The Business of Authority

Exploring the commitment to excellence, defining specialized positioning for success, embracing a worthy journey, advantages of being number one in different industries, importance of specialization for success in physical fields, and embracing big ideas and strategic pursuits

If you don't give yourself a break, who will?Talking PointsSetting boundariesExamples of small, medium, and large breaksIdentifying your "anchor habits/tasks"Reusing content to give yourself a breakHow our phones make taking a break difficultQuotable Quotes“I’m not a big fan of vacations.”—JS“We need a break from sitting on our butts using our brains.”—RM“Boredom is basically gone.”—JS“Both the mind and the body need breaks.”—RM“I’m not anti technology. I’m pro breaks.”—RM“It’s about exercising a different mental muscle, or emotional muscle, or muscle muscle.”—JS“If you don’t know what to do to recharge your batteries, experiment.”—RM“You have to give yourself breaks, because nobody is going to do it for you.”—RM“If you don’t do it, who’s going to?”—RMRelated LinksThree Month Vacation by Sean D’SouzaAnchor Tasks by James ClearInbox PauseSaneboxWhy You Need A Content InventoryReady Player OneWhy You Should Take A Social Media Sabbatical by Paul Jarvis

There's probably a difference between what YOU think you do and what YOUR CLIENTS think you do.Talking PointsHow to find meaningful metricsWhy your craft doesn't matter as much as you thinkQuotable Quotes“Are you taking your clients on the scenic route to nowhere?”—JS“Measure what your client values.”—RM“How can you hit a home run if you don’t know where the wall is?”—JS“There’s always something to measure. Otherwise, your clients wouldn’t know anything was wrong.”—JS“If you don’t think you can have a positive impact, you shouldn’t be proposing.”—RM“Consultants push back. Freelancers don’t.”—JS“Billing by the hour sets the expectation that you’re interchangeable.”—JSRelated LinksJonathan’s Daily List

Talking PointsYou might have a positioning problem if...your clients can't tell the difference between you and everybody else...you're not getting any word of mouth...you can't explain what you do in five words or less...you're not leading how your target audience sees you...you don't know who your target audience is...you don't know--or you don't talk about--how you transform your clientsQuotable Quotes"You want to give your clients the tools to spread the word about you" -JS"What is the change--the transformation--you create for your people? That's where you want to focus." -JS"The HOW we get clients "there" is less important than that we're focused on the same outcome." -RM"Positioning is an organized effort to differentiate yourself or your firm to influence how your target audience perceives you." -RM"A strategy is a litmus test for deciding what not to do. What's a good opportunity and a bad opportunity?" -JS"If you're in the authority business, the single most important thing you'll do is position yourself or your firm." -RMRelated LinksDo You Have A Positioning Problem?

How and why to use stories with prospective clients.Talking PointsHow to remember your war storiesThe value of sharing stories in the sales processWhere to look for story triggersHow to use your values to test your storiesCredentials vs storiesHow to prepare stories for client meetingsWhy you shouldn't memorize your stories (and when you should)##Quotables:-“If someone wanted an arrogant cowboy, that would be the perfect story to tell.”—RM-“It’s going to push away people who would create a disastrous project anyway.”—JS-“Really good stories are sticky.”—JS-“Lists of credentials can help narrow the field. Your story takes you to the next level.”—RM

A strategy for getting paid well even if your audience has small pockets.Talking PointsThe power of starting with the problemBig pockets vs small pocketsExamples of paid marketing opportunitiesWhat to do before you have an audienceHow to craft a great pitchHow to create interest in a cold emailWhat to do on a pitch callQuotable Quotes“To increase the monetary value of your speaking gigs, have product available.”—JS -“It may look really simple—an e-book or a guide—but how that gets marketed, whose hands it goes into, how your name is used, matters. They’re all part of your brand.”—RM -“Ask yourself: how does this opportunity align with my message? How does it work for my people?”—RM -“If you get people to sell out, you’re in trouble”—JS -“Answer the question: what do you write about that serves their audience’s needs?”—RM -“You’ve got to do your homework or you’re a spammer. And people smell spammers a mile away” —JS -“If it makes you feel gross, you’re doing it wrong”—RMRelated LinksThe TBOA Jill Konrath episodeThe Secret of Selling AnythingThe show Jonathan hosted for Intel

