True influence combines positivity with constructive challenge. Pure cheerleading inspires but doesn't drive action, while pure criticism alienates people. The influencers who get hired and close deals are the ones who encourage people to be better while also demanding they improve.
Be positive and challenging at the same time. I talked to a bunch of people who are like building social media followings or pursuing communities and are, you can be you and it's okay to be as you are today. The trick is that's not actually boosting people to action. And if you're trying to do commerce, then you need to have people who are in action of one kind or another. And that means in order to be successful, you need to be challenging. Now the flip side of that is, oh, everything's terrible and you can't get anything done. And that of course is challenging, but it's not positive. And so there are a bunch of people who say, I'm correctly challenging people, but they're not buying from me. They're not buying from you because they're not being inspired to action through that combination of positivity and being challenging. This is a hard thing to pull off. It takes some pretty good practice. But I think find the people who do, who can say you can be better and that you should be better, are the people who get hired to help make the client actually better. Those are the people who are able to make sales and those people who deliver value.
