How to establish yourself as an authority in your niche

People often ask me what they need to do to establish themselves as an authority in their fields. Ultimately, it's what we all want, right? To be seen. To be visible. To be valued for the work that we do.

When I relaunched my business online, after having built a very locally-based business in Venezuela, I had to figure out a way to establish myself as an authority in brand strategy and web design.

But, how do you do that? With so much competition, so many people out there trying to get their voices heard, so many people claiming they are the new "guru" or expert in town. So today, I want to give you the step-by-step process to how to establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

I created this absolutely amazing guide and workbook with 10 specific ways you can effectively position yourself as an authority in your field. You can download it right here (it's one of the best guides I have ever created!)

This might seem like absolutely obvious, but trust me, it's not. If you want to establish yourself as a real authority in your niche, you have to first ACTUALLY become that authority. 

When I took my business online, I knew that my years of experience and knowledge wasn't enough. I knew that if I wanted to become the go-to source for brand strategy, I needed to make sure I knew everything there was to know about branding out there. 

I went out of my way to become an expert. I did an MBA, I took about 15 online courses, did around 5 coaching programs and read over 50 books about everything from branding, entrepreneurship, marketing, online business, mindset and personal development. I did this with the sole intention of making sure I knew everything I possibly could to be the best at what I do. Of course, these were all lessons that served my own business pretty well, but with every single new piece of knowledge I went on to apply to my clients to make sure they were getting the benefits from all of those things as well. 

My point with this is, if you want to be seen as an authority in your niche, it's not enough to have experience and some basic knowledge, but you need to ensure you have as much information as possible in order to become that expert. You want to make sure you are learning as much as possible so that you can bring all of that incredible value to every single one of your clients. 

This process? It's never ending. What I mean by this is that you have to always continue researching and learning to be at the top of your game. Study and prepare yourself as much as you can and give that value immediately to your clients.

Another thing that is important for this is identifying the skills you need to develop in order to achieve "expert status." What do I mean by this? Well, if you want to be an expert that is, for example, speaking in conferences around the world, it's likely that you would need to become a great speaker. So, start taking public speaking classes, or start practicing this by doing Facebook Live videos.

Maybe you don't want to be a speaker, but rather a writer. Well, then start developing the skills that will enable you to become a better writer. Start by creating a blog so that you can begin practicing those skills. 

Make sense? So it's highly important that you think about the skills you will need to develop in the short and long term in order to become that expert or to achieve your goals. And then, start learning them! 

You want to make sure you are putting out content that establishes you as an authority. Every piece of content you create around your business has to be able to position you as an expert.

In my case, I am creating content pretty much daily that does this work for me. I write weekly blog posts (hello!) about branding, strategy, marketing and entrepreneurship. I send weekly emails to my list, I share posts on Facebook and Instagram, I do live videos about 3 times a week. In all of that content, including this article you are reading, I'm giving you as much value as I possibly can, while at the same time, I'm letting you know that I'm the person to go to whenever you need to know more about branding. 

This might seem very obvious, but I have found it's so common for people to hold back from sharing their knowledge. It's like they keep it all bottled up, and expect the world to simply know that they are an expert. It's extremely important that you make sure everyone knows what it is that you know! 

One of my clients, Maria Alejandra, has done a really good job with that! She keeps an up-to-date blog about leadership in human resources. She's constantly putting herself out there, and showing up as a leader in her field. It's because of this that she has had so much success in such a short time. She emailed me a few weeks ago, excited because only 6 months after launching her business, she had already landed her 20th client. The reason for this is the quality and value in her content while positioning herself as that expert from the beginning. 

You can't be hidden and have all of these courses, certifications and knowledge, and simply expect people to know you are that expert. That's not how it works! 

If you want to be seen as an authority, you want to make sure you are highly visible. You have to put yourself out there as much as your possibly can. It's not enough to only create one piece of content and then think that will be enough, but you have to consistently create that content and show it to the world as well.

In my case, I spend my Fridays writing these blog posts which I then repurpose into social media posts. I take this same blog post and then I turn it into a shorter version for my emails, I create videos from them as well. 