How to give away expertise for free and make good money doing itTalking PointsSelling more in less time without pushingHow having a mission can help you strategicallyThe roles that writing a book can play in a businessHow to give away expertise for free and make good moneyThe importance of a good mailing listOne way to constantly be in creation modeQuotable Quotes"I didn't sit down one day and decide I wanted to be well-known."—JK"How can I help these people and not go broke?"—JK"People in the consulting business fundamentally think about sales in the wrong way."—JK"Sales is a skill. If you don't learn it, you can't create a sustainable career."—JK"Sales is not pushy. It's consultative."—JK"Your clients don't want what you have to offer. They want outcomes."—JK"I'm well aware that my books are the lifeblood of my business, but that's not why I write them."—JK"About 15 years ago, I asked myself 'How can I give my expertise away for free and make good money doing it?'"—JK"I have passed up a significant number of revenue generating opportunities."—JK"It's all about creating a conversation with someone you want to reach."—JKGuest BioAfter an award-winning sales career in the technology and services sector, Jill is now an internationally recognized speaker and sales strategist. She’s a bestselling author of four books—Selling to Big Companies, SNAP Selling, Agile Selling, and More Sales Less Time.Recently, LinkedIn named Jill as their #1 Business-to-Business Sales Expert citing her 1/3 million followers. Salesforce selected her as one of Top 7 Sales Influencers of the 21st century. Plus, she’s featured in the just-released “Story of Sales” documentary.As a consultant, Jill has worked with companies like IBM, GE, and Staples as well as many mid-market firms. Her expertise has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Inc, Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, ABC and Fox News.To sum up her career, Jill is constantly searching for fresh strategies to enable sales success n an ever-changing business environment.Related LinksJill's WebsiteJill's LinkedInSelling to Big CompaniesTranscriptJonathan S:00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Business of Authority. I'm Jonathan Stark.Rochelle M:00:04 And I'm Rochelle Moulton.Jonathan S:00:05 Today, we're joined by Jill Konrath. After an award-winning sales career in the technology and services sector, Jill is now an internationally-recognized speaker and sales strategist. She's the best-selling author of four business books, most recently More Sales, Less Time. LinkedIn has named her their number one B2B expert, and Salesforce selected her as one of the top seven sales influencers of the 21st century. As a consultant, Jill's worked with companies like IBM, GE, and Staples, as well as many mid-market firms. Her expertise has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Inc, Entrepreneur. The list goes on. We're super happy to have Jill with us today. Jill, welcome to the show.Jill K:00:46 Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.Rochelle M:00:49 Jill, I just have to comment on your big idea on your website, which kind of sums up everything Jonathan just said about you. Sales Accelerated. Yeah! Love it!Jill K:01:00 I do, too. In the niche that I'm in, it's about how do we make more sales and do it in less time. How can we make it faster? To me, it's not just faster, it's really about how do we have a better conversation that's more focused on the customer. That's what makes it faster, not just push.Rochelle M:01:21 Love it! Before we get into all this, maybe for some of the members of our audience who might be experiencing you for the first time, will you tell us a little bit more about who you are, how you work, what you do?Jill K:01:35 Who I am. I am a sales consultant. I have been in the sales field pretty much my entire career. I never wanted to be in sales. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but they told me when I brought my business plan into SCORE, Service Corps of Retired Executives, that it was a really good idea, and then they said, "How are you going to sell this?" I looked at them. I thought, "I thought you said it was a good idea." They said, "It is, Jill, but somebody has to sell it," so I said, "All right. I'll go into sales for one year. I'll learn everything there is to know and then I will get out of it." Anyway, I never left.Jill K:02:14 I found it to be fascinating and totally different than I thought it was. I assumed most salespeople were slimy, manipulative con artists like you see on TV or the movies. I found out that, in the business-to-business field, salespeople are intelligent, creative, concerned about their customers, focused on their customers, trying to help them make good business decisions that enhance the quality of their work, and it was fun. I sold directly for a few years, like eight years, and then I actually started my own company, working as a consultant and did that for a long time, specializing in a very specific area of new products.Jill K:03:01 Then, my business crashed. I got totally wiped out because my two biggest clients came under pressure from Wall Street at the same time, and it took me a few years to get going again. I had to reinvent myself, and in the new iteration, I became me that people see on my website, which is not what I was doing before.Rochelle M:03:20 One of the things that's so fascinating to me, Jill, is that it feels like from the outside looking in that you've made some interesting pivots in your career. What made you start your own business? Leaving Xerox had to be a big deal.Jill K:03:36 I actually went into technology sales after Xerox. What caused me to start my own business was really, I have an extraordinarily low boredom threshold, and I'm a really rapid learner. I would throw myself into every new sales position, quickly learn it and, as soon as I learned it, I was no longer interested in it, which is not a good career choice then if you're constantly leaving as soon as you get good at something.Jill K:04:08 What I discovered was that I had the ability from a consulting perspective to go into massively complex situations, challenging business environments, and assimilate a whole lot of information about the buyer, the product, the sales process, the marketplace. I was so good at rapid learning, I could assimilate that all quickly and put it into a structure that would help my clients be more effective faster. I became a consultant, really to satisfy my need for continual interesting and challenging projects to work on.Rochelle M:04:48 I get you. I was thinking as you started to say that, "Well, gee! That's the definition of consultant." We keep creating our new assignments.Jill K:04:58 Yes, it's all about creating your new assignment. To me, to find a niche and to go off to the niche and to build it out and to get good at it and then to continually have new projects feeding me all the time, it was like, oh, I was in heaven as a consultant!Rochelle M:05:14 That sounds familiar. There's a description you have on your website, and I'm not sure why I hadn't seen it before, where you descri...

