The Importance of Influencer Collaboration in Building Influence [Amanda Russell Interview]

Amanda Russell, author of The Influencer Code and Professor of Influencer Marketing at the University of Texas, Austin, joins me for a special interview about building influence in today's digital world. Amanda has an amazing life story of competing at a global level and then starting over from scratch, but her trained skills combined with intuition in seeking relationships with influencers and capitalizing on the opportunities that they brought her has led her to a successful career that my listeners can learn a great deal about influence from.

Our New Podcast!

• The School of Influence Podcast with Amanda Russell and Neal Schaffer: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/school-influence-podcast-amanda-russell-neal-schaffer/id1544198952

Key Highlights

[02:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Amanda Russell

[04:40] Who is Amanda?

[09:27] Transitioning from Athlete to Being An Influencer

[12:58] How Amanda Got Into Marketing and Advertising

[16:44] Amanda's Youtube Journey

[19:14] The Starting Point for Amanda for Social Media and Influencer Marketing

[23:01] Amanda's Frist Producer Film Editing

[26:31] Why Amanda Started Teaching at University

[32:31] The Story Behind "The Influencer Code"

[34:16] Amanda's Different Perspective In the Influencer Code

[37:01] How Amanda and I's Collaborative Relationship Started

[39:12] My Podcast with Amanda

[42:02] Our Podcast Launch

[42:45] Connect with Amanda

Notable Quotes

• I think there's a difference between following your passion and being passionate about what you do. And sometimes, in order to get where you want, you have to do a lot of things you don't want to do. And sometimes you have to take steps to the side or what looks on paper like going backward.
• People build the relationship, they build it with you. And so if you start swapping out people, you lose.
• We forget that anytime you want to make a sale, if you want to get income, you have to work with people. 
• It begins with a sort of re-educating everything you know about influencer marketing because marketers and businesses have been misled.
• Do you want to be known for what do you want to be known for, then that needs to be, and whether you like it or not, if you don't have a presence, then people are just going to develop for you.
• Influencers, whatever it is, opportunities are so much easier to achieve. If we go up too often, we think that opportunities are so far out there.
• We don't realize how easy things are to get if you can just figure out who are the influential forces. The things that we can achieve and the big brands or the big like pie in the sky ideas are so achievable if we just go after them.

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