Why is “Little Indian Brave” The Secret Shortcut to Expert Status? The Art of Authority Podcast Ep-11

Welcome to the Art of Authority podcast, bringing you interviews and episodes to help you radically optimize your authority and influence to become the go to expert in your field. Here's your host, authority positioning coach, Mike Saunders.

Hey, guys, Mike Saunders here, the authority positioning coach, bringing you another episode of the Art of Authority. So today I want to talk about something that's pretty interesting and unique and if anyone has kids, kids who have taken music lessons, more specifically piano lessons, this will really resonate well with you. So I kind of titled this episode why is the Little Indian Brave song the secret shortcut to expert status? And as you know, building your authority is your number one priority. And in your business, no matter what it is, if you're a coach, consultant, author, speaker, entrepreneur, it doesn't matter. When you're building your business and thinking about business development and marketing, we've got to do things that are different than the competition. You know, just picking a flyer, email, campaign, social media, text marketing, it doesn't matter. Pick any one of these things and you really can fall into that sea of sameness. You know, it's almost just insane to think about how alike and similar so many of the competition is out there. And when you look around it, if you find someone that is doing things differently and that your target audience resonates with, that's where the winner is. Because you have to keep things simple. Because a confused mind doesn't buy if you're just all over the place, boy, your customers don't really know what to expect from you. So let's think about something. When we want to have that unique voice in our market so that we're the obvious choice for whatever you do, you need a unique approach. And that's where authority positioning and expert positioning comes in, where you are educating your target audience, you're becoming their advocate for their success, and you're giving and serving things that they need to understand to make decisions, to work with someone like you. If it's you, wonderful. If it's not, you want to be seen as that expert. And many times we've talked about in episodes before, like the imposter syndrome, you know, well, I'm just not an expert. And I was talking to someone just this week where we were talking about that, and one of the things that was like the light bulb moment for this person was think about the questions that you get from your either clients, customers, or even prospects in your target audience. Do you get questions? Well, of course. You know, I get an email here, a phone call there, or people ask me Things about my product or service, well, they don't know how things work. And some of those basic questions you know the answers to. But even the more in depth questions, the more in depth strategies about your product, your service, things they haven't thought about really go and cut deep so that you just think in your own mind, well, I've done this for 15, 20 years. It's of course I know the answers to these things and you're just answering a question. But to them, they never thought of it that way. And that's where it starts to build that authenticity and that expert status in their mind. Because the other person that they talk to about that product or service was pushing them to buy or push them for this sale. You were talking to them and helping them understand. So that's a really big thing to understand regarding that imposter syndrome. But I remember, let's talk about this little Indian brave and kind of the light bulb that goes off with authority positioning, expert positioning in your business. And I've got four kids, three daughters and a son. And they're all teenagers and in high school and college now. But when my daughters were learning to play piano and my son, we just never did piano with him. He did clarinet and now banjo. But my daughter started off on piano. Now they are in violin, piccolo, cello and all of that. But when they were doing piano, you know how practicing the piano sounds? It is scales and it's mistakes and it's problem, right? And, and then the really little kids, you know, they walk up to the piano and they've got the one little thing with, you know, Mary had a little Lamb and they're just playing it with, you know, their one hand with, with, you know, note by. But as soon as they can do something where it sounds like a song, right? Because playing scales, they're like, okay, that's just a scale or Mary had a Little Lamb. That's basic. But in this one book that all of my daughters took and it just, I forget the name of it, but it was just this lesson book where it was called the Little Indian Brave. And it was, I mean, I thought that I needed to have noise canceling headphones in when they were practicing. And my girls, you know, for. Fortunately we never had to force, you know, practice your piano. We had to almost say stop, that's enough already. Because you're just all the time playing the piano and now they're just spectacular. But that was just ingrained in them, right? That, that spirit of excellence. But when they learned this song called the Little Indian brave. And if you want. Just Google it. Google little Indian brave, piano learner intro, beginner song or whatever, but little indie brave. And you'll hear the. This, this insane, you know, redundant repeating just. But it is so cool because the kids are able to use two hands and they're playing a chord with some bass in, in the one hand and then their melody notes and it feels like they're really doing something. And it's like the light bulb goes off. The magic switch was flipped because right at the moment in their piano training when they were getting bogged down with theory and scales and, you know, this is not fun. When they learn to play a chord with one hand and the melody with the other, it was a song and they felt like, ooh, I'm really doing something. The light bulb goes off and they no longer felt that they were learning scales for no reason, right? So now they see that it's fitting together. They heard themselves playing a song really well because it was a song. So the lesson here is that you might have months and months of work in front of you to develop your expertise and authority and influence, because it really is a new mindset and a new blue ocean strategy. And it's not just a matter of sending out, you know, the traditional marketing messages. It is truly a new way of positioning yourself as a thought leader in your industry. But when you start seeing it happen for you, when those, those authority positioning assets, as I call them, start getting developed and used in your business, the light bulb goes off for you. Because you may feel like I do coaching in whatever realm, or I'm a financial advisor in this, or I'm an entrepreneur creating this product. And, you know, I'm not really an expert expert. You know, I'm not on cnn, I'm not on the TV shows. But, but guess what? When you start putting these authority positioning assets together and you get interviewed on a podcast show, you get that mentioned in the media, maybe you write a book, all of a sudden you start going, you know what? People are responding to this. And when I sent that podcast interview out to my, some of my prospects and they listened to it and they said, you know, I never thought about it that way and we need to talk again. The light