Sell with Authority: Own and Monetize Your Agency’s Authority Position by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner (BookPress, 2020)
Don’t be put off by the subtitle if you don’t happen to run an advertising or marketing agency. While the book markets itself to ad agency owners, the authority strategy is far broader. I actually tried to think of an industry vertical where an authority strategy couldn’t work, and I failed. When I think of toilet paper, I think first of Marcal and its authority strategy around forest preservation…when I think of transportation, I think about the way Toyota and Tesla made electric cars a status symbol in vastly different markets—by positioning their customers as authorities in combining functionality (Prius) or performance/luxury (Tesla) with environmental responsibility: customers who were smart enough to be pioneers in our brave new path to a clean future. In agriculture, I think of the hundreds of organic foods businesses that use their packaging to educate consumers and position themselves as authorities on healthy eating and healthy land use.
So…what’s an authority position? According to McLellan and Woessner, you pick a niche, which could be driven by your industry slice, your audience, or the problem you solve (p. 31). In a Venn diagram, your niche is the intersection of several circles, as on the cover and on page 36, where the intersection is agencies—we’ll substitute “businesses”—with your expertise, those who “give a rip,” and those with your unique point of view. That intersection is tiny slice of a huge pie, and if you define it properly, it may only have one dot in the intersection: YOU! People who need your exact expertise, benefit from your point of view, and see that you actually care will discover that hiring your company is the only choice.
But I’d a add a caution: make another Venn diagram to establish market viability: One circle for who needs your expertise (and your solutions), another for who is aware of you or can become aware after minimal exploration, and a third for who is willing and able to pay for that expertise. THAT intersection is your actual potential market, and it should be a lot bigger than a single pinpoint.
I made the mistake of not doing this research 25 years ago when I released my book on how to have fun cheaply. It turned out the frugalists who wanted information on how to legally and ethically see entertainment for no-cost, travel for a fraction of the usual place, and find dating options that cost little or nothing didn’t want to pay for that information—and despite consistent national publicity (including ABC News, the MSN home page, and Redbook, among many others), it took me 8 years to sell through a 2000-copy print run of a $17 book.
You develop a detailed and unique point of view on the issues in that niche (pp. 37-43), perhaps asking how your clients are missing the mark (p. 41). Next, you develop a single content “cornerstone”: a central marketing strategy including the six building blocks on page 51. Something like a book, a regular podcast or blog—that consistently gets you in front of prospects who welcome those messages, that plays the long game—that both helps your audience (of actual prospects) get better at their task and deepens your connection with them. Once one cornerstone is firmly established, you can add a second.
From the cornerstone, develop “cobblestones”: little drips of enticing content that engages, informs, and brings people into your orbit.
In other words, everything should be strategic. As you develop your cornerstone content, you get to play journalist. Call your prospects, invite them to be interviewed, and then turn snippets of the conversation into cobblestones that promote them—and you.
Strategically maximize your efforts with everything from adding captions to all your videos (p. 70) and loading them natively into not just YouTube but other platforms including LinkedIn and Facebook (p. 137) to turning clients and prospects into marketing partners (p. 112), to detailed rinse-and-repeat recipes for getting the most exposure from every effort (pp. 156-165), and even a list of software tools they use.
Each chapter has one author, by the way: a very easy way to collaborate on a book.