Exploring leadership beyond management, changing societal norms toward a better future amidst AI, outsourcing, and employee fatigue. Redefining work as art, finding intrinsic value, and addressing imposter syndrome and false proxies. Emphasizing setting boundaries, saying no, and prioritizing goals for improved work quality and peace of mind.

You’ve probably got at least a half-dozen bios (or maybe wish that’s ALL you had): your website ABOUT page, article bios/bylines, industry association profiles, speaking bio, media bio, LinkedIn profile, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, even your email signature…What constitutes a truly kick-ass bio? How far should you go in adding personality and sizzle to yours? And the big question: first person or third?This week we dig down into what makes your bio(s) compelling and irresistible to the right audience.Talking PointsWhat types of bios do I need?How personal should my bio be?What is the difference between a press page and an about page?Should my bio be written in the first person or third?What should my social media bios include?How can I experiment with different versions of my bio?LinksYour Bio Needs A Makeover If...When Your Bio Needs A MakeoverQuotable Quotes"Write your bio like you talk.” JS"When you talk in the first person, you have to own every single thing you say."—RM"First person is not only good because it helps you relate to people more quickly, but it also forces you to be authentic."—RM"You can’t beat on your chest saying how wonderful you are, you have to lead them to it with breadcrumbs."—RM"You can experiment with email signatures easily—you can change it depending on who you’re sending it to and no one else can really see it."—JS"Another great place to experiment is an in-person networking event where you can just tweak the language to see what clicks with people."—JS"Your bio is the connective tissue to your audience.” RM"Getting your headline really punchy is worth putting some effort into.” JS

What does it take to become a true thought leader?On this week's episode, we separate building thought leadership from building authority and show you how to decide if becoming a thought leader is the right direction for you.