I would suggest that you build a marketing strategy that aligns with you and that works for you as much as possible. You want to make sure that whatever strategy you do, it's something you love doing and you will easily be consistent at.

Visibility is about finding what works for you. Whether it's blogging, podcasts, interviews, guest posting, webinars or whatever specific strategy you want to use, make sure it's something that actually works for you. A lot of times I see people get distracted by "shiny object syndrome" aka, trying to do everything out there. The truth is, I would suggest sticking to a couple of places or strategies which you are really good at, and staying there. That's not to say that you shouldn't try other things, but you can start rolling them out as you master a couple of them first. Another way to do this is by actually hiring someone to take care of the other strategies for you as well.

In my case, my main marketing platform is Facebook, but I know that Pinterest is really an incredible source of traffic for me as well. Because I want to make sure my time and effort are in the right place, I hired someone that is building out my complete Pinterest strategy for me. So, look for the marketing and visibility strategy that will work for you the most and become a ninja at it. 

Here's the thing, there's no way you can be successful and establish yourself as an authority without being consistent with all of these things. 

In the free guide I created for you, I give you specific marketing tips to increase your visibility! Make sure you download it right here:

What happens a lot is that people are doing these incredible things, creating pretty amazing content, but then you go visit their website or dig in deeper to look at their brand, and they immediately lose credibility because it looks extremely amateur.

This might be okay if you are just starting out (and I can definitely say, that there a lot of reason why you shouldn't devaluate your brand just because you are just launching your business), but if you want yourself an authority, and not simply be one more business, you need to build your brand.

If you want to be an authority, top-earner, high performer, making it big and highly visible, having leads coming in every single day, charging premium pricing and living this incredible life, you need to make sure you are establishing that credibility everywhere. There's no way around this. If you want to build your credibility you have to build a premium brand as well.

If you go to Marie Forleo or Gary Vee's websites, you don't see some random DIY template they built cheaply on SquareSpace, right? Of course not. The reason why it's not, is that these people are authorities.

So, if you want to establish yourself as that as well, you better build a brand that does the job for you. I could go in here and show you dozens of examples from clients that will visually make this clear for you.

Brian from Date Rehab was trying to make this happen for himself as well. Building a coaching business on a simple template that didn't make him look like a credible source wasn't going to help him in the process. So we worked together to make sure his brand reflected him as a credible source as well. Can you see how much more trustworthy his brand looks like now versus before?

You can take the slow route and do a simple landing page and not work on your branding if you want and sure, it will work. You will be able to establish yourself as an authority...but it might take a decade to get there! Whereas if you start showing up to the world as that authority, it's a whole different story!

And of course, when I talk about building your brand, I don't only mean in the design aspect, I mean having total clarity about your core message, about your audience and being capable of effectively communicate with them as well.

I talk about this extensively while also giving you the tools and steps to building a 6-figure online business and brand that attracts right here. 

The final tip for becoming an authority in your niche is to connect with other industry greats and offering them your support! 

This is something I'm doing right now, but I feel it's a very smart way to really get out there and connect with people on a different level. What you want to do is offer your service or expertise to people that have the same audience as you have, but aren't a direct competition.

So, start connecting with some of these people first and get on their radar. Comment on their posts, sharing their articles and simply being the "start student." If you took their course, share your results with them. If you downloaded one of their freebies, message them saying thanks! Once you are on their radar, reach out and ask them if they ever need an expert in your field, you would be happy to support them!

I only began applying this for myself about a month ago. Because of it, I spoke at a mastermind about branding and it then landed me 2 amazing clients. On top of this, I have been asked to become the expert brand strategist in the masterminds of 2 pretty big coaches (Jenn Scalia and Taylor Manning). 

This is so simple and smart! People that already bought from them and trust them are hearing them rave and recommend you! So, of course, you end up establishing yourself as an authority as well! These are all things that slowly start adding up. In no time, you will have people coming to you asking if they can speak to your audience as well. Pretty smart, right?

That's it! 5 simple to follow steps that will completely revolutionize your business and establish you as an authority in your field. You can also watch this video where I go over and explain these in much detail!

Remember to download the free guide with the 10 specific ways you can position yourself as an authority in your field.