Full Transcript for How to Build Authority Without Chasing a Bigger Audience

the small group of people that are going to truly value what I have to offer, what area I can demonstrate authority in. And then you want to build up relationships. I think that that idea of relationships goes along with the targeted, not scattered gun. you create a situation where you are gaining benefit from the p people you're connecting with, but you're also offering benefit to the people you're connecting with. And then that can pay benefits long, long after the record light goes out on a podcast interview, for example. speaker-1: Absolutely. And the idea of building meaningful relationships. I guess before we even get to that, this idea of niching down and get really getting really specific on who you're talking to, one in your content and who you serve in your business is a recurring theme on the podcast for like everyone that comes on here emphasizes the benefit of really niching down and getting clear and specific. So I just want to underline that idea and say this is something that's that we've talked about many times. And I've also finally taken the the advice, taking the antidote. and I can say with certainty it's absolutely the the way to go because it's just people recognize themselves in the things that you're talking about. And you can just build and when you commit to a niche or a specific audience, one, you're only gonna commit to a niche or specific audience that you one can genuinely provide value to and two relate to in a way. So it's it's enjoyable, right, to talk to those people because like you can help, right? And you can be of service and And all these things, but then it also just makes everything else that comes after the selection of that niche is just so much easier because you have a standard set of problems that you're speaking to, a standard set of desired outcomes that you're speaking to, right? Things that you can help with. And it just becomes a lot more repeatable and you get better, better, better every single time that you go through and you help that person. So you can actually stack and really improve as opposed to trying to work with eighty five different people and it's like I'm doing different things all the time. So I just want to make that point. speaker-0: Well, and I think a good example of that is that whenever I put out a podcast episode, I have a spreadsheet with the information about all my consulting clients. And I'll go through that and I've indicated like broad categories like social media or speaking or podcasting or platform building, you know, what the kind of a subset of things that I've spoken with them about. And I'll go through and say, for example, this was this was an episode about platform building. I'm going to get in touch specifically with the consulting clients who are interested in platform building and I'm going to make sure they saw that episode, were aware of that conversation. I don't fire off an email to all my consulting clients saying, here's another podcast episode because some people aren't going to interested in that. And I think that's the difference between providing value to someone that you want to serve and just spamming them. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, that's a really good distinction. The if you say, Hey, you need to listen to this episode with every episode, right? You kind of boy who cries wolf yourself. if you really and it sounds like what you're doing, right? You're you're kind of doing the the harder thing of being more s like it would be a lot easier if you just had a huge email list and every single podcast episode you're just like boom, click, send to everyone, right? But you're being a little bit more diligent, you're taking care of the audience, where you're being mindful of the fact that you only want to show up. You want them to know that when Maddie shows up, when Maddie sends me something, it's going to be genuinely of value to me. Right. Is that the the way you're thinking about it? speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. And that's not to say that I don't have a general email list of people who have have general they have signed up to be notified whenever an episode of the podcast goes out. I'm serving that those people too, but I'm serving them in a different way. And and they might read every newsletter. They might only read the newsletters that where the subject line attracts their attention. So you can put information out there more generally if the people have expressed interest in getting that information by signing up for a a newsletter. But I think those people that you really want to establish and maintain a relationship with as one would with consulting clients, that has to be much more targeted. Yeah. speaker-1: for some reason there's just this word of service is just blinking in lights in my head right now. I just can't like you just it's really just all about serving them, right? If they declare that they put their hand up and say, Hey, I wanna receive these updates, I wanna receive these notifications, okay, then I'm obviously gonna make that available to you and I'm gonna serve you in doing so. But it just feels like service. there's something deeper to this idea of service and this is something that has struck me recently. The idea that, in the world that we're living in, and I apologize for the for the tangent, hopefully this is concise. But the idea that platforms and DIY services or products are becoming more and more replaceable with artificial intelligence. It's just really easy to just recreate this whole DIY platform experience that you can build out. But I feel like the real opportunity for businesses moving forward is in that zone of service, right? In that zone of done for you or serving you and providing a really high quality level of service. is the human opportunity for us to continue to differentiate ourselves and really provide meaningful value to the people in our audience or in our customer base, right? Is so that's just been something that I've been chewing on a

