Become An Influencer – Mark Harris
SUMMARY
Mark Harris, an expert on influence and affiliates, talks about influence and what it means. He also shares some valuable tips on how you can become an influencer.
People need help and guidance in different areas of their live, but they don’t have time to research possible solutions to their particular problems. They need someone they trust to lead them to the right decisions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
If you don’t get your wonderful ideas into the world where people can follow these ideas, it’s a tragedy.You become an influencer when you can take the ideas you have that can change the world and get them out into the world.
To establish yourself as an influencer, you need to have something worthy to influence people with.
Becoming an influencer is about being a trusted adviser.
True leaders realize that people need to be led.
If you want people to follow you, you must be creating results for yourself first.
Customize your message to meet the needs of people you want to influence.
TRANSCRIPTION: BECOME AN INFLUENCER – MARK HARRIS
Kamala Chambers
On this episode, we’re going to be talking about the power of influence and how to become an influencer and a leader.
Luis Congdon
Today’s guest is Mark Harris. He’s an expert on influence, JVs, and affiliates. He’s somebody who is incredible in the world of influence and JV sponsorships and a whole lot. He’s somebody who’s very well connected.
We are honored and excited to have Mark Harris on today’s show to talk about how to become an influencer.
All right, Thriving Launchers, we’re honored to be here with Mark Harris.
Mark, are you ready to launch?
Mark Harris
As always, I’m ready to go, my friend.
Luis Congdon
Mark, you and I have had several conversations. I’m honored to be in your circle of influence. You are one of the go-to guys on how to become an influencer and thought leader.
I want to ask you. What does influence mean? It’s like the word “confidence.” It’s vague to me. I have my sense of it, but I’d love to hear from you as somebody who studied the subject and utilized it to explode a thriving business.
Mark Harris
Well, I have this love-hate relationship with the word.
How To Become An Influencer According To John Maxwell
Mark Harris
What happened was in the 1990s, I was reading John Maxwell‘s books on leadership. It was interesting because I’ve had this problem with his definition of leadership which was leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.
I was like “That can’t be,” because a real leader is going to be somebody who steps out regardless of who’s following him. It just dragged me nuts for quite a while.
Become An Influencer By Taking Your Ideas Out Into The World
Mark Harris
However, in the process, I gained to love the word because I realized what he’s talking about is “If you’re only going to be useful in the world, you got to take your wonderful ideas, which can be products, services, solutions, and advice. They can change a life, a family, business, community, industry, your marketplace, or the whole world.”
If you don’t become an influence and not lead those ideas into the world and have people that follow and adapt these ideas, it’s a tragedy.
And so, I started realizing “I’ve got to become an influencer.”
Become An Influencer My Making A Difference Through Your Ideas
Kamala Chambers
I want to hear about your top recommendations to become an influencer and establish yourself as an influencer.
Become An Influencer That Has Something Worthy To Influence People With
Mark Harris
There are charlatans in the world who are good influencers and marketers who can sell you anything.
Ultimately, in my opinion, it’s got to start with a real and good idea. It’s got to start with the thinking an actual service, product, solution, advice, or whatever it may be that can change somebody’s life that is worthy of influencing them. It’s got to start with that.
Become An Influencer By Having A Real And Good Idea That Can Take People To The Next Level
Mark Harris
You got to have something that’s real that can affect somebody’s life where you can take it to the next step and help them just to make a difference in their life.
If you can’t do that, start with that first and then, go into influencing. That’s the first place to start to become an influencer.
The the second position to become an influencer is leadership. You think first, then the leadership which is thought leadership but most people don’t believe they can be a thought leader so that I won’t go there.
Become An Influencer Through Leadership
Mark Harris
But I will say this.
Everybody can practice thought leadership in the sense that they can take these ideas that they have and then, do the leadership work necessary to influence their marketplace.
Mark Harris
Nobody has the time. Nobody has 40 hours or a thousand hours to study a topic or explore a solution to a particular problem. They just want somebody who’s a go-to person and influencer, who will lead them in the right direction when it comes to that.
Become An Influencer And A Trusted Adviser
Mark Harris
It’s about being a trusted adviser. You’re going to advise and lead them, and when you do that, you’ve got to do the hard work. You got to do the communication work. You got to find out what’s going on in their minds. You got to find out the entire topic and be a world class expert in it as much as you can, and then, you are worthy to be considered an influencer.
Luis Congdon
What I like about what you’re talking about is it reminded me when I was in middle school, and I was talking to my youth pastor. He said, “Luis, you’re a leader, and we would like you to take more leadership and help guide some of the kids, and that includes some of the older kids. We would like you to give a talk.”
