What problems are your audience having? What problems will your audience soon encounter if they haven’t already? What problems can your audience avoid by doing X, Y and Z? What should your audience be doing to get ahead? These are all things which you should have extensive information and solutions for on your blog/website, because if you don’t, it’s never going to be the go-to site in your niche, and you’re never going to reach celebrity authority status. Really, you need to have a book on this which you can refer people to, there’s no getting around it at this level.
There’s no easy way of becoming a celebrity authority, it will take a lot of time and effort on your part. But you have to put the hours in and trust that it will be worth it, it helps if you enjoy what you do, massively. When we look to celebrity authorities we expect demand that they have passion. If they don’t they’re not going to inspire us are they? You need to make sure you work smart, don’t spend time doing some easy small task that you can outsource of hire someone else to do.
View your influence like a snowball, the more you work on it, the bigger it gets, and the more momentum it picks up. There will be a snowball effect as you get bigger, which is to be expected as you’ll be speaking at larger events, have a larger social media following, appearing on more podcasts and TV interviews, have more people reading your books and blogs. So don’t give up because your audience and influence is small, it just hasn’t picked up the momentum to get big yet, and it’s not going to unless you do a lot of pushing early on. If you’re not prepared to work for it, then you don’t deserve to be a celebrity authority, it’s that simple. Celebrity authorities have stories that inspire us so that we want to be like them, if they have a story that makes it sound really easy, it undermines them, and it’s supposed to be difficult, so embrace it and enjoy the journey.
So, in conclusion:
- Build your influence
- Build an army of raving fans (and engage with them)
- Access bigger audiences and engage with them
- Get big media exposure
- Speak at as many events as possible
- Be the guy (or girl) people in your field go to in your field to get their problems solved
- Have a book
- Put the hours in
- Have passion
- Work smart
- Don’t give up
Be as valuable as you can to people, and deliver that value to as many people as you can as much as you can, that’s the short version of what’s required to become a celebrity authority.
-@thesamball
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