Influential Executive Lesson #5: How to Identify Your Audience

Josh Steimle
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

You’ve now read the previous lessons on how to become an influential executive. You know what your motivation is, your “why,” and you’ve finessed the message you want to share.

Lesson #5: How to Identify Your Audience

It should go without saying why this step is critical, but I’ll say it anyway — it’s critical because if you don’t know who you’re selling your message to, you won’t sell anything.

Ever heard of Ryan Holiday? He’s assisted in the writing and marketing of several best selling books, and has written and marketed several of his own, the most recent being Perennial Seller (a must read for any author or content creator). Ryan also runs a consulting firm called Brass Check to help authors. About his successful clients he says:

“They knew exactly who they were doing it for and where those people were located.” — Ryan Holiday

Just because you have an important message and have put it into an awesome book, video, blog post, or podcast, doesn’t mean anyone will care. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come. And even if you can get people to check out your message because you’ve got it in the Wall Street Journal or Forbes doesn’t mean they’ll like it. The best Thai food in the world will be rejected by someone who hates Thai food. Great content + the right audience = influence, but too many people create the content and only after it’s done start thinking about building an audience. Instead, do what Brian Clark of Copyblogger recommends:

“Build an audience and sell them stuff.” — Brian Clark

Here’s the easiest way I know how to do this — just ask yourself these three questions:

  • Who has the motivation?
  • Who has the money?
  • Who will truly benefit?

Your audience must match all three criteria, otherwise any success you enjoy will be short-lived.

For example, I help people increase their influence. But I don’t just focus on “people,” I focus on executives. Why? Because executives have a lot of motivation. Check out this Forbes/LinkedIn study on the top 50 most influential CMOs of 2017. How many CMOs have read this report and are now saying “Wow, I need to get on this list alongside these super successful CMOs.”

Executives also have money, or at least they’re more likely to have money than the average person.

And finally, executives can truly benefit from increasing their influence. As the Forbes CMO study states:

Influence enables an effective CMO to win support for initiatives inside a company. Influence helps a CMO reach customers, impress shareholders, and deliver ever-stronger brand performance. Influence is how a CMO shapes the marketing conversation as a whole.

What if executives had the motivation to become influencers, as well as the money, but it didn’t really do anything for them? They might invest in it for a while, but ultimately they wouldn’t see the benefits they want and they’d quit. Your audience may have the motivation, and they might benefit, but they have no money. Unless you’re running a charity that’s entirely self-funded then this will kill your plans immediately. And of course if your audience has money and can benefit but has no inherent motivation then you’re going to struggle to get traction.

One more thing — you should have a unique ability to connect with your audience. If you are part of the group that forms your audience that’s a great connection. Or you may be an expert on your audience. I’m not a CMO, but I interviewed 30 CMOs for my book Chief Marketing Officers at Work and have written scores of articles on the role. In addition, I’ve worked in marketing for almost 20 years and have dealt with CMOs in a variety of business situations.

You can already guess what your homework is: Identify who your audience is, and tell me in the comments below.

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