bit more is like, how can I capitalize on more opportunities or how can I just provide a better service? what does great service really look like? And I think in you know your work, which is focused on helping people turn their expertise into authority, right? You talk about this idea of relationships. And I think building relationships looks a lot different and isn't something that I personally consider too much. And I it sounds like I have to start in the idea of building a a digital audience. So what does the building of a real relationship look like when you're growing your your digital audience? what does that look like for you? speaker-0: Well, I'm gonna answer that by expanding a little bit on exactly what you were saying about service. And it is that again, I'm gonna use podcast guesting as an example because it's something we can both talk about and I think that your listeners will empathize with. And that is that if I'm advising people about platform building and one of the opportunities they want to pursue is podcast guesting, then I advise them to think of that in two terms. One is the s the selfish phase, which is you want to look for the podcasts. That are going to serve your business goals. if your goal is to reach as many people as possible, that selfish assessment is going to look different than if you're looking for a very, very specific audience. I specifically want to appear on podcasts that address fly fishing in in the United States or whatever. And and you do yourself a disservice if you don't approach that with a selfish mindset. You're looking for where the appearance is going to serve you. And then once you've picked that. your mindset has to completely change to a service mindset and your your mindset has to become, what can I do to serve the host and what can I do to serve their audience? And it's not like you're foregoing the selfish benefits you were hoping to get by approaching that person in the first place. It's that you will achieve those benefits by switching to a service mindset. And so as an example, sometimes I will speak with nonfiction authors and they'll say, I want to be on podcasts because I have this this book that I want to promote. But I don't wanna I don't wanna share too much from it because then they won't buy the book. And I'm like, dude, you can you can read the entire book in podcast episodes and people will still buy it. it's it's not an either or. And plus you're never gonna you're never gonna have the opportunity to share an entire book. And so I think it actually makes it easier for people if someone is guesting on a podcast and they go into the conversation, knowing they can feel free to share every single thing they know about the topic, it serves The host, it serves their audience and it serves them. So that's my expansion of the service idea. And then by doing that, you then create a relationship with the audience and with the host. And I think that people who make a connection, whether

that is appearing on someone's podcast or being a speaker at their event or whatever that might be, and then they step off the stage or the recording light goes out or whatever that might be, and they say, Whew, you know. So glad I did that. Now I'm on to the next thing. So much undervalue are getting they're minimizing the value they can get from that opportunity so much because I think about people who have been guests on my podcast or whose podcasts I guested on and think about how many of those people I'm still in touch with. I mean, I've co-authored books with, I've had business opportunities presented to me. By virtue of that relationship, I've been able to offer business opportunities. as a result of that relationship. And so it's like the whole the whole joke about how hard people work when a target is a prospect and how they then step back when a target is a client. No, you keep you keep nurturing those people you've already connected with and you you continue to reap benefits on both sides by doing that. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah. it's been unreal how many it wasn't really an ant something I anticipated when I started this podcast is the you know, the the depth of some of the relationships that have been created through these conversations that I have. It's it's incredible, right? It's very natural. Yeah, and it's a lot of fun. I mean, you have a phenomenal conversation with somebody, you learn so much about them, and it's yeah, it's it's been a tremendous vehicle for just growing my network or just directory of people that I can lean on and and ask for help of and support and all these amazing things. But I think one thing that I wrote down as you were talking, I think is a really cool thing to maybe underline and emphasize is you you made the point that during the planning or the the brainstorming, the mapping out right be selfish in the selection and the planning process, right? The planning of what do I want. Right. Be selfish in the process of thinking through what I want in my life or what I want what outcomes I want to create. But then in the pursuit and in the action, be selfless. Right. Don't hold ever anything back. Right. Be selfless. Do