Consistent, Frequent, and Passionate

Hey everybody! Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute. This week, yet again, I am coming to you from my home. Now, if you've been watching these videos during the lockdown, I suspect somewhere along the way, you had the thought of, "That man is running out of places in his house to shoot videos, and if he doesn't get on a plane soon, we're going to see his bathroom." Well, today's the day. But I chose this bathroom, my guest bathroom, for a very particular reason. If you know me at all, even if we've never met, even if you've just listened to the podcast, or we've interacted by email, you know that I love Disney. I love Walt Disney, the man, the man who refused to take no for an answer when bank after bank said Disneyland was a bad idea. I love Disney World. In particular, I love all of the parks all over the world, but particularly Disney World. And I talk about it all the time. So, the reason I picked this bathroom is because this bathroom represents, in an odd way, something I'm an authority about. I am an authority about Disney, and in particular, Disney World. Been there every year since it opened in 1971. I help people plan vacations. But the way you all have decided that I'm an authority on Disney, is because I talk about it very consistently. I talk about it very frequently, and I talk about it with great passion. Those are some of the elements that tell us that someone is an authority. So, hopefully, many of you know, that Stephen Woessner and I wrote a book earlier in 2020, called "Sell with Authority." And that's the authority we're talking about. Selling from a position of authority or subject matter expertise, when you have demonstrated over and over that you know more about a subject than someone else, is a really powerful way to shorten the sales cycle, and to increase your prices, and to provide even more value to your prospects and your customers. And the way that works is you begin to establish yourself as an expert, just like I've done around Disney. Now, I'm asking you, and the book is asking you to do that on purpose for your agency, to define where you have authority, and to begin to create proof points that give you credibility in that authority. On the Disney front, that was by accident. That's just because I actually do have such a passion for the topic that I can't help but talk about it. But in terms of your business, you absolutely can purposefully establish a position of expertise. And one of the elements of that is, how often do you talk about it? So, frequency. How consistently do you talk about it? Like, of the 10 conversations you had today, how many of them were about your subject matter expertise? And do you demonstrate a passion around it? We're going to dig deeper into this topic in future videos. So, I'll be back next week. Hopefully in a new room, and I'll see you then. Thanks.