No One’s Too Young To Become An Influencer
Luis Congdon
My response was, “But I am young. I don’t know if I’m ready to be a leader. I don’t have that experience yet.” He told me a verse that has always stuck with me that says “You’re never too young to lead.”
When I’m around kids, I’m amazed at how children influence me. I’m influenced by all sorts of people from all different ages, all walks of life.
Reflecting on what you’re talking about as well, reminds me of a talk done by John Maxwell who is considered one of the world leaders on leadership and a great guy.
Become An Influencer By Creating Results For Yourself First
Luis Congdon
He was giving this talk, and he said, “If you want to be a great leader and have people follow you, you must first be the kind of person that people want to support.”
What does that mean?
Well, if you want people to follow you, you must be the kind of person that is creating results for yourself first.
It’s Never Too Late Or Early To Become An Influencer
Luis Congdon
How can you expect that other people will trust and follow you if you are not being the kind of person who is getting results? But if you go and get certain kind of results in your life, people will naturally want to follow you, and it’s never too late or too early to get started in that process. And you’re never too young to be somebody that can lead because you always have something to offer.
Mark Harris
I have 12 children as you may remember but the reality is that we homeschool them. One of the reasons is that two of the biggest things in life are thinking and leadership. I realized that most of the schools do not teach thinking and leadership, at least, not the proper kind.
Learn The Proper Kind Of Thinking And Leadership To Become An Influencer
Mark Harris
And so, I’ve made it a big job to do that with my children, and I think every father and mother need to do that with theirs, to teach that because you’re right. They can make such a biggest difference.
I’ll give you a quick story.
My mom was a chain smoker like there was no tomorrow. Every one of her sisters died of cancer.
What happened was she came to our house in Virginia one day. She was visiting, and she’s out on the porch because she didn’t smoke in the house.
My little daughter Morielle, who is now 20, at that time, she was 8 or something. She was out there looking at her grandmother, and she starts crying. My mom goes, “What are you doing? Why are crying, sweetie?” She goes, “I don’t want you to die.” She goes, “What do you mean? I’m not going to die.” She goes, “Well, don’t people who smoke die?” She goes, “Well, yeah.” She goes, “Well, you’re smoking.”
A Child Can Become An influencer
Mark Harris
We tried for a decade to get her get to stop to smoke but that’s what got my mom to quit smoking, and she has not picked up another cigarette since.
What children can do is amazing. The thinking and leadership that they can take are brilliant. I appreciate you bring that up.
We all got to start, and we should start immediately, so it’s awesome.
Kamala Chambers
Well, I want to talk about if you already have some influence out there in the world, what would you say taking it to the next level? What is something you see a lot of influencers missing to grow their influence?
Have Quality Relationship To Become An Influencer
Mark Harris
One of the biggest is I’ve seen almost a foregone conclusion because, by influence, you typically think numbers. That’s what people think “I’ve influenced a million people.” “I got six million followers.” “I got 30,000 people on my email list.”
A lot of people think it’s about quantity first. In reality, it is quality first.
And so, I much rather have a quality relationship with a media outlet, for example, or somebody who’s got a million person list than I would have a quantity of those people.
To Become An influencer, Have Quality Because It Will You Take You To The Quantity
Mark Harris
If I had one or the other, I would take quality every day, because eventually, I’ll get to the quantity anyway.
The reality is that when you have a great relationship with the people who can share your influence as an example and you’ve taken that seriously, and you said, “Okay. If I want them to share my message about what I’m brilliant at or my idea that can change the world,” you got to do the work necessary.
Become An Influencer With A Co-Influencer
Mark Harris
You got to do the work not only to articulate it for the marketplace to be the leader, to be the communicator, to do all the hard work of being able to convince them about the idea effectively. But you also then, when you have a “co-influencer” like a media outlet or somebody who can get your message out in the world, you got to do the work to customize that message to the audience they’re serving.
So many people will just throw out the same press release or email or anything else to a list of people, potential partners and say, “Hey, will you promote me?”
How To Become An Influencer And Get Most Traction
Mark Harris
The quality relationship and communication is what gets the most traction.
It gets the deepest third party endorsements from these people. It gets the most interaction and engagement with those audiences where you’ll get ten times the value than you would if you had somebody send an email out to you or something.
Take The Quality Of Communication To The Highest Level To Become An Influencer
Mark Harris
It’s about the whole idea of taking the quality of communication to the highest level, and in multiple dimensions, which means not only in general but also with anybody who you’re influencing.
Luis Congdon
Mark, we’re totally on the same page, and here at Thriving Launch, as a podcast coach and somebody who’s worked with thousands of podcasters, you are spot on.
Kamala, you’re asking me about influence. I want to add my tidbit here.