whatever you can to provide value to whoever you're helping with. Obviously that wasn't perfectly articulated, but I think that's in really interesting. speaker-0: That's speaker-1: That's great. Yeah. I think that's a really interesting dynamic, if you will, that can be applied to so many different domains of life. whenever you're thinking about what do I want? Be selfish in that. thinking through, but then in the pursuit of what you ultimately say that you want, be selfless, give yourself away, focus on serving the other people that are involved in that process. That feels like the right way to to go about it. speaker-0: Yeah. And and I think it's just more comfortable. It's that idea that yes, good karma does come back to you. a good example is that I was consulting with someone who wanted to produce an audiobook and it's not something that that I, have the expertise to advise on. And I had interviewed someone who did exactly that and said so I said, you you might want to get in touch with this person. I've spoken to her. I know her company is reputable. She seems like a really easy person to work with. I've spoken to her. You can listen to these episodes, so so you get a sense of her as a person. And then pretty soon I got a check in the mail. I got a pretty substantial check in the mail because this woman had graciously, not anything that I expected, had given me an affiliate commission, so to speak, a referral bonus for directing that person to her. And so I think it's just a great example of you don't go into this thinking. how can I make this work for me? But you're generous in that way. And I think it does it almost inevitably comes back to you in the very best way. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah. Just there's something, fundamental about the just the serving of others. Like whatever you give to other people will come back to you. Right. Like so if you give yourself, things will come back, which is pretty beautiful how that works. I wouldn't want it any other way. Yeah. Exactly. yeah. So amazing. So you talked about earlier something that is sticking with me, but you said you had a nautical metaphor for writing. Did you share a little bit more about that? speaker-0: Yeah, sure. So I always talk about the writing craft and the publishing voyage. I actually wrote an article for Writer's Digest magazine called Framing Your Story, I think was the title of the article. And the whole idea was that if you approach storytelling like like boat building, it's a useful way to think about it. And basically the message I wanted to convey is that you don't start polishing the bright work on your craft. Until you have the ribs in place. Because I think something a problem that I fell into a lot in my early writing career and I still have to guard against is let's say you're writing a scene, someone walking on the beach, and so you spend days, writing the beautiful s descriptors of the scene and the waves crashing and how the sand feels beneath your feet. And then, three drafts later you realize that there's not really a place for that in the book. And so you've invested a lot of time in an activity that really should have come further along in the story. And so, you know, there there are lots of the idea of my co-author Mark LaFave and I wrote a book called Taking the Short Tack, and it was about creating income and connecting with readers using short fiction. And we chose short tack because the idea of a short tack in sailing worked so well. in terms of what we wanted to express about short fiction. just one example is that a short tack is how a sailor moves quickly in a in a constricted waterway. And so if you're wanting to experiment with maybe a a genre that you feel like has a limited window where you can take advantage of it, then

try a piece of short fiction, a short tack to see how that all plays out. So Yeah, there's there's no concept about writing or publishing that I can't think of some nautical metaphor to describe. speaker-1: I love it. And I would imagine I see the the piece of art you have behind you. Yeah. Yeah, speaker-0: I have a sailboat on speaker-1: you come from a background is, ship working and that whole domain a big part of your past. speaker-0: Yeah, I have not had a chance to to sail for many years. There was a period of of time when I was sailing quite a bit or boating in other ways. I really haven't had an opportunity to be on small boats recently, but but I do love going on cruises and so I still have I've had to shift my paradigm a little bit. one of the paradigms I used was that traditional publishing was like a tanker and indie publishing was like a speed boat. So I'm having to shift my paradigm a little bit for that. But it is it is a really it I find it fun to delve into those kinds of ideas and maybe come up with a way, you know, get talking about expertise, sharing perspectives on expertise that are maybe a little fresh for people. You know, they might have heard all sorts of things about short fiction and it never really clicked, but then they hear that analogy and maybe that clicks for someone in a new way. speaker-1: Yeah, this is super interesting. I'm gonna do my best to explore what's going on in my head right now and hopefully it makes sense. But the idea that Based on our background and the interest and the other things that we do, there's different analogies that everyone can find to the work, whatever it is that they're doing, working on in the present, experiencing in the present. we all have this unique lens of, previous experiences like you as shipping and boating and then you found this analogy, this perfect