How to Make an Impact: Part 1
Experts, activists, business leaders, entrepreneurs, anyone who wants to change the world, needs to do the same thing: gather passionate allies around an idea.
I consider this when I do what I do every day. When I connect with people who have important knowledge and ideas to share with the world and work with them to get their books started, finished, or published it’s in the back of my mind.
What do we talk about when we talk about books?
For most authors, it’s the same stuff. We talk about sales, we talk about readers and media outlets and how to reach them. We talk about research and concepts and frameworks.
What we’re really talking about is how to drive forward an influential idea. They want lots of sales. They want the glowing reviews—as many as they can get—but I’ve almost never worked with an author who only wants to preen. They want all of that because more sales, more reviews, more readers, are all a proxy for impact.
So the question becomes clear: how do you create the conditions to have the greatest possible impact?
Believe it or not, there’s a book about just this! (And because I see this as being the underlying motivation for so many authors, I read it). Daniel Priestley, an Australian now living in London, wrote Key Person of Influence: The Five-Step Method to Become One of the Most Highly Valued and Highly Paid People in Your Industry to promote a system that he used as a marketer, helping people become Influencers before we had a trendy word for what they were.
Put simply, he describes that if you want to become a magnet for allies and the opportunities they bring, you first need to have a clear and compelling idea. Then you have to create content around your idea.
Sure, it could be a YouTube channel or a podcast or a series of articles, but the most important thing you can do—the one that will have the biggest payoff and longest-lasting impact—is to write a book. Don’t just take my word for it. This is straight from an honest-to-god millionaire marketing expert. We know it works because he’s done it so many times.
The second pillar in Priestley’s well-proven method is “publish.” Specifically, there’s nearly a whole chapter of his book dedicated to writing books.
After reading Key Person of Influence, I would recommend it to any of my authors. It’s a little over-enthusiastic at times, but as an enthusiastic guy myself I can overlook that (happily!).
What it offers in between its brief cheerleading interludes is a succinct and clear guide to the steps he used for years as he helped people become influencers in their industry. That last part is important, and is part of what makes his method workable. He never claims he’ll turn you into a celebrity, just that within your niche you can use his process to become more influential. For each step he gives practical tips and ideas.
Read it, but read between the lines, too. You’ll have to do a lot more work than you might realize if you get caught up in the author’s excitement. It’s not dumbed down to a Steve Martin get-rich quick scheme (“first, get a million dollars”) but there are plenty of opportunities to think “maybe that’s not as easy as he makes it sound.”
The takeaway is that building your influence will allow you to have more of the impact you dream of, and there are proven ways to do it. I’m biased, of course, but I couldn’t agree more when Priestley writes that one of the most important things you can do to achieve all that is to write a book.
I’ll dig into this some more in How to Make an Impact: Part 2
In the meantime, you can check out Key Person of Influence for yourself (if you purchase with this link, I will get an affiliate commission from Amazon). https://amzn.to/3Y2Dg4N
If you’re thinking about writing a book, it might spur you to start. If your book is already published, it might give you some ideas about how to use your book as the lever to open bigger doors. For more from Priestley, check out his interview with Ali Abdaal here (yes, in spite of the title, it’s a good interview) How Anyone Can Develop The Mindset Of A Multi-Million Dollar Entrepreneur - Daniel Priestley
Thanks for reading. If you’ve made it this far, let me know! Better yet, let someone else know!