Something a lot of people miss, and it’ something I harp on consistently is people talk about their podcast, and they go, “Well, my show’s not very big. I’m doing 10 – 50 downloads a day. It’s not very big.”
What People Miss On How To Become An Influencer
Luis Congdon
One of the things I say to people is, “That’s 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 people that you’re impacting every day. That’s a lot.” And they go, “Well, there’s this other guy who’s doing like thousands every day, and that just seems impossible.”
I say, “With our show, anywhere between 10 to 50 downloads a day, we were creating a six-figure business just from that. It’s because we were focused on the quality of the content, the quality of the connections we’re making through the show, the quality of the relationships and the interviews we were doing. We were building a business not on numbers, but on quality and that is paid over and over and over.”
That’s something a lot of people miss. They think about quantity, and they forget it is quality over quantity.
Mark Harris
Yeah, and that’s my big proponent of the golden rule.
Make Your Message Resonate With The Person Listening To Become An Influencer
Mark Harris
If you were in the audience, what kind of great, awesome message would you give to yourself? And what would you do to make that message resonate with that person who’s listening? It’s like they were your mother or yourself.
Look, I want you to understand about this idea or this concept or even about a product or service, or even a solution, or any advice in any kind.
In other words, getting it through to them and what would do in enthusiasm? What would you do in packaging the message so they could get it and adopt it, and take to the next level? That’s the hard work.
You got to be faithful in little than you could be faithful to much. You start with these small people. Those people will become fans, and then rave fans, and some will become evangelists for you, and it’ll start growing and growing.
Take Small Steps To Become An Influencer
Mark Harris
You don’t want 20,000 on day one. Get your 10,000 hours in even if it’s 10 hours that you need to get in first. Get the little bit in first, and then you can go to the next level. I love what you just said. That’s awesome.
Kamala Chambers
Before we wrap up today, are there any last gems or thoughts you want to leave the Thriving Launchers with? Something they could go out and apply right away?
Mark Harris
When it comes to influence, there’s a lot of different ways of doing things.
I created a thing called Influencer Blueprints. You can go to influencerblueprints.com and check it out. The bottom line is there are so many different ways of getting influence.
Become An Influencer By Finding The Right People
Mark Harris
First of all, you got to find the right people. You got to know who is it you want to influence.
Then you have to say, “What am I bringing in in the world? What does that market need? What does that niche need? What is the competition? Are they already being served well by somebody else? Or can I take a segment of that, maybe something that’s a worldwide trend that nobody’s taken yet, and bring that to the world with them and focus on something that’s going to be their future that they don’t even know about yet.
Be the leader, the pioneer, and the explorers that go into unchartered territories so that they don’t have to. When we do that kind of stuff, then we become the true leaders in the world, and they will follow you because they respect you. They see who you’re associating with.
Become An Influencer By Associating With Leaders
Mark Harris
Like the way you teach about that podcasting where one of the biggest things about leadership is who you associated with.
If you’re associating with leaders, then all of a sudden, people see you as a leader and a leader among leaders.
It’s about taking that leadership position and going there so people can have somebody and an advisor to trust.
There are hundreds of things in our lives that we need help and guidance on. The truth of the matter is that nobody can do the amount of research, study, proving and dealing with the knowledge wars that are going on almost every niche about “They say this and that.” They’re all over the place with different approaches and concepts.
Become An Influencer That People Trust To Lead Them
Mark Harris
People need somebody who will be that leader and trusted advisor to guide them in the right decision-making process.
That’s what we do for our clients. We lead them to the white blueprint for influence or thought leadership or whatever it may be. That’s what it’s all about.
It’s about picking the right thing, the right strategy, doing it well, and being of true service to their world, or at least their niche and their market. That’s what I would say to everybody.
Luis Congdon
There you have it, Thriving Launchers. We’ve been talking about influence. It’s a very incredible subject matter. It’s a topic that we’ve dove into repeatedly on Thriving Launch for a reason. You can check out Oz Pearlman and Jack Schafer. There’s a variety of different people we’ve had on the podcast from FBI agent to body communication linguist to Oz Pearlman who’s more of mind reader all talking about influence. And Mark Harris, we’ve had him today.
Remember That You Can Become An Influencer
Luis Congdon
One of the key takeaways I’ve had is that people need to be led, people are looking for leaders, and often, something I do quite often in my life is I forget that I’m a leader or I remember that by leading myself, I’m also influencing others to follow me.
So, by being a leader, you are also allowing other people to follow you, and it’s an incredible honor, and it’s something that can be given to you if you will just take the role.
There you have it, Thriving Launchers. I hope you’ve got some excellent takeaway from Mark Harris. He’s an incredible resource of knowledge.
Keep thriving you all.