analogy to explain short fiction and taking advantage of it. I think that's just super fascinating how we can all come into doing the same thing as another person, but we're gonna be able to find ways to understand it and break it down and piece it together in ways that make sense for us based on our previous experiences. And I think if we can investigate that within ourselves, which is something that you can probably explore in the writing process because there's something magical about taking the things that you're working on and bouncing around up in your head and turning it into words. It's like you're going to be able to, find those things. It's like, writing a short fiction is like da-da-da-da, and you can find the things that come out for you. And then almost in that understanding and identification of the analogies that come naturally to you to help understand the thing that you're working on, that could be a clear signal to help you to connect with the audience that you're meant to serve that's out there. Right? Are those similar analogies, similar previous experiences, similar things that you might understand is something that's going to be completely unique to you and is going to be like a real opportunity for you to be able to find that niche. It's like, what are the previous experiences that I have that helped me to understand this thing? that I can use in my explanation of this thing to help me connect with the audience that I'm, here to serve. So I think that's a super fascinating idea. speaker-0: Well, and I think it harks back to something you mentioned earlier in the idea of how do we how do we succeed in this world of AI. And I think that for many people who have expertise they want to share, it's not necessarily that they're sharing completely net new, never before thought of questions. there there is a s a small cohort of writers who are writing those kinds of books, but I've written a book about podcasting for authors. I don't know that I said anything completely novel on every page of that book. But I was doing it because there's going to be a group of people that know me through my podcasts. And if I'm speaking about podcasting for authors, they're going to understand where I'm coming from. They've connected with me in some way. That entire book is built around nautical metaphors. And it's also something that that AI can't do. I think that the two things that are differentiating nonfiction content creators now are personal examples and then that new way of expressing an idea. that is going to connect with some group of people. It it's not going to appeal to some cohort of of your potential audience, but there's going to be a subset that is going to connect with. And, you know, it's it's like weight loss, let's say. You know, someone might be trying to lose weight and they've been trying all sorts of of approaches and maybe there's a lot of overlap among them, but there's one that really serves them. It's one that really connects with them. And I think those ways to make our messages and our content personal is what we need to be doing today. Yeah. speaker-1: I couldn't agree more. And I think the obvious question, or maybe the simple question is okay, how do you personalize that message? And I think we've already talked about that is, leaning on your previous experiences, finding is there something to the process of okay, if I want to personalize this message, personalize this thing that I'm teaching someone? Cause that's the I guess maybe the first question that we can ask before we get to that is the idea that, expertise in itself isn't going to build the authority. Right. You need to be able to effectively put yourself out there and teach the thing that you're an expert in. So I guess what is it what does it really take for an expert who who really knows their stuff to really build that authority within the space? Obviously that's a pretty big question, but speaker-0: Well, the example that popped into my mind is that I co-authored a book. I co-authored two books with Mark Wafave. One was the Short Tag, the other one was the podcast gift

playbook. And I had been I started that book because I was consulting with people about podcast appearances. And I kept thinking I should really have some kind of consolidated list of best practices that I can provide them. So I started collecting it and then the list got longer and longer longer and I started seeing that there could potentially be a book here and I had I would say I was eighty-five percent through it. I had it, very thoroughly mapped out, outlined, and I had provided a lot of the content that I wanted to. And then I was talking with Mark at a a writer's conference and I mentioned it to him. And because we had already co-authored one book together, he said, are you looking are you looking for a co-author for that? And I was like, I wasn't until this very moment, and now I am. And I realized that what Mark was going to bring was the personal stories. So again, the things that we're saying about what you need to do to be a great podcast guest are not are not, you know, th they appear other places. But I think what makes it compelling is the personal stories we can tell. Like here's an example of where I followed this best practice and it worked out well. Here's an example of where I didn't follow the best practice and it didn't work out well. And I knew that Mark would be just a a treasure trove of those kinds of examples. And so every time we we make a recommendation in that book. we can illustrate it with an actual story from one of our lives. And, you know, introducing that personal side to our advice, I