The Secret Revealed: How To Breakout As An Influencer

Thomas Maremaa
Aug 23, 2017 · 5 min read

Instagram and Twitter, and now even LinkedIn, have empowered millions of “guru’s,” “20 year old investors,” “Lifestyle Entrepreneurs,” “Serial Entrepreneurs,” “industry revolutionaries,” “Life Coaches,” and many more über-prolific humans.

They’ve made millions selling their ebooks, 60 Day Courses, “one simple hack,” and other quick-fix products.

But, that’s not the worst part… they’ve encouraged thousands to follow the trend and join as “industry influencers”, that slowly fizzle out once they run out of content to copy off the internet.

In such an overcrowded market where everyone just adds a title to a profile bio, how do you actually break through the noise, stand out, and ultimately succeed?

How to Succeed In Your Niche Space

To become a successful industry thought leader in today’s overcrowded space, you have to actually practice what you preach.

Do you want people to read your content, listen to your podcasts and look at you as a thought leader? Show your results, with real life examples. Make your success transparent and tell a valuable story; don’t just amass a large following and coat-tailers and call yourself a success.

There is a famous quote:

“99% practice, 1% theory” — Patahbi Jois

While I am not an avid yogi, I love the idea of practice winning over theory. I can also relate this sentiment to the current state of social media marketing.

Those who actually succeed in the long term as industry influencers are doing exactly that: they are giving away their playbooks and strategies that they actually use and practice religiously on a day-to-day basis.

One of the seven habits of highly successful people, is begin with the end in mind. Where do you want to go professionally, and what do you want to be known for? Have the vision in mind, and take steps to make that vision a reality. Want to be a “business guru”? Then actually start a business, and grow it out. Document that you met your KPIs. Don’t simply say that your ebook is your business, and call the downloads success. Did you provide actual value? To talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.

Let’s look at some real life examples of people doing this:

1. David Rock (Drock):

is a film director for Gary Vaynerchuck. He follows around one of the hardest working individuals out there. Drock’s job is 24/7/365. While he’s not filming, he is editing.

Aspiring film maker?

Follow Drock on Twitter or Instagram, he’ll get back to you with a simple message: Hustle. And this is relatable to any type of job out there.

Take your chances…

How do you know if it’ll pay off? David got in touch with the prolific entrepreneur a few years back and told him he’d do some videos for him, for free. Turns out, that free work has paid big returns, amassing 50k + followers on the ‘gram and 20k on Twitter, a cult following asking him about filming, editing and getting to where he is.

“Start Now” — David Rock

2. Jason Calacanis:

Investor in 150 Startups, and most famously known for his first round investments in Uber and Thumbtack.

If you go out and buy his book, Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups — Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000, you’ll learn priceless investment lessons that he actually uses on a day-to-day basis.

When it comes to investors, he is the go-to man. Why? Simple. He gives out tactics, ones that have truly positioned him as one of the greatest angel investors of all time.

One of the many lessons in Angel is to stand by investments and founders no matter what.

Well, that’s easy to say right? What about when the company is taking a lot of heat and the backlash could hurt you?

“You can’t be ever embarrassed about hustling.” — Jason Calacanis

Even when Uber is going through a bad phase

3. Gary Vaynerchuk:

Entrepreneur, CEO of Vaynermedia; Investor in: Uber, Venmo, Twitter, Snapchat & more.

He’s also the author of: Crush It!, The Thank You Economy, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and #AskGaryVee. Each one of those books is a play-by-play of how Gary took a liquor store from a $3 million business in 2000 to a $60 million business in 2005. Other books focus on how Vaynermedia is doing over $100 million a year and how he is killing it in the social media space, with over 2 million followers on Instagram, 1.5 million followers on Twitter, and close to 800K YouTube subscribers. The key takeaway from his books, keynote speeches, videos, blog posts, podcasts, etc. is:

“Work Your Face Off” — Gary Vaynerchuk

When you are a successful entrepreneur, it’s fairly easy to give that advice. Yeah, it’s just simple hard work. It’s another thing completely to back it all up and decide to vlog everyday of your life. He shows the world that he does exactly what he tells others to do. And this why he can give it away, because 99% of the population is not willing to go the extra miles.

Get it up to 14:02

“You didn’t think it was true. You didn’t think it was true, that they were 15–16 hours a day. You thought they were hyperbolized and they were actually 8 or 9.”

Conclusion:

Before you decide to dedicate time and money to your personal brand, ask yourself the question:

Do I practice what I preach?

It seems hard to rise above the overcrowded social media space of faux “success stories” and questionable influencers. There are two ways to genuinely find your success:

  1. Act authentic and tell real stories.

To become a long term success in whatever industry you’re in, you need to provide sustainable, unique value. That’s the only way. There is only so much content out there you can repurpose into your own words.

You don’t even know if it works!

Don’t sell things that people will not gain any value from; they’ll only tell the world that your 60 Day miracle program didn’t make them “X” amount of dollars, like you promised.

You’re sacrificing long term wealth and pride for short term riches and temporary fame and glory.

Practice what you preach. And that practice is years of having your head down and working to evolve into what you truly want to become.

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Thomas Maremaa

Written by

Curious, driven and a doer. I’m into marketing, start-ups & entrepreneurship |Growth Lead @ROSSIntel | Previously Growth @Tradecraft |

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