So You Want To Be an Influencer?

10 Tips to Rapidly Gain Momentum as an Influencer Using the Power of Great Public Speaking

Becoming a social media influencer is one of the fastest-growing career aspirations in the modern world, and for good reason. Who wouldn’t want to get paid hundreds, or even thousands of dollars for a single post on social media?

The problem is, many aspiring influencers seem to forget one key thing. If you want to be an influencer, you need to be truly influential! People look for shortcuts like paying for fake followers, clickbaity headlines, endless content that has little to no value…the list goes on. What they don’t realize is, while those tactics can get them a lot of attention in a short time, they don’t build influence that lasts.

If you want to be an influencer, you need to be truly influential!

The way to build influence that lasts is to attract people who genuinely connect with you because of who you are and the messages you have to share with the world. The best way we know how to do this is to become a powerful communicator by mastering the art of public speaking.

It takes time to build momentum and influence with the power of public speaking, but we promise it’s worth it. The connections you can build with your followers through powerful and authentic communication are far longer lasting and of better quality than you could ever hope to build using any of the common shortcuts some people use. It’s worth investing the time to create that high-quality influence that sticks — it pays off in the long run.

To help you gain momentum and start building influence as fast as possible, we have compiled a list of our 10 best tips to gain momentum as an influencer using the power of great public speaking.

1. Speak Often

Too often we see people who wish to gain influence go through our programs and get hyped up about building their careers, only to go and give a couple of talks a year, or post a video once a month. It’s simply not enough.

One of the keys to gaining influence early in your career is to speak A LOT. Repetition is the key to mastery, and when it comes to public speaking skills and building influence, there is no substitute for actually speaking to the public.

Repetition is the key to mastery

The mistake people frequently make is waiting for the ideal speaking engagement to come up before they put themselves out there. The reality is that early on in your career followers and opportunities won’t come to you, you have to go to them. Join speaking clubs and mastermind groups, volunteer to give presentations at work, approach community organizations, do live social media videos. Find opportunities that will give you practice time, because the more practice you get, the better prepared you will be when the big opportunities show up.

2. Be Prolific

Similar to speaking often, it is important for you to be prolific. The more audiences you show up for, and the more time you spend speaking to those audiences, the more influence you will create and the better chance you have of catching the attention of people who resonate with you.

It only takes one right person hearing you say one right thing to unlock incredible opportunities beyond your wildest dreams. You never know who is listening, and you never know when you are going to say the right thing.

Being prolific and creating lots of content for many different audiences is a surefire way to grow your audience, build your influence and increase the number of opportunities that come your way.

3. Collect And Practice Stories

As an influencer, one of the things you are going to need a lot of is content. The good news is, if you have been alive for any significant amount of time, you have stories, and those stories make great content!

The trick is to get into the habit of recognizing stories from your life as inventory, documenting them and practicing telling them well.

Make sure you use a system for documenting the stories you recognize from your own life, make note of them and the topics they could relate to, and whenever you have an opportunity to practice telling them, take it. This way you will end up with a well-rehearsed repertoire of content that you can use at any time — you will ALWAYS know what to say. The added benefit of using stories from your own life is it deepens the connection between you and your audience, which naturally improves your influence.

4. Align Yourself With Other Influencers

Some look at other people doing similar things as competition — people they have to work against. But if you really want to gain traction fast, it is important to recognize other influencers as your greatest allies.

It is important to recognize other influencers as your greatest allies.

Other people can help you find speaking opportunities. They can introduce you to event organizers, recommend you for podcast interviews, encourage you when you encounter challenges, and so much more. The journey to becoming a great speaker can at times be a lonely one that many people don’t understand. Having a supportive community around you that you can engage with makes it so much easier to get through the challenging parts or building your career as an influencer.

5. Learn From Other Speakers and Influencers

Experience is the best teacher (especially if combined with a coach who can give you external feedback on your performance), but it takes time to accumulate experience and it often comes at a high price. Learning from other people’s experiences, on the other hand, comes at a much lower price while still giving you the benefit of learning quickly.

As an influencer leveraging the power of great speaking skills, it is crucial that you get in the habit of learning from other great speakers. Watch videos of TED talks, comedians, and speakers, then make note of what you like and what you don’t like that could be applied to your own content. Take workshops or training sessions offered by other influencers you admire. Seek knowledge from others who are willing to share their experiences with you; this will accelerate your progress and make you so much better than you could be on your own.

6. Create A Signature Message

Eventually you might get to a point in your career where your reputation and the recommendations from your audience are all it takes for opportunities to find you, but the reality is that before you get to that point you will probably have to do quite a bit of marketing.

The trouble is, it’s hard to market yourself as an influencer. The good news is, it’s pretty easy to market a signature talk. Develop a signature talk that you can deliver consistently and that delivers consistent results for your audience. This is a talk that you can get known for, and that you can market while you develop the reputation needed to gain influence based on your name alone.

7. Tell People What You Are Working Towards

This is one of the simplest things you can do to gain traction, yet for some reason it is one of the most commonly overlooked tactics.

Tell people you are a speaker/influencer. It happens all the time, when asked about what they do, new speakers will often list out all of their occupations and ways they work with people, but they will omit the fact that they are a speaker. What a wasted opportunity!

Professional speaking is a very uncommon career, so mentioning it is a great conversation starter.

Professional speaking is a very uncommon career, so mentioning it is a great conversation starter. It immediately makes you intriguing and gets people’s attention. Plus, you would be amazed how many people are looking for people to speak with their audiences and get excited when you mention that’s what you do.

8. Be Patient

Becoming an influencer and building great speaking skills is a marathon, not a race. Too often people start on the journey and then give up when they haven’t made it big within the first few years. The thing is, becoming influential takes time, effort and growth. Even the overnight successes that seem to spring out of nowhere usually only come after years of dedication and work.

Don’t rush the process. Put in the effort to grow as a person and develop your skills over time. Keep giving talks consistently and frequently so that you can grow your audience, develop your skills and build a reputation. With patience, dedication and time you could become one of those overnight success stories.

9. Make It About Helping Others

Many people want to be influencers because they are seeking money and fame. Those are the people who don’t make it.

The thing is, there are a lot of opportunities to get famous and make lots of money as an influencer, but they usually come as a result of providing value for your followers. If you really want to make it as an influencer, you need to recognize that it is not about you, it is about what you can do for other people. Think about how you can best serve your audience, think about how your message will improve their lives. Make it about helping other people so that you have the drive and motivation to do the work that will make it eventually pay off for you.

10. Record Yourself Speaking

There are a number of reasons to record yourself. In the early part of your career, there are few things that will benefit you as much as recording every talk you ever do.

First off, you need to be able to review your performance. Professional athletes review their game footage, world-class actors watch their own films… To be at the top of your game in any field, you need to be able to see what you did well and what you need to improve. You can’t do this if you don’t record and review yourself speaking.

Secondly, you need videos to post that prove you’re a good speaker who is worth listening to. Having videos you can post on social media that showcase your skills is crucial to building up a career as an influencer.

The early years of any influencer’s career can be confusing and frustrating. However, by following these 10 tips and consistently improving yourself, you will greatly increase your chances of success. Being an influential person is a wonderful and rewarding addition to anyone’s life.

Great speakers are able to create the most powerful form of influence we have ever found; we call it “The Stage Effect.”

The Stage Effect is the attraction people feel for you when you deliver a great presentation for a big audience. You create that effect every time you step on stage, and learning how to leverage it will open up opportunities in both your personal and professional life.

If you want to learn more about how to leverage The Stage Effect as you build your influencer career click here to download our free guide.