think, is what is going to make it compelling for a certain part of the audience. speaker-1: Yeah, and there's something magical about stories. stories are gonna be what stick, stories are gonna be the things that resonate because people as soon as you start telling a story, they can start to, see themselves as a part of that story almost, see themselves as one of the characters, which could be you, which is a super interesting idea. And there's something also tangential to this, but I think it also connects is something that's that I took from a book that I read years ago was not even close to the main point of the book, but it was the kind of one of the final things that was mentioned, and it's the idea that In order to really understand something, you need to understand its history, right? The history, the story of this project, the story of this idea, right? if you want to learn what artificial intelligence is, understand the history of artificial intelligence. what problem was it started to try solving, right? Then you find out, artificial intelligence is a project that started in nineteen forty eight and they invented it for this reason. Right. So to really understand something, you need to understand its history. And I think The same thing can apply to us when we're writing a nonfiction book or we're putting out content where we want to teach something to help the audience to understand a thing. You want to tell your story and your building of your understanding of the thing. And then how you how you demonstrate that. And that's going to be unique to every individual, which is super special. Cause nobody's really gonna, I guess there's a select few people who can just go into AI and be like, okay, tell me everything that I need to know about how to be a great. get podcast guest strategy like how can I leverage the podcast guest strategy for myself as an author, right? And it can spit out all this information, but just how much of that is really ever going to stick or really going to be able to be put into practice because it's just not really going to resonate all that much. But if you have a person who's telling their story about their experience, I feel like that's a that's a better path to to really understanding. speaker-0: Yeah, I think here the example that sprung to mind was a story that Mark told in the podcast guest playbook, and that is the importance of understanding the audience you're reaching. Go into AI and say podcast guest practices. That's one of the pieces of advice you're gonna get. Understand your audience. And the story that Mark shared was that he was representing indie bookstores and he had gone on to the Canadian equivalent of an NPR radio station. I mean, that was his usual His usual audience was that bookish, you know, people for whom this wasn't a a hard sell, you know, the people who were probably already shopping in independent bookstores. And so he had shown up for a radio interview, hadn't really done research into you know, what the audience of the radio interview was, or the audience of that radio station, and it turned out that it was mainly ranchers and farmers who very clearly thought of him as the spoiled city boy who didn't understand what real life was, despite the fact that Mark himself grew up in a a rural area in Canada. And and the awkwardness of that conversation, because he hadn't taken the time to research what who the audience was. And then what I think was even more valuable is he talks in the book about if he had researched that and thought about it ahead of time, he could have had this great angle of talking about independent bookstores as very intensely local, serving a local audience. Unlike, you know, if you buy your books on Amazon and who knows where your money's going, you know, you you go into a bookstore and an indie bookstore is serving the same kind of community-based need that would be very appealing to that audience. You know, they they like the power in their community. They didn't like the power that like dispersed outside their area. And so there was a great article argument he could have made about how indie bookstores were exactly that. And I that's like you don't get that by typing what are some best practices into AI. hearing that story, you're like first of all you think, my God, you hear the story about how things started going wrong and you're like, that's so painful. But then he's able

to add to that what he could have done differently and what that would have looked like and paint that picture. And I think that's just That's so vital to effectively sharing expertise. Yeah. speaker-1: Absolutely. It's so vital, as you said. And it's just to you can see that clear demonstration of, you know, what he could have done differently. Like, okay, this is it went wrong. This is what the bad version looks like. And had I done it differently, here's what it could here's what I could have done. And you clear that see that clear demonstration, which is what teaching is, right? To teach is to demonstrate the ability to do something. So very cool. Well, Maddie, thank you so much for the time. I have a couple of final questions for you. This first one here, very practical. So for any expert that's listening to this podcast, someone who has real expertise, myself included, I I can't say that I have the best content. I love doing this podcast and everything, but there's a lot of things that I can learn as well. But if someone has real expertise but not much of an audience, where do you think they should start after listening to this? speaker-0: Start with your colleagues in whatever area you want to establish a