bulb goes off for you because you start seeing your influence being created right before your very eyes. It was always there, but now it's getting amplified. And I think that's just a big, big takeaway. You need to remember that there is a really great book that I read called the Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes. And he was known to say, experts close three times as many deals as salespeople. So how can we be an expert so that we can close those deals? And there's a focus group study that I am familiar with where they documented a group of people and asked them, when you hear of a company or a person or a new, you know, opportunity, what's the first thing you do you know about that company? And 87% of them said they Google the company, Google the leader, the person that they were introduced to. So maybe it was even at a, you know, networking event, chamber meeting, whatever the case is, maybe even a friend referred you to this person. They don't just blindly pick up the phone and call. They go and Google that person. So what do they see when they Google your name, when they Google your business? And of course, the obvious thing is we don't want to see negative things, obviously. But when they can Google your name and your business and see more than just your website and your LinkedIn profile, because those are obvious, you expect to see those. But when you can see, oh, hey, Joe Johnson was interviewed on Blah Blah podcast, talking about. And they put in, and the title of the podcast interview was something your target audience has a problem with, Right? So now you really have done a little bit of research on your target audience and you know that they have a problem with X. And you are talking about that on this podcast show. Well, why would you do that? Because you know that people are out there Googling, you know, my, you know, computer. And let me just tell you this, I know this sounds maybe a little bit off topic, but right before this episode, I had an issue with my computer. Well, my computer was displaying PDF files with an icon on my computer of the Chrome little, you know, circle with the colors. And I'm like, why in the world is it displaying that? And, you know, you double click on it and it opens the PDF, that's fine. But it was annoying me because it's. It's just this round Chrome thing and it should be the PDF. So I googled how you know what's happening. Boom, found it and fixed it within two clicks. What does that mean for your prospects? They have some type of problem that they are out there Googling the answer to. And if they find your authority positioning assets, an interview that you did on a podcast, a blog post you wrote, maybe you wrote a book, maybe it is a media mention where you know, Tom Smith, you know, authority on blah, blah, blah, interviewed on this podcast, talking about and what you're talking about is this problem that you solve for your clients. But this person is googling it and they're like, oh, oh, yeah, want to listen to that? Because why do they get gravitated? Why do they gravitate to a podcast interview as an example? You know why? Because it's an interview. It's, you know, you being interviewed by someone with curiosity. It's not a sales pitch. So now all of a sudden they're listening to that 15, 20 minute interview and they're picking up on your nuances, your voice inflections, your approach to business and how you are solving that problem. And now the call to action at the end. You may get a call because someone listened to that podcast episode, but you may just use that podcast episode link in your business development. You see where I'm going with this? Where you start, you know that little Indian brave, you know, the light bulb goes off, I'm playing a song. Well, your song may be the fact that you're just getting those ideas and solutions that you already provide to your clients in this tight, concise, deliverable, which is a series of solutions. And you're putting them out there in really good, authoritative ways, like podcast interview, media mentions. Maybe you combine them all up into a book, whatever, whatever the asset is. But you then don't just wait for them to happen and bring you business, you use them in your business development. Have you ever gotten an email from someone asking you a question? Of course, you could reply back with two sentences and answer the question, or three sentences or two paragraphs. Or you could reply back and go, hey, great question. You know what? Recently I was just interviewed on a podcast and I talked about that exact thing. Here's the link, check it out, let me know what you think. Well, now they're like, click. They might not listen to every syllable of that interview, but they listen to enough to go, that's a great point. That's a great perspective. And now the stage is set for them to contact you back because you weren't pushing for some coupon discount deadline, right? You were educating them. So I think that is a massive, massive takeaway with this light bulb moment that you really are an expert in what you're doing. You just need to gather your thoughts around that, come up with your solution to that problem and start building assets so that it presents your solution in the best possible light with the widest possible net so that your target audience can see that. And if that is something that you need some help with clarifying or implementing, I have A program where I do it all for you 100% hands free. It literally takes you 20 minutes on the phone. A 20 minute phone conversation delivers to you 3 to 5 authority positioning assets that you can use in your business development and that I teach you in the Action Guide and the Implementation guide what specifically to do with each one of them now that you have them. Right? Because okay, great, I've got these things. Now what? Well, I train you and teach you and coach you with the phone call and the guide on. Now use this link here and put this here and in your sales process, here's what you do. And all of a sudden if I told you exactly what to do and where to go, well, you might think, I don't have time for all that and learning it. And then you'd worry, did I do it the right way? And I don't know. But if I did this for you and handed it back to you on a silver platter and it only took you 20 minutes on the phone and you're back to doing your business and then a couple weeks later you get this entire package, it's called the Authority Boost package. You get this whole thing handed to you and then you have your office staff, yourself, a VA or whoever you work with. But this is something that you could do an hour and implement this whole process in less than 20 minutes on the phone and then put it into your business processes and now it's working for you. If that is something that would interest you, I encourage you to go over to my website, authoritypositioningcoach.com and check out the Authority audit. Check out the service called Authority Boost. And until next time, remember, building your authority is your number one priority.

You've been listening to the Art of Authority podcast. Are you interested in building your authority position? Positioning as the number one strategy to grow your business, brand and influence? Book your authority audit today. This seven point audit of your current authority position will uncover opportunities and show you how to be seen as a leading expert and authority your industry looks to. For advice, visit www.awarenesspositioningcoach.com.