position of authority in. And so as an example, one of my consultants was someone who had spent many years in corporate management. And when he retired, he felt like he still had valuable information he wanted to share about ma management best practices. And so I believe that he started with just talking with his fellow h his fellow management and executive members and hearing what they have to say, experimenting with finding the audience of people who you want to reach with your expertise. And so that might be, you know, maybe it's going to chat with students who are in a management training kind of course, or maybe there are online, you know, social media groups. where this conversation is being discussed. And I think it's very important to listen before you start talking. And that will help you both flush out your own ideas, but also understand what are the needs out there. Like someone might say, I was a a manager in the corporate world for decades, and I think I still have information to share. But you know what I'm hearing now? People really want to hear about how to manage remote teams. I have expertise in that. I'm not going to talk about like management in general. I'm gonna talk about specifically managing remote teams. Or maybe I'm going to specifically talk about managing remote teams who are very widely globally dispersed. And so the the time zone issues are at a maximum. We had been talking about the value of niching down. there would be a real value in developing a reputation of authority and expertise in management of highly dis dispersed global teams working on IT projects related to retail. whatever that might be, the more specific you can be, then the more likely it is you're gonna find the people you can really help. speaker-1: Amazing. And I think that's a clear demonstration of the idea that we talked about earlier. So you start selfish by asking yourself the question of what audience, where do I want to build my authority? And then the moment that you get that clarity of okay, generally this kind of area, then you be selfless by taking by being patient, right? By doing the work of listening to what's currently out there, what resources, what what currently exists, right? Doing that work to find the gaps. in the opportunities for you to step in and provide your unique value, apply your unique expertise to a specific niche, which is just like a gap in the available resources out there. or maybe like with minimal people involved in that. So you're selfless in doing the work of finding that opportunity to provide value and serve people in a place that's, you know, maybe being overlooked, which is never ending, right? They're like you just kind of whipped up that niche. And I think, you know, somebody listening to this who maybe is a has an expertise in management, could take that exact niche and and go and and build and provide a ton of amazing value. So I love that. So it starts with the clarity of where you want to build authority and then go and listen, find what is already out there and find your gap where you can apply your expertise and provide the most value. And then and then just get started. Start with the ugly beginnings of not being very good. And then you just gotta kind of slog your way through that. And that's a whole nother conversation about you know, stick sticking with it and just being okay, not being great and getting the reps and getting better. But amazing. So Maddie, thank you so much for the time. I have one final question for you. It's a recurring question that I ask every guest. But before we get to that, how can people find you? speaker-0: They can find out my about my fiction at maddiedalrymple.com, but I think more specifically for this conversation, they can go to the indieauthor.com and that's indie with a why, in d y, theindieauthor.com, and there they will find my two books on podcasting, podcasting for authors and the podcast guest playbook, and also my consulting service, Pod Pro Author Coaching. speaker-1: Amazing. Yeah, we'll have the link to that in the description. Yeah. again, from my anecdotal experience, it's been a year that I started this podcast. I haven't been doing as much guesting, but I think any opportunity that I can to be a guest on someone's podcast, I love I love doing it. But it's just such a tremendous way to to build relationships and get yourself out there. And yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. if you love talking to people, it's it's the best strategy out there. So the indieauthor.com, that's what it was, right? Amazing. Yeah, go check go check it out. Link in the description. Maddie, again, thank you so much for the time. My final question for you. As I mentioned, is a recurring question I ask every guest. And that question is this if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds with like one message to the world, what would it say? And what? speaker-0: Well, I think that it would it would be a rising tide raises all ships. How about that? Because I think that encapsulates exactly what we want to say about the value of a service mindset. And also, guess what? It's an nautical metaphor. So a rising tide raises all ships. speaker-1: Amazing. A rising tide raises all ships. Very poignant and the nautical metaphor, I love it and it couldn't be more correct. It's just the the only thing lacking from a situation is that of which the you do you do not bring. And we talked about the idea that you know good karma comes back to you, right? Just pour yourself, whatever you give, you will you will receive. So amazing. Maddie, thank you so much for the time. speaker-